i was in my social psychology class today, and my teacher started out saying "i'm gonna give a bunch of examples why the mind doesn't work like a machine." he then talked about human biases, how we aren't logical, blah blah, etc.
i sat there wondering...how does human bias prove in any way that the brain isn't a computer? what does it mean for something to work like a computer, anyways? that the programming is flawless? who defined "flawless"?
my take on it is that the mind IS a computer. it started out a few lines of code, and over time, new routines were added, and selected for or against. but it's a sloppy process. some routines would positively affect certain areas of fitness and negatively affect other areas at the same time.
if the overall effect of the new routine was positive in terms of reproductive fitness, the trait would be selected for. but then we get these weird side effects. those effects can't really be easily edited, so instead, new routines would have to come in to fix problems, but those new routines would affect other areas, etc.
so it's basically like nature writing a program where you start with one line of code, which has to compile properly. then all you can do is add a new line, which may or may not affect the lines that already exist -- the new program has to compile as well. each step you take has to be valid by itself! if you get unexpected or unwanted results, you can only add new routines, because deleting a line would most likely cause your program to not compile, since every routine refers to other routines.
as a result of this coding process over time, we have these traits we call "irrational". but they're only side effects of routines which fixed some other improperly functioning routine.
i mean, at some level, things are running deterministically (i know someone's gonna bring up quantum mechanics, blah...). it's not like some atom can just choose to not follow the laws of physics. there's a physical state your brain is in at each specific moment in time, determined by the positions of atoms and their charges, etc. each of those atoms follows the physical law (some giant function, if you will), and the next position and charge of the atom is the output of the function. so everything is a giant computer! the whole universe, even.
thoughts?
i sat there wondering...how does human bias prove in any way that the brain isn't a computer? what does it mean for something to work like a computer, anyways? that the programming is flawless? who defined "flawless"?
my take on it is that the mind IS a computer. it started out a few lines of code, and over time, new routines were added, and selected for or against. but it's a sloppy process. some routines would positively affect certain areas of fitness and negatively affect other areas at the same time.
if the overall effect of the new routine was positive in terms of reproductive fitness, the trait would be selected for. but then we get these weird side effects. those effects can't really be easily edited, so instead, new routines would have to come in to fix problems, but those new routines would affect other areas, etc.
so it's basically like nature writing a program where you start with one line of code, which has to compile properly. then all you can do is add a new line, which may or may not affect the lines that already exist -- the new program has to compile as well. each step you take has to be valid by itself! if you get unexpected or unwanted results, you can only add new routines, because deleting a line would most likely cause your program to not compile, since every routine refers to other routines.
as a result of this coding process over time, we have these traits we call "irrational". but they're only side effects of routines which fixed some other improperly functioning routine.
i mean, at some level, things are running deterministically (i know someone's gonna bring up quantum mechanics, blah...). it's not like some atom can just choose to not follow the laws of physics. there's a physical state your brain is in at each specific moment in time, determined by the positions of atoms and their charges, etc. each of those atoms follows the physical law (some giant function, if you will), and the next position and charge of the atom is the output of the function. so everything is a giant computer! the whole universe, even.
thoughts?
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