[nineteen999]

I have noticed a tendency (especially amongst HN articles and readers) to continually compare our bodies, minds, souls etc. to machines, as if they could be "biohacked" into perfection with just the right patches or software updates. Or that we could easily be replaced by the "correct AI" algorithm, if we could just get the simulation close enough.

Not that I don't believe we aren't complex systems, we are, to be sure, and it's not that life doesn't hurt sometimes, as it surely does.

But the whole idea really just grates on me. I like being a monkey, with all my strengths and weaknesses, I wouldn't trade that to be a cyborg for all the money in the world. Each to their own I guess! I guess I just don't think the analogies, simulations, etc. really do us much justice as a species.

[exrook]

Personally, I like that as a human, I have the capacity to use tools as an extension of my being to improve myself and my place in the world. I don't think applying the same tools I use to solve problems in the physical world to solve problems in my mind makes me any less human. Sure, those tools may not be a perfect match for the problem domain and provide the wrong answers sometimes, but it doesn't hurt to try applying them. I don't think this makes me a cyborg any more than lighting a fire or driving a car does.

[apatters]

I didn't read the article as being about how to hack your brain for an extra 10% job performance, I read it as a model for dealing with mental illness and a prescription at the end which bears some resemblance to existing therapies.

There are anxiety disorders which can have a crippling effect on someone's ability to function and turn their life into a living hell. There are many entrepreneurs who suffer from them. Entrepreneurs tend to be out there on the fringes of what is neurotypical, with all the attendant pros and cons.

I suspect if your reaction is "personally I'd rather be myself than think this way," you're simply not the target audience of the article.

[goldfish]

That's right, I'm writing this essay series for founders whose anxiety is interfering with their happiness and effectiveness.

[an-allen]

Well there are computational underpinnings to any form. Even those that are stochastic processes still have computational basis to some degree. So any cognitive process - which is quite literally the mind attempting to create form from various input signals - is going to be computable.

Wolfram's A New Kind of Science really changed my thinking about how we look at computational spaces.

[lidHanteyk]

Where do you think that the concept of computation comes from? The entire idea of computers, and of algorithms that can be executed mechanically, came from an attempt to generalize what human reasoning is capable of proving and constructing.

Similarly, the concept of cybernetics predates the naming of the field by a few centuries, considering tools like eyeglasses, and possibly millennia, if we include dentures, canes, or wheelchairs.

While we're on analogies that irritate you but have reasonable historical and scientific contexts, I'd like to remind you of the idea of humans as colonies of trillions of cells. A human isn't one thing, but trillions of things, much smaller and more autonomous than one might think.

[zaptheimpaler]

Totally agree. I think it comes from people who have a narrow technical background trying to extrapolate to humanities by analogy to what they know. They only have a hammer and see nails everywhere.. But HN is the wrong place to expect anything different :D

[Aearnus]

The original blog post is a pretty fantastic piece in support of teaching humanities in CS, I'd say!

[pinkfoot]

Only when the humanities get taught a bit of science.

[agumonkey]

I have two thoughts on this:

- I believe the sophistication and complexity of what makes us feel living forms is still way outside the current science radar and that all that think they're onto an improvement are myopic

- the dig down process of improving the somatic layer (bodies, cells) seems backward to me, our "souls" live on another plane, and doesn't really need much improvements down below. I'd rather see a cultural effort toward.. well culture. Simpler, leaner bonds and sharing.

[gloriousduke]

A world of only perfect beings does sound pretty boring. I'm not sure if anything worthwhile would actually happen in such a place. That being said, mental (rational) tools that help one recognize the origin of anxiety and reduce its deleterious effects are quite welcome. I think this article could help programmers/founders do just that.

[thrwaway69]

If you had a world of perfect human beings, then they would create imperfections to stop themselves from getting bored. I know, I would.

[reificator]

The desire to do that sounds like an imperfection to me...

[samplatt]

Evolution is a very simple self-optimising algorithm that's been allowed to run for a very long time. The way I see it, algorithms often have room for improvement. Turns out, self-optimisation with no oversight for 400M years produces something with a lot of room for improvement.

