What if someone thought an integrated circuit was an organism? computer programmer, engineer, biologist, causal connections, connectionism, reductionism, fads

What if a biologist thought or pretended to think that an integrated circuit was an organism? He would look for signs of life. And what would he find? No food intake. No breathing. No chemical excretions. No reproduction. No aging. No death. No life.

He would find responses to stimuli, but they might be different than the sort of responses that a computer programmer would expect. After trying many different levels of electrical inputs, he will note corresponding outputs. Whereas the computer programmer will think of input and output in binary terms -- either on or off -- the biologist will look for non-linear relationships. And he might just find some. Of course (no surprise to either the biologist/electrician or to the engineer), he will note that certain levels of input will be catastrophic.

What if neurons perform their instrumental role in perception etc. precisely in virtue of their CAUSAL interrelations, AND these interrelations correspond to non linear functions rather than to the all-on or all-off functions that preoccupy a computer programmer? In such a case, since the true causal relationship between each cell will be invisible to the computer programmer, so too will the physical basis of the operations (cognition, appetition, effort) associated with the brain.

IF a person whose day job is to design computer chips were made aware of the vast array of non-linear functions that characterize the input/output of a cell, he might make something that would simulate that sort of interaction. But this would be a simulation rather than a duplication. In fact, the simulation of just ONE cell may require a computer or even a supercomputer. And simulating the interactions of billion of neurons in a brain may be a bit too complicated for the designer.

Let's suppose, however, that the designer COULD make a computer chip that interacts with others in a manner analogous to how cells interact: to do this correctly, he would have to go back to school and learn cell biology. In such a case, the engineer would be able to set aside all of his pre-connectionist speculations about artificial intelligence in terms of ones and zeros. Bio-chemistry rather than good old-fashioned artificial intelligence would supply the understanding needed to create this chip.

It would seem that computational theories might have to be trashed, and they will be replaced by the effort to use nanotechnology to create artificial neurons.

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Afterthought: one who objects that cells can be thought of in terms of output/input rather than in terms of causal relationships internal to the cell has no right to object to the Chinese Room argument, for he is treating the cell like a miniature Chinese Room. In other words, while the CRA might not defeat connectionism generaliter, it does defeat the sort of connectionism that treats individual neurons in the same way that a functionalist treated the whole computer (I have to say this more clearly, but no time for doing that now). It follows that we could characterize connectionism as a kind of retreat from a more mechanical to a more organic conception of cognition. But perhaps it is not enough of a retreat. Perhaps a surrender is called for.

P F Strawson's Freedom and Resentment: the argument laid out

Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...

response to friend who suggested that the self is a democracy of neural parts

This is a nice way to try to avoid being cornered re the irreality of the self if you're a reductionist, for you can assert that a pattern obtains at the microscopic level that is not all that unlike the pattern found at the societal level. No need for the one self that does it all: instead, you have many sub-selfs that compete for dominance or take turns guiding the whole. The problem with this is, however, that the voters/officials are all zombies. None of them thinks about the whole as such. And perhaps none of them thinks even about themselves (unless one is a panzoist). None of them makes a comparison of alternatives. The more this proposed democracy seems like a zombocracy, the more consciousness will be seem to be epiphenomenal. Furthermore, if the oneness of the self is less real than the multiplicity of explanatory neural parts, then why can't each of these neural parts be conceived of as democracy as well? And why not parts of these parts, et...

interesting article by Jimmy Akin on death before the Fall

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/did-animals-die-before-the-fall/ Akin below: Aquinas.... writes: In the opinion of some, those animals which now are fierce and kill others, would, in that state, have been tame, not only in regard to man, but also in regard to other animals. But this is quite unreasonable. For the nature of animals was not changed by man's sin, as if those whose nature now it is to devour the flesh of others, would then have lived on herbs, as the lion and falcon. Nor does Bede's gloss on Genesis 1:30, say that trees and herbs were given as food to all animals and birds, but to some. Thus there would have been a natural antipathy between some animals [ Summa Theologiae I:96:1 ad 2 ]. Aquinas thus holds that it was not all death that entered the world through man's sin, but human death.

The Human Question

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