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.
> None of that relates to what I said though. Physicalists do continue to do research of the natural world,
If they do research and this viewpoint works for them then who am I to judge.
I’m more used to this viewpoint being presented when someone who doesn’t work in some area expresses some opinion (hot take) on it. That could be a physicist expressing an opinion on cognitive science e.g. (whatever cognitive science is about).
> Physicalists do continue to do research of the natural world, in fact, that is actually what drives them more toward physicalism!
I don’t understand what physicalism is supposed to be about[1] beyond explicitly denying God-of-the-gaps.
> I think you are arguing a strawman, since no one said anything about being arrogant.
Just like no one identified themselves as being arrogant because they believe that they are more than physical structures. Or even claimed that they believe that they are more than physical structures. (The reductionists will often barge in an identify anyone who disagrees with their opinion as someone who believes in the supra-physical, based on nothing.)
> I’m more used to this viewpoint being presented when someone who doesn’t work in some area expresses some opinion (hot take) on it. That could be a physicist expressing an opinion on cognitive science e.g. (whatever cognitive science is about).
Seems like your comments are responding to a point in your head without anyone expressing such points. No one here is like the physicist in your example, so I am not even sure against whom you are arguing here.
No, they don't need to be a biologist to understand the current situation of physicalism versus dualism. Physicalism is extremely well established in the literature as compared to dualism, of which there is barely if any evidence. You are looking for a philosopher of the mind, not actually a biologist, who can speak on these issues, as biologists and indeed scientists in general are not philosophers, while the debate is philosophical in nature.
No? It is exactly what is being argued in this thread. If you have a different point to make, I'm not sure why you engaged in this specific thread, as there are many others that talk about the specifics of the article itself.
If you assert so. I have no interest in this supposed physicalism/dualism split since that’s a dead debate, at least as far this forum is concerned.[1] My pet-peeve was about the part about having understood everything, supposedly.[2]
And if the point is so narrow as to be about Free Will then I don’t know why people are being coy and talking about input-output machines, washing machines and whatever. Just say that Free Will is not real. Then you get 70% less pushback.
[1] No one here is going to argue for Cartesian Dualism. So the only way that it will come up as a supposedly “live” belief is if someone else accuses them of being a crypto-cartesian because of whatever reasons…
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.
You have superb skills in leveraging often hard to spot ambiguity the English language offers, I think you would excel in sales of most any product, truth included.
Yes, and I really think it stems from religious biases, of wanting to think ourselves as being a soul inhabiting a body instead of being the body in itself. There's a reason why Descartes was one of the prime motivators of dualism.
> 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.
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.
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.
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):
Plus, there are identifiable differences (disproving the "just as"): LLM's can reliably acknowledge epistemic unsoundness in their prior claims without aversion and rhetoric.
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.
> 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?
"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?
> 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.
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).
> 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.
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.
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.
See, now we are getting to the interesting core of the whole thing, a core argument which was masked by a somewhat trendy metaphor.
Which is precisely why I dislike them.
The core argument is one about the non-existence of free will and one many people reject as you were right to point out. The reasons vary from personal discomfort with the idea of not being in control, over religious ideas of souls, to basically falling for the illusion and defending it.
The more interesting question about determinism is in which way it is deterministic? Like the movement of the planets? Like the weather? Or like brownian motion? Probably a mix of all of those, but what mix?
And if everything is an input and output and any slight variation throws of the long term development of the system, there would be no way to test that theory with two separate human entities and no way to make accurate predictions on long time scales, which makes the whole point kinda moot.
> The more interesting question about determinism is in which way it is deterministic? Like the movement of the planets? Like the weather? Or like brownian motion? Probably a mix of all of those, but what mix?
Yes, as I stated, if you follow philosophers of the mind, they cover all of these aspects and more. It is hard for me to go in depth without rehashing their arguments so I will invite you to study them.
> there would be no way to test that theory with two separate human entities and no way to make accurate predictions on long time scales, which makes the whole point kinda moot.
Just because this is the case does not make it untrue. There are lots of things we cannot fully test with certainty (in the Locke epistemology sense) that we nevertheless assume to be true. This may or may not be one of these cases, but it does not make it "moot."
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).
