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That’s misunderstanding what they’re saying. If you watch some of Michael Levin’s talks on YouTube, he specifically uses William James’ definition of intelligen

by dimal 3y ago

That’s misunderstanding what they’re saying. If you watch some of Michael Levin’s talks on YouTube, he specifically uses William James’ definition of intelligence (Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it) and has experimentally shown this capability at cellular scales. He shows how it cannot be pre-programmed behavior. There seems to be goal directed behavior.

naasking 3y ago
> (Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it) and has experimentally shown this capability at cellular scales. Supposing I accept that, what does this have to do with thought, which is the claim that I was specifically responding to? Does Levin or James also show that this can only be done by having thoughts? Edit: for instance, as opposed to having some non-thinking process like gradient descent, or more plausibly, some kind of hill climbing.
- dimal 3y ago
  I agree, it’s not ”thinking” in the way brains think, but I was just disagreeing with the assertion that it’s “just” pre-programmed. He’s shown pretty convincingly that these phenomena can not be preprogrammed. He’s put organisms in novel developmental states that never exist in nature and shown that the cells work around the problems he gives them to build up a working body. I think if you get stuck on “thinking”, yeah it’s not thinking, but it’s some sort of cognition that is above simple optimization. I honestly think if you (or anyone) watches one of his talks it will blow your mind. Prior to watching his talks, I would have said pretty much the same thing as you, but his work completely upended my view of biology. He’s basically breaking down how we get from “just physics” to a working organism and finding a lot of surprising things. Unfortunately, there’s way more information than I can condense into a comment.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    >it’s not ”thinking” in the way brains think Are you sure brains aren't doing any of it?
    - dimal 3y ago
      Yes. Many of the experiments involve single cell organisms where there is no brain involved. And the cognition he’s talking about are in different problem spaces than what we think of as “thinking” in the brain. Honestly, it’s so difficult to talk about because it’s such a different way of looking at biology. I would suggest picking any one of his YouTube talks and watching it. He’s a very good explainer.
svieira 3y ago
Which is one of the arguments the ancient Greeks (Aristotle in particular) used to argue that God must exist. Things are clearly ordered to ends (have goal-directed behavior). Others came to the conclusion that all things that are are part of one enormous goal-directed-entity, but that conclusion involves a bootstrapping problem on the part of that entity (which is composed of parts) and so I don't hold with it.
- agumonkey 3y ago
  I'm not sure I see a bootstrapping issue. Time and chaos will remove non teleological agents, doesn't it ? it would just emerge out of selection.
  - svieira 3y ago
    The issue with the goal arising out of nothing is just that. To put it another way, a goal arising out of nothing is an effect without sufficient cause to explain it.

by dimal 3y ago

naasking 3y ago

> (Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it) and has experimentally shown this capability at cellular scales. Supposing I accept that, what does this have to do with thought, which is the claim that I was specifically responding to? Does Levin or James also show that this can only be done by having thoughts? Edit: for instance, as opposed to having some non-thinking process like gradient descent, or more plausibly, some kind of hill climbing.

dimal 3y ago
I agree, it’s not ”thinking” in the way brains think, but I was just disagreeing with the assertion that it’s “just” pre-programmed. He’s shown pretty convincingly that these phenomena can not be preprogrammed. He’s put organisms in novel developmental states that never exist in nature and shown that the cells work around the problems he gives them to build up a working body. I think if you get stuck on “thinking”, yeah it’s not thinking, but it’s some sort of cognition that is above simple optimization. I honestly think if you (or anyone) watches one of his talks it will blow your mind. Prior to watching his talks, I would have said pretty much the same thing as you, but his work completely upended my view of biology. He’s basically breaking down how we get from “just physics” to a working organism and finding a lot of surprising things. Unfortunately, there’s way more information than I can condense into a comment.
- thfuran 3y ago
  >it’s not ”thinking” in the way brains think Are you sure brains aren't doing any of it?
  - dimal 3y ago
    Yes. Many of the experiments involve single cell organisms where there is no brain involved. And the cognition he’s talking about are in different problem spaces than what we think of as “thinking” in the brain. Honestly, it’s so difficult to talk about because it’s such a different way of looking at biology. I would suggest picking any one of his YouTube talks and watching it. He’s a very good explainer.

svieira 3y ago

Which is one of the arguments the ancient Greeks (Aristotle in particular) used to argue that God must exist. Things are clearly ordered to ends (have goal-directed behavior). Others came to the conclusion that all things that are are part of one enormous goal-directed-entity, but that conclusion involves a bootstrapping problem on the part of that entity (which is composed of parts) and so I don't hold with it.

agumonkey 3y ago
I'm not sure I see a bootstrapping issue. Time and chaos will remove non teleological agents, doesn't it ? it would just emerge out of selection.
- svieira 3y ago
  The issue with the goal arising out of nothing is just that. To put it another way, a goal arising out of nothing is an effect without sufficient cause to explain it.