[gmtx725]

What even is 'optimal' though. As far as evolution is concerned, we are surviving to pass our genes on to the next generation, so we already are 'optimal'. Going any further than that is just bringing in social and cultural biases about what 'optimal' is.

[TeMPOraL]

Optimal is what we say it is. And we generally don't consider "surviving to pass our genes onto the next generation" as a sensible function to optimize for.

[reallymental]

See, I don't buy this (I'm not arguing with you, just initiating a conversation).

There is no doubt we are incredibly complex, so much so that we've not been able to crack the puzzle that is "us". We invent crude medicines to carpet-bomb some bacteria/virus, which can potentially harm another part of the body, we staple cadaver-parts onto our knees to move well again, we're incredible crude in a bio-hackish way.

We've not even begun to understand what goes on in our heads.

Room for improvement? I'm not sure we are there yet. Room for understanding what is going on? A lot of room there. Its a massive empty hangar to put all our future knowledge into.

Bottom line is ... I don't think we should go about pulling strings without caution because it will not happen without consequence.

[TeMPOraL]

Worth remembering though that the only way we can gain more understanding is by pulling strings and seeing what happens (and comparing the result with what we thought would happen).

[westoncb]

It may be useful to consider either metaphor—humans as robots / humans as monkeys—as just giving some insight into what it means to be human, rather than defining what a human is.

When it's pointed out that our minds are computer-like, it's because they include aspects which resemble computers: e.g. when some subset of its behavior is describable by an algorithm that could in principle be executed by a computer (even if that algorithm is just an approximation).

Same with the idea that we're monkeys: it's true that we have shared characteristics with other animals, that while we're unique in some ways we are not totally apart from the rest of life on earth.

> I like being a monkey

Unfortunately the only option is to be a human: part monkey, part computer :P

[nineteen999]

> because they include aspects which resemble computers

Other way around, these computers we use resemble us (however not particularly closely) because we created them, not vice-versa.

[westoncb]

If A resembles B, it’s implied that B resembles A—or at least that was the usage I intended.

The fact that we took inspiration from ourselves in developing computers only strengthens my original point.

[nineteen999]

Oh yeah, I wasn't disagreeing with you about the resemblance, just kind of pushing the "who-made-who" point.

[dagav]

I also don't appreciate the comparison. The whole magic of being human is our capacity to transcend our "programming", something we haven't been able to achieve with computers (and something I personally don't believe we ever will achieve)

[iamatworknow]

I definitely agree, and I think this mindset develops in many technically inclined people only after you spend a significant amount of time living in the real world.

I imagine many of us from a young age find an interest in math and science because the logic makes sense. We build on first principles and everything has an objective truth. Perhaps in our early lives we experience things that don't "make sense" in this way, so we throw ourselves into a world of logic that we can more easily understand. Great for academic success, and after all, when we're young we're probably in a world where academic success is lauded (school or college). We are quite literally rewarded with good grades and honor societies for thinking in this way, so it reinforces the idea that this way of thinking is "right". Or at least, this was the case for me throughout high school and college. I remember thinking at the time, "All of these people around me partying, having fun, getting into trouble, living illogically -- they're doing things wrong."

But then at a certain point we leave these structured environments and are on our own. And we continue to run into experiences where we try, again and again, to apply algorithms to life, and they almost always fail. It seems like we can come to one of two conclusions: Either the algorithm is still incomplete and the parameters need tweaking, or we realize that there is no algorithm, or at least no knowable algorithm. We're just too complex, too irrational by nature, to be described by some knowable set of rules.

Every time our "life algorithm" fails it hurts, because it feels like we failed. So we do whatever we possibly can to avoid failure in the future, and yet those failures keep coming and hurt more and more each time.

Until, hopefully, we arrive at that second conclusion which comes with both relief and regret. Relief because instead of trying to describe life with an algorithm, we can actually start living it. And regret because we no longer have the freedom to make those same sorts of mistakes that help us build character when we're young, because they probably have real consequences now. Plus it's really damn hard to give up the way we've been living since childhood. Things like practicing mindfulness and meditation help a lot.

Anyway...that's my two cents.