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Comment by svdr

2 days ago

The idea that there is much more computation (and intelligence/agency) going on in biological and other systems seems to be getting more popular. (The author writes: The whole body is a computer: it’d be wasteful for evolution to only use the brain for computation when other systems could take part too.). Michael Levin has some super interesting ideas about this.

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svdr

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gabennn  2 days ago

GabeN mentions similar in a video with IGN a few years ago.

Machine brain interfaces can reliably model thought to action of using ones arm, for example.

But it cannot model "feeling". It's, as of that interview, an intractable problem to map all electrical activity in us given external stimuli. Every body "feels" a cold stimulus in a different part of their. This wasn't qualitative either; imaging technology shows activity unevenly occurs across every human body. Put an ice cube on someones hand, their left knee tissues may react. Put ice cube on another person's hand, back of their neck reacts not their left knee.

Then there are stories of people missing the majority of their brain but only learned this medically after living a normal life; going to college, holding a career together for a couple decades.

Brain-centrism was just as dumb as our other takes that attempt to demarcate a center to our center-less universe. Even just practically speaking, I know a lot of PhDs who cannot cook or rotate a tire. Where is the intelligence in letting oneself end up such a helpless, and thus codependent, tool?

  • QuercusMax  2 days ago

    I've been dealing with chronic pain in my hands, arms, and shoulders, and one of the things I've slowly been figuring out is that the pain I feel in my hand is actually coming from tight muscles in my forearm. Referred pain is weird.

tern  2 days ago

There's a conversation on YouTube between Mike Johnson (whose theory is the subject of the article) and Michael Levin. Levin's work has been a huge inspiration ... for everyone working between biology, psychology, and spirituality.

jordwest  2 days ago

> it’d be wasteful for evolution to only use the brain for computation

Even what we consciously experience as the brain is really only a tiny part of the brain.

The little language centre and the capacity to imagine are only a tiny subset of a multitude of brain functions and yet we believe that those two functions make up “me”. Actually it’s just those two functions telling a story that they are me.