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This is why I think all the "meatbags" and "hardware running on software" analogies are actually really primitive and silly, even though I know some find them f

This is why I think all the "meatbags" and "hardware running on software" analogies are actually really primitive and silly, even though I know some find them funny. If we reduce ourselves to a bunch of "computers" there's not much left for the stuff that actually matters, like the actual awesomeness that is having a body, which is highly sensitive and able to experience amazing things.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
> If we reduce ourselves to a bunch of "computers" there's not much left for the stuff that actually matters, like the actual awesomeness that is having a body, which is highly sensitive and able to experience amazing things. This does not follow, except for stripping away the religious/spiritual part. Computers are amazing! So is hardware! And so is the dance of software and hardware that makes magic happen. I've seen nothing so far in this whole thread that would convince me I should stop thinking about my body as the meatsack carrying my brain, as every argument I've read so far triggered my "religious/spiritual mumbo jumbo" detector quite hard. This is not to say the body isn't an important and tightly integrated part of the experience. But the fact remains that a hand or a heart or a lung can be removed or replaced without loss of self. A brain can't.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > If your brain is meat, which is squishy, how can it be hardware? This isn't what those terms mean, but nice try :). A better argument could be built around malleability of the brain. > Isn't your brain just software too then? Isn't it all software running on software? Yes and no. "Hardware" and "software" aren't fundamental. Think about ASICs vs. FPGAs vs. emulation. Which parts are "hard" and which are "soft" and which are something in between, is a matter of convenience/economics. Fundamentally, it's all compute though.
    - ChatGTP 3y ago
      [flagged]
- antonvs 3y ago
  > every argument I've read so far triggered my "religious/spiritual mumbo jumbo" detector quite hard. Agreed. Sounds like a number of people have found a spiritual way to look at this, which seems a bit like a kind of quasi-religion, similar to the mystical aspects of Zen or yoga.
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    Are you the spirituality police? You seem worried people have found a deeper connection to their bodies and then, for some reason label it as “spiritual” or “mumbo jumbo” and go on trying to diminish their experience, why ? Personally, the more I see of this anti-spiritual enforcement, the more I see intellectualism and science becoming the dogmatic religion of the Catholic Church when it was illegal to have unorthodox ideas. Interestingly, true mystics and fee thinkers have always been attacked. If people like to think their more than just their brains, and instinctively they feel this is accurate, what’s it to you ? Why go on the internet and try tell people otherwise. It’s their business and if others want to share that view well that’s none of your concern. It’s also ok to debate the point sure, just be respectful? None of these posters are hurting anyone by discussing their ideas or feelings?
    - antonvs 3y ago
      I'm not enforcing or policing anything, or worried about anything, how did you get that from my comment? Please read it again. > "It’s also ok to debate the point sure, just be respectful?" Could you please explain where, in my previous comment, I wasn't being respectful? I was simply observing that the way people often talk about these ideas, including in this thread, resembles spirituality and religion. Which is true. > "Why go on the internet and try tell people otherwise." This subthread started with you saying "This is why I think all the 'meatbags' and 'hardware running on software;' analogies are actually really primitive and silly." So, in your own words, "if people like to think [that,] what's it to you? Why go on the internet..." blah blah blah. You can dish it but not take it, apparently? You're making a much stronger attempt at policing than anything I said. Perhaps you're projecting something onto me? In any case, you seem to be having a problem with a false dichotomy. It's not as though any of us are saying our bodies don't exist, or that there's no interaction between our bodies and minds. There's lots of well-established science on that. See the last line of the comment by TeMPOraL that I originally replied to.
- antonfire 3y ago
  > But the fact remains that a hand or a heart or a lung can be removed or replaced without loss of self. A brain can't. Here's a related observation that tipped me a bit away from thinking about my body as the meatsack carrying my brain: cutting off a hand doesn't cut off the experience or sensation of having a hand. (E.g. people with missing limbs have phantom pain.) Lots of emotions are at least partly "embodied". People feel love in the chest. Fear in the stomach. Not sure about anybody else, but I feel frustration in my elbows. I strongly suspect that if my arms were removed, I would still feel frustration in my elbows. I don't think removing my physical arms would remove all the ways "having arms" is baked into my experience. Even if an external physicalist account accurately places those phenomena "in the brain" and not "in the arms", that's not really all that relevant to an internal account of someone actually having the experience. As I see it, a human's brain-from-the-inside (mind? soul?) is "body-shaped" in a lot of ways. When I hear warnings against "reducing ourselves to a bunch of 'computers", I read them as prompts to recognize this. As warnings against recognizing and engaging with *only* the parts of one's experience that can fit into an "abstract reasoner" model.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

