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Humans are very good at pretending we are more than just biological machines acting according to genetically imposed network structure refined by lifetime histo
by skummetmaelk 2y ago
Humans are very good at pretending we are more than just biological machines acting according to genetically imposed network structure refined by lifetime history of training inputs.
- hypertele-Xii 2y agoYou might have existential imposter syndrome.
- riehwvfbk 2y agoYour illusion of higher purpose is part of the very same evolutionary loop ;)
- hypertele-Xii 2y agoThe evolutionary illusion of a loop is part of the very same higher purpose :P
- keybored 2y agoNerds are good at pretending they understand everything by way of reductionist metaphors.
- satvikpendem 2y agoThey don't pretend they understand everything though, just as we do not "understand" everything about LLMs even though we know they run on electronic computer systems; some properties are simply emergent via structure, and the same properties can emerge via biological computers too, but again, to notice that fact does not mean we "pretend to understand."
- keybored 2y agoAll of the assumptions (and the metaphor) contained in that response of yours seems to contradict the statement itself. By using “just” you’ve already asserted that there is nothing more of relative importance to figure out—it’s done, figured out.
- pjc50 2y agoThese days "just" is a huge red flag for me. It's saying "my thinking stops here, yours should too".
- satvikpendem 2y agoYes, by using "just," it is a thought terminating word. However, again, I do believe we have it figured out, based on how we understand the rest of the universe to be physically-based as well. It is, in my experience, human arrogance that leads us to believe that we are somehow more than physical structures. It makes people feel uneasy to believe that so they invent something to solve that cognitive dissonance.
- keybored 2y agoThe relevant comparison isn’t to people who think we are “more than physical structures”. It is to people who are a bit humbled by the complexity of the world and how when you seem to learn something new about it, ten more questions pop up. Which must be a forced attitude that some scientists have. Contrast that with the arrogance of creating a neural network in your garage and thinking to yourself: “well I guess as a side-effect of this all of existence makes sense now.”
- satvikpendem 2y agoNone of that relates to what I said though. Physicalists do continue to do research of the natural world, in fact, that is actually what drives them more toward physicalism! I think you are arguing a strawman, since no one said anything about being arrogant.
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- paganel 2y ago> biological computers Using that as a metaphor is telling in itself, as we're far from being (just) "biological computers".
- satvikpendem 2y ago> as we're far from being (just) "biological computers". What part is? Or rather, how can you show that we are not? Note that I use "computer" in the general sense, that which computes, by taking in input and emitting output.
- walterbell 2y agoStart with the work of Heinz von Foerster and his Biological Computer Laboratory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_Computer_Laboratory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_Computer_Laboratory > The focus of research at BCL was systems theory and specifically the area of self-organizing systems, bionics, and bio-inspired computing; that is, analyzing, formalizing, and implementing biological processes using computers. BCL was inspired by the ideas of Warren McCulloch and the Macy Conferences, as well as many other thinkers in the field of cybernetics. 1969 zine from BCL students, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34825918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34825918 2003 essay collection, "Understanding Understanding", http://www.alice.id.tue.nl/references/foerster-2003.pdf http://www.alice.id.tue.nl/references/foerster-2003.pdf In the late 1940s a group of people had begun meeting every year in New York under the auspices of the Josiah Macy Foundation to discuss “circular causal and feedback mechanisms” .. The group included Norbert Wiener, who had coined the term “cybernetics”; Claude Shannon, the inventor of information theory; Warren McCullough, one of the leading neuropsychiatrists—he called himself an “experimental epistemologist”; Gregory Bateson, the philosopher and anthropologist; his wife Margaret Mead, the anthropologist who made Samoa famous; John von Neuman, one of the people who started the computer revolution..
- satvikpendem 2y agoThis seems the opposite of what I'm asking. I am not asking how biological processes can be modeled by silicon based computers, I am asking in the general sense how one cannot say that biological machines compute just as silicon based computers do.
- InDubioProRubio 2y agoI prefer mimicry of understanding attempts to defensive aggression against anything new and "threatening". One has the chance to develop into actually understanding, given time
- keybored 2y agoI don’t even know what you are talking about. Both of our comments are equally aggressive since I mimicked the delivery. > to defensive aggression against anything new and "threatening". What’s new. You can take this back to Cartesian Dualism (or further) where animals where just “machines”. Same thing: oh we have these levers that we’ve made and understand, huh I guess rabbits and storks work the same because why not?
- jalapenos 2y agoHe's above us because he could reduce human life beneath his sophisticated sentence. Maybe nerd is a type of narcissism.
- skummetmaelk 2y agoDo you feel attacked? Nobody is above anyone. Seems like that's your defensiveness reading something between the lines which isn't implied.
- jalapenos 2y agoCould just say "yeah what I said was nerdy" and call it a day.
- skummetmaelk 2y agoYou expect the person whom you just called an arrogant narcissist to agree with you? Good luck with that.
