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> (Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it) and has experimentally shown this capability at cellular scales. Supposing I accept that,

> (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.

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.