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"Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)

psychclassics.yorku.ca

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Re: "Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)

#31

Post by AnotherGoodName »

Fwiw nothing with outside influence is automata as the true randomness from quantum phenomena propagates.

Eg. If you take in real world visual input to a system that from that point on is deterministic the output of that system is now non-deterministic. Similar to how Shrodinger talked about the macro scale cat being alive and dead at the same time.

So the arguments that the neurons in the brain are deterministic or that the transistors in a computer are deterministic breaks down at the first introduction of real world input. The outputs of those systems actually aren't deterministic at all.

Re: "Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)

#33

Post by cmrx64 »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #31

Fwiw nothing with outside influence is automata as the true randomness from quantum phenomena propagates. Eg. If you take in real world visual input to a system that from that point on is deterministic the output of that system is now non-deterministic. Similar to how Shrodinger talked about the macro scale cat being alive and dead at the same time. So the arguments that the neurons in the brain are deterministic or…

I see no reason why that can't be modeled as an automata? Nondeterministic automata are still automata. I think your meanings of 'deterministic' are confused- it's about impulse response. A little bit of stochasticity in the thermal voltage doesn't ruin the determinacy of a computers ALU operational modes.

Re: "Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)

#34

Post by atticora »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #31

Fwiw nothing with outside influence is automata as the true randomness from quantum phenomena propagates. Eg. If you take in real world visual input to a system that from that point on is deterministic the output of that system is now non-deterministic. Similar to how Shrodinger talked about the macro scale cat being alive and dead at the same time. So the arguments that the neurons in the brain are deterministic or…

Deterministic systems, or at least highly predictable ones, can arise for non-deterministic components, as for example the Boltzmann equation demonstrates. Other examples include the models that we build of automata on machines made of matter made of non-deterministic particles.

Re: "Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)

#35

Post by tempodox »

dnissley wrote: post #29
ryanklee wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agreed. I find it embarrassing how STEM devalued non-STEM studies for years, and now that LLMs are center stage, so is the near-universal unpreparedness of interested parties and stakeholders to wrestle with issues of cognition, consciousness, and ethics. This, despite literally thousands of years of prior studies on these matters. Even now, I see basic refusal to engage with this extant literature, and a…

> STEM devalued non-STEM studies for years What does this refer to?

History, for instance, is not part of STEM.

Re: "Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)

#36

Post by operatingthetan »

kouru225 wrote: post #32

When people say we’re nothing but computers, neurons firing, chemical reactions, etc they think they’re saying that humans aren’t special. But I take it to mean that the rest of the world is way more special than we’ve been giving it credit for.

Sometimes I entertain the idea that inanimate objects have consciousness too and it's pretty disturbing because it would mean we are doing pretty much everything wrong.

Re: "Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)

#37

Post by kouru225 »

operatingthetan wrote: post #36
kouru225 wrote: post #32

When people say we’re nothing but computers, neurons firing, chemical reactions, etc they think they’re saying that humans aren’t special. But I take it to mean that the rest of the world is way more special than we’ve been giving it credit for.

Sometimes I entertain the idea that inanimate objects have consciousness too and it's pretty disturbing because it would mean we are doing pretty much everything wrong.

You mean we’re killing things?

Re: "Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)

#38

Post by Avicebron »

dnissley wrote: post #29
ryanklee wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agreed. I find it embarrassing how STEM devalued non-STEM studies for years, and now that LLMs are center stage, so is the near-universal unpreparedness of interested parties and stakeholders to wrestle with issues of cognition, consciousness, and ethics. This, despite literally thousands of years of prior studies on these matters. Even now, I see basic refusal to engage with this extant literature, and a…

> STEM devalued non-STEM studies for years What does this refer to?

I think it in general refers to a (seeming) lack of awareness/acknowledgement of non-stem topics like philosophy, theology, ethics, history, etc.

I'm not sure I would phrase it as STEM itself devaluing non-stem (I mean it's an acronym for subjects) but, rather society in general devaluing these, example, how hard is it go out, get a philosophy degree, and practice/write that and live comfortably with that occupation (no external sources of income). History/Literature seems to be much the same

Re: "Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)

#39

Post by mgaunard »

operatingthetan wrote: post #36
kouru225 wrote: post #32

When people say we’re nothing but computers, neurons firing, chemical reactions, etc they think they’re saying that humans aren’t special. But I take it to mean that the rest of the world is way more special than we’ve been giving it credit for.

Sometimes I entertain the idea that inanimate objects have consciousness too and it's pretty disturbing because it would mean we are doing pretty much everything wrong.

Do we even have consciousness or merely the illusion of it?

Re: "Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)

#40

Post by retrac »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #5

1879 These arguments aren't new. This is good argument for why tech/science/stem need to read history, or 'older' science history. To at least be familiar with the science that has come before, either to know what was discarded, to be familiar with past dead ends, or forgotten knowledge that could still have value. A lot of the AI spurred arguments in the last year seem like so much re-hashing since they were being d…

I recently stumbled across a speech from 1855 by an American physician [1], and I suppose proto-electrical-engineer, talking about the telegraph. In it, he makes a direct analogy between the telegraph and the animal nervous system. (People were aware by then, that the nervous system was partly electrical in nature.)

The complexity of the nervous system and its ability to coordinate across distance, allows it to support more complex and bigger organisms, whether that organism is biological or political. Continuing with his analogy, the railroads and canals are the arteries and veins, supplying the raw materials and finished products, etc.

More tenuously, he also appears to make a kind of proto-evolutionary analogy (Darwin hadn't published but Lamarck had published decades before, by this point). And I even detect small hints of an antecedent to the concept of emergent complexity, and the notion of shared structures across biology, sociology, etc.

> The electric telegraph is thus the nervous system of this nation and of modern society by no figure of speech, by no distant analogy. Its wires spread like nerves over the surface of the land, interlinking distant parts, and making possible a perpetually higher co-operation among men, and higher social forms than have hitherto existed. [...]

> We are thus conducted to the result of the highest philosophy: that society in its form of organization, is human, and that it presents in its progressive development continually higher analogies with the laws of individual being. [...]

[1] https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-101620765...

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