- jalapenos 2y agoFair point haha
- satvikpendem 2y agoAgreed, as a staunch physicalist [0]. As well, I don't think people need anyone else to grow into their own, unless they've been socially (or perhaps even physically) repressed. None of the people I know who are eccentric have really been molded that way by others per se, it was an inherent personality that came out because of precisely the opposite, they simply didn't give a shit what anyone else thought. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism
- 1659447091 2y ago> it was an inherent personality that came out because of precisely the opposite, they simply didn't give a shit what anyone else thought. A possible missing step here. While maybe true for some, many of (the few) eccentric types I know grew up bullied or ostracized in some small ways and after repeated failings to "fit in" or please others expectations said f-this and embraced themselves. It still came about from others, but in a not so pleasant way
- satvikpendem 2y agoHence > unless they've been socially (or perhaps even physically) repressed
- 1659447091 2y agoI took repressed to mean a far greater extent than typical school yard bullying I meant to convey
- satvikpendem 2y agoRepression comes in many levels. It does not mean to be psychologically beat down until one is a shell of a person (and indeed, even typical schoolyard bullying can create such an effect in certain individuals).
- piva00 2y agoIn a reductive way we're just that, the actual human part of it comes from the many loops this machine runs on to create emerging behaviour. You could be even more reductive and just say we are chemical machines, or an agglomeration of molecules. Or that even the whole Universe is just a soup of vibrating energy. They aren't untrue but the reduction to such statements don't capture what emerges from.
- pjc50 2y agoYou could believe that, and it might even be true, but it's no way to live your life.
- satvikpendem 2y agoOne does not imply the other. Just because they say the above does not mean they actually live their life like that.
- nonrandomstring 2y agoI'm not sure deflationary statements like this are "beliefs", rather defence mechanisms to truncate further difficult thought. The article has some extraordinary demands; radical openness, reflective practice, co-evolution, mentalisation... all things you'd associate with high emotional intelligence and hard inner work. Some people just aren't up to that. Maybe we need to be able to say "that's okay". Humanists need not feel threatened by reductionists any more than reductionists need feel upset there is a bigger world "outside the test-tube". Perhaps we should focus more on why some life-stances expressed by others feel uncomfortable for us.
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- skummetmaelk 2y agoI think it is interesting that you are imposing a value judgment on the humanist spiritual belief being better than the "reductionist" one through your adjective usage. It is perfectly possible to live well and enjoy life knowing that you are fundamentally not different than any other object in nature. No higher divinity required.
- nonrandomstring 2y agoCould we not say that if science is exploration a scientist is kinda honour-bound to investigate everything that "is the case" [0], every corner of life, and incorporate that into his/her model of whatever they're working on? What makes life enjoyable for me is exploring it so I've not found a dichotomy between a "humanist spiritual belief" and a "reductionist one". That's a smouldering flame war that started half a millennium back between Copernicus, Galileo and the church. May I suggest a cool read is "The Two Cultures." by C. P. Snow [1]. Snow thinks, as I do, that this artificial split holds humanity back. Albert Einstein is also a great study to get into this groove. If I am objecting to anything (not sure if I am really) it is the strident certainty with which some who have explored part of the territory declare that there is nothing more to see. That applies to either side. Maybe there's stuff that would make the material facts of physics and biology that much more wonderful and enjoyable to behold. [0] "The world is all that is the case" - Wittgenstein [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures
- atoav 2y agoAnd your 18th century equivalent would have said the same using a mechanical metaphor using gears and sprockets. Chances are you are both equally wrong.
- skummetmaelk 2y agoWhat makes you believe it is wrong? Can you construct an argument which does not require the existence of a supernatural "divine"? If you presuppose such things exist, of course we reach different conclusions.
- atoav 2y agoNo. I just don't think using the current hot technology as a metaphor for human behavior is as smart of an idea as some think it is. In fact I think it displays the opposite of what is necessary to reach actual artificial intelligence.
- skummetmaelk 2y agoThe terms used to describe the modern technology are derived from early neuroscience going back to the late 19th century. Our understanding of how biological neural networks operate lead to this conclusion. Not the other way around.
- atoav 2y agoA fact which hopefully most people are aware of. I did not question that.
- satvikpendem 2y agoYou are arguing different points. Just because we use different metaphors over time does not mean the core analogy does not hold. Mainly, systems that intake input and emit output, whether they be in the form of silicon based computers, steam powered machines, etc, seem quite similar to biological machines that also take in input and emit output. Unless you can show that there is some outside process between the intaking of input and emitting of output, physicalism is the most definite and empirically supported conclusion; when I remove part of someone's brain, I can predict with high accuracy how they will behave.
- theonemind 2y agoThat's too reductionist to be an useful model. Humans are extremely complex systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system . You're describing them more like a complicated system.