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.
I prefer mimicry of understanding attempts to defensive aggression against anything new and "threatening". One has the chance to develop into actually understanding, given time
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?
They 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."
Yes, 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.
The 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.”
None 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.
Sure some people believe that, but there’s still an interesting and worthwhile path of inquiry along the lines of: “it’s remarkable how such fundamentally simple systems can generate such profoundly complex and varied structures.”
The discovery of evolution in nature, for example, could be seen (and was seen by Darwin as) an increase in the wonder and awe we can find in the world.
See my other comment, I don't deny that. By "figured it out," I mean that the general principle of physicalism versus dualism seems empirically established based on all of the tests we've done in cognitive biology. That is not to say that the general theory cannot be improved via further research.
> 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.
> 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.
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..
This 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.
No. 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.
You 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.
> You 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.
And what part of that do people like to pretend is not the case (see OP)? That we have senses and that we act on sense information?
If input-output is the only message here then it’s a boring and obvious one.
> If input-output is the only message here then it’s a boring and obvious one.
Not really. Most people do not even believe this to be the case, hence my comments. They are thoroughly convinced that they are not machines like stated above whatsoever.
The 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.
In 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.
That's too reductionist to be an useful model. Humans are extremely complex systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system . You're describing them more like a complicated system.
I'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.
Actually it's quite the opposite, I've seen people who cannot accept that they are biological machines start inventing new and novel reasons for their existence, such as beliefs and religions, even though empirically physicalism is the logical conclusion. This really has nothing to do with the article though, it could've been about any topic regarding humans and their beliefs and we would've likely still had a comment like the grandparent.
The discourse marker “actually” seems to signal a counter-argument, but your reply does not counter that speculation/claim; that people in the other camp—there are of course two camps, we’re good dualists after all—act with deflection using religion or whatever says nothing about what the motivations for the other camp are. They could both have twisted motivations.
Of course the downvoted comment is just speculation about people’s inner life and motivation. Just like the claim that it might
> [pain] people to admit
to your viewpoint is. Or “I really think it stems from religious biases”.
It's not a counter argument, it is a perspective from the other position while offering evidence towards the main argument that one should examine where they are getting their beliefs from.
I 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.
Could 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
Agreed, 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.
> 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
Repression 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).