> If we reduce ourselves to a bunch of "computers" there's not much left for the stuff that actually matters, like the actual awesomeness that is having a body, which is highly sensitive and able to experience amazing things. This does not follow, except for stripping away the religious/spiritual part. Computers are amazing! So is hardware! And so is the dance of software and hardware that makes magic happen. I've seen nothing so far in this whole thread that would convince me I should stop thinking about my body as the meatsack carrying my brain, as every argument I've read so far triggered my "religious/spiritual mumbo jumbo" detector quite hard. This is not to say the body isn't an important and tightly integrated part of the experience. But the fact remains that a hand or a heart or a lung can be removed or replaced without loss of self. A brain can't.

ChatGTP 3y ago
[flagged]
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > If your brain is meat, which is squishy, how can it be hardware? This isn't what those terms mean, but nice try :). A better argument could be built around malleability of the brain. > Isn't your brain just software too then? Isn't it all software running on software? Yes and no. "Hardware" and "software" aren't fundamental. Think about ASICs vs. FPGAs vs. emulation. Which parts are "hard" and which are "soft" and which are something in between, is a matter of convenience/economics. Fundamentally, it's all compute though.
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    [flagged]
antonvs 3y ago
> every argument I've read so far triggered my "religious/spiritual mumbo jumbo" detector quite hard. Agreed. Sounds like a number of people have found a spiritual way to look at this, which seems a bit like a kind of quasi-religion, similar to the mystical aspects of Zen or yoga.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  Are you the spirituality police? You seem worried people have found a deeper connection to their bodies and then, for some reason label it as “spiritual” or “mumbo jumbo” and go on trying to diminish their experience, why ? Personally, the more I see of this anti-spiritual enforcement, the more I see intellectualism and science becoming the dogmatic religion of the Catholic Church when it was illegal to have unorthodox ideas. Interestingly, true mystics and fee thinkers have always been attacked. If people like to think their more than just their brains, and instinctively they feel this is accurate, what’s it to you ? Why go on the internet and try tell people otherwise. It’s their business and if others want to share that view well that’s none of your concern. It’s also ok to debate the point sure, just be respectful? None of these posters are hurting anyone by discussing their ideas or feelings?
  - antonvs 3y ago
    I'm not enforcing or policing anything, or worried about anything, how did you get that from my comment? Please read it again. > "It’s also ok to debate the point sure, just be respectful?" Could you please explain where, in my previous comment, I wasn't being respectful? I was simply observing that the way people often talk about these ideas, including in this thread, resembles spirituality and religion. Which is true. > "Why go on the internet and try tell people otherwise." This subthread started with you saying "This is why I think all the 'meatbags' and 'hardware running on software;' analogies are actually really primitive and silly." So, in your own words, "if people like to think [that,] what's it to you? Why go on the internet..." blah blah blah. You can dish it but not take it, apparently? You're making a much stronger attempt at policing than anything I said. Perhaps you're projecting something onto me? In any case, you seem to be having a problem with a false dichotomy. It's not as though any of us are saying our bodies don't exist, or that there's no interaction between our bodies and minds. There's lots of well-established science on that. See the last line of the comment by TeMPOraL that I originally replied to.
antonfire 3y ago
> But the fact remains that a hand or a heart or a lung can be removed or replaced without loss of self. A brain can't. Here's a related observation that tipped me a bit away from thinking about my body as the meatsack carrying my brain: cutting off a hand doesn't cut off the experience or sensation of having a hand. (E.g. people with missing limbs have phantom pain.) Lots of emotions are at least partly "embodied". People feel love in the chest. Fear in the stomach. Not sure about anybody else, but I feel frustration in my elbows. I strongly suspect that if my arms were removed, I would still feel frustration in my elbows. I don't think removing my physical arms would remove all the ways "having arms" is baked into my experience. Even if an external physicalist account accurately places those phenomena "in the brain" and not "in the arms", that's not really all that relevant to an internal account of someone actually having the experience. As I see it, a human's brain-from-the-inside (mind? soul?) is "body-shaped" in a lot of ways. When I hear warnings against "reducing ourselves to a bunch of 'computers", I read them as prompts to recognize this. As warnings against recognizing and engaging with *only* the parts of one's experience that can fit into an "abstract reasoner" model.