[satvikpendem]

> 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]

Start with the work of Heinz von Foerster and his 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

2003 essay collection, "Understanding Understanding", 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]

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.

[paganel]

In that vein you can also ask lots of similar things, as in, why we're not refrigerators, or washing machines, or any other inanimate objects which carry out some mechanical-related stuff.

Trying to come up with a compelling reason for why we're not "biological computers" (and this "trying" in itself is half-giving away of one's point in this types of discussions) would involve long discussions going all the way back to the French Enlightenment and the likes of La Mettrie, not sure any online discussion would get to the end of it.

[satvikpendem]

Sure, those all compute as well, hence are computers and therefore fall within my question. Just because one is only familiar with silicon based computers does not mean that that which takes in input and emits output by other means is not itself a sort of computer. That is in fact part of my question, as, why biological systems are not given the same scrutiny.

This is part of why I don't see any compelling evidence why we are not biological computers, much as it pains people to admit so.

[mistermann]

You can say it (and if you use language persuasively, and repeat it often enough, you can even cause it to appear to be true [1], the effects of which can usually be seen in any thread like this), but you cannot say it soundly (known to be necessarily conclusive):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency

Plus, there are identifiable differences (disproving the "just as"): LLM's can reliably acknowledge epistemic unsoundness in their prior claims without aversion and rhetoric.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

[satvikpendem]

Your links do not support your conclusions (actually, I don't believe there are any in your comment). Yes, while you can repeat something often enough for it to appear true, it may not actually be true; this is a vacuous statement that does not need to be stated. My comment about LLMs are generally analogistic, they are not meant to be taken concretely on current implementations.

You have not actually answered my question however, your comment is a deflection of what I'm asking, so I will ask again, why are biological beings not considered computational? They do the same thing a general computer can do. And again, by "computer," I do not necessarily mean silicon-based, Von Neumann architecture computers.

[mistermann]

> Your links do not support your conclusions (actually, I don't believe there are any in your comment).

1. What a strange comment.

2. They do support my answer to your question: "how one cannot say that biological machines compute "just as"(!) silicon based computers do"

> Yes, while you can repeat something often enough for it to appear true, it may not actually be true; this is a vacuous statement that does not need to be stated

It is directly related to your question, and the underlying phenomenon: human belief (more popularly known as: truth, the reality, etc).

> You have not actually answered my question however, your comment is a deflection of what I'm asking, so I will ask again, why are biological beings not considered computational?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41056319

"I am asking in the general sense how one cannot say that biological machines compute just as silicon based computers do."

That is the question I answered.

As for "Why are biological beings not considered computational?"

Well, consciousness (which implements "considering") is not understood, so it is unknown. But as my last link above describes, instances of can be made to function certain ways simply by good story telling. So in this case, maybe some chunk of the whole have heard that they are not computational.

> They do the same thing a general computer can do.

The ambiguity and misinformative of English (as we (or at least I) see here) is why I linked to Set Theory. Do you see the relevance?

[walterbell]

> This seems

If you're going to casually dismiss twenty years of funded research on the topic you asked about, then this is a self-regulating thread.

https://constructivist.info/riegler/pub/riegler05foerster.ht...

> Artificial neural networks were one of the “hot” topics at the BCL. They combine engineering.. and empirical science.. As early as in 1960, the BCL developed a neural network prototype called “Numa-Rete,” which could count objects irrespective of their shape and size.

https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=12098476

  The reductionist eventually comes to know everything about nothing (by way of distinction) - the wholist eventually comes to know nothing about everything (by way of generalization).

[satvikpendem]

> If you're going to casually dismiss twenty years of funded research on the topic you asked about, then this is a self-regulating thread.

Again you misunderstand what I am asking for. There is no use in me asking for the color blue and you talking about the color red, then when I say, I am asking about blue, you tell me that there has been 20 years of research on red. That may be true but that is not what I am asking about.

[walterbell]

This is an HN thread about co-evolutionary feedback loops. You can start a new thread on your topic of interest.

Multiple, independent responses to your "question" have said almost the same thing. Good luck finding different answers.

If you want to move the conversation forward in your new thread, you can offer evidence of a positive claim, instead of asking others to provide evidence of a negative claim.