3 ms·
I think that we find the idea of thermostat having experiences strange because, subconsciously, we think of experiences only being accessible to someone / somet
by crabbone 2y ago
I think that we find the idea of thermostat having experiences strange because, subconsciously, we think of experiences only being accessible to someone / something that has a "will to live" (in the words of Schopenhauer).
I.e. I don't think thermostats want anything. They don't have a capacity to care whether they fall apart or not, whether anyone is satisfied with their function or not. But, life, even in the very simplest form wants something. Experiences to living organisms is what makes them more effective at doing what they want.
What makes living creatures want something: I have no idea. I remember hearing a hypothesis tying this to better preservation of energy... but I don't know about that. But, if I had to guess, it must be something that's available to micro-organisms, so, it has to have some physical / chemical explanation...
- nuancebydefault 2y agoMaybe the property of "wanting" is no more than survivorship bias? Since living things survive, they must have a "will" to survive. Maybe that will is just a label that humans invented to attribute to living things?
- crabbone 2y agoWell, wouldn't this bias happen a while ago, to the very primitive organisms? Because the organisms we see today seem to universally want to live. I mean, even if we somehow mislabeled some more fundamental property, on the face of it, it seems to be pretty consistent. Everything about how these organisms are built is indicative of their "will" to remain functional and to procreate. Eg. regrowing parts of organism's body in order to overcome damage (that would cause the organism to cease to exist) seems pretty universal. Similarly, trying to move away from hostile environments seems to be pretty built-in feature of anything alive.
- nuancebydefault 2y agoIndeed it makes sense that very primitive organisms had it and passed it on via DNA or even some other form of chemical code. Still some DNAs were flawed and other had more advanced survival techniques. Still that boils down to: survival has to be a property (or even the definition?) of life. So maybe the question of life introduction is, when did survivorship emerge?
- robwwilliams 2y agoThis is the book you will want to read once, twice, or three times to have a good answer to your question. Humbert Maturana and Francesco Valera(1979) Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. ISBN 90-277-1015-5. Not an easy book, but one that answers your question. Terry Winograd loves this book. I am a neuroscientist and only found this gem late in my career. Damn!
- crabbone 2y agoThanks! Much appreciated. I do love the subject, although I'm not connected to it professionally.