Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by avaldeso 1932 days ago
[Citation needed]
3 comments

Check out Levin's lab's work: "What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the Nervous System" - NeurIPS 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjD1aLm4Thg

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736698

In short, the biomolecular machinery that neurons use to think is present in all cells.

This may be the case but a quad amputee is still able to form and recall memories as well as tell jokes and sing songs.
I don't understand the meaning of this response. You seem to be suggesting that all memories are in the limbs. I don't think that's what was being suggested here.

Trying to stay within what I think you are saying, don't forget that if you amputate some insect's legs, they will keep flicking around for a while, even though there is no connection to the brain. Surely the insect doesn't suddenly forget how to move it's now missing leg. But the leg does seem to have its own capacity to remember how to jump or whatever even without the brain. Until it runs out of energy, of course.

Insect legs don't have the capacity to remember how to jump. They retain the ability to move for a brief period of time.

You're ascribing a higher meaning to the limited spasms of a dismembered limb.

You can cite your body. Before you get offended, really, just examine it as a system, and try to explain how can you have a conscious experience without any sensory input.

Even with a lame comparison to computers, the machines also need a lot of stuff to put a CPU to work.

> You can cite your body.

Anecdotal evidence.

Also, if the mind is fully integrated with the body, how you explain seemingly inconsistent states that seems to work just fine. Eg., people with ALS or quadriplegic or severely injured or mutilated. If the mind can perfectly works without a perfectly abled body, where's this mind body connection? Also, where's such connection in a comatose brain with a completely funcional body? Maybe I misunderstood what this mind body connection is supposed to be.

Show me these people who aren't significantly augmented to replace their bodily functions eg Hawking.

I'm not sure how you consider that working "just fine."

> try to explain how can you have a conscious experience without any sensory input.

John Lilly, sensory deprivation tanks?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Lilly

Sensory deprivation is interesting, but you already have a conscious experience when you enter the tank. It even reinforces that your mind is tied to your body.
> You can cite your body.

At best, this is an anecdote.

I think the second sentence is opinion, not something that could be objectively tested. Last sentence is mostly true. Sick people are much less happy than when they are healthy.