Comment by derektank
14 hours ago
>Is the same underlying assumptions that treats cells as machines, our body as a complex machine. These theories are flawed in the sense that they cannot account for subjective experience and agency, amongst other things
Do you disagree with the assumption that cells are machines? They seem pretty machine-like to me. I certainly don’t think individual cells have any subjective experience or sense of agency. I would be curious to know where your intuitions diverge here, because if the mind is an emergent phenomenon from machines (cells) then it seems quite likely that a mind could emerge from other, different machines.
It's not a huge leap to imagine biological cells might have a rudimentary consciousness
Pan-psychists might argue that your subjective consciousness is an aggregate of all the cells/molecules, etc in the system
"While each biological cell operates largely on its own chemical cues, they all coordinate through complex nervous and chemical networks to create your unified, subjective experience."
You might be a rigid materialist
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10883262/#:~:text=T...
https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/2/4/26
> Do you disagree with the assumption that cells are machines? They seem pretty machine-like to me. You just said it: they are machine-like. No, cells aren't machines for two reasons: 1) machines, by definition, are artifacts created by human beings. 2) The nature of a living organism is completely different from that of 'machines'. (even if we a re able to replicate a cell in a lab, like the group from Craig Venter did). Autopoiesis being one very big difference, another being emergence-within-the-environment (life) vs design-conditioned-by-will (machines)
> ... if the mind is an emergent phenomenon from machines (cells) then it seems quite likely that a mind could emerge from other, different machines. Since cells cannot be defined as machines, the argument about mind emerging from machines does not hold.
> I certainly don’t think individual cells have any subjective experience or sense of agency.
There's definitely research and scholarship that would beg to disagree with you there. At least in terms of completely writing off the notion of "agency" when it comes to cells.
Dr. Michael Levin's lab is doing some pretty cool work. https://drmichaellevin.org/
> Do you disagree with the assumption that cells are machines?
Yes? Literally no machine ever built by humans is capable of (or even hinting at beginnings of capability for) replication or novel synthesis like cells are, let alone autonomously, it’s quite unconceivable that anyone would take this to be a reasonable assumption in the first place.
Hmmm, well let’s take it one step lower. What do you think of organelles such as ribosomes? Do you disagree with the assumption that those are machines? They seem directly analogous to the jacquard loom or a CNC machine to me.
Yes again, ribosomes have nothing in common with machines, that are built and designed by humans.
The ball is in your camp to provide solid reasons to believe why they should be grouped together, when one is a deeply complex interrelated dynamic system (in fact, arguably the most complex system we know of) evolved bottom up over billions of years that we only very partially understand and cannot fully explain or document, and the other something entirely planned, designed, and produced by humans in which every component is finite and accounted for.
The argument boils down to “well the vibes kind of match to my taste, and it’s the best analogy I have in my analogy toolkit”, which is just not serious reasoning.
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replication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)
autonomous replication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_worm
nb that writing your own quine remains in general terms a fun and challenging exercise in many programming languages, but not python.
We are talking about physical replication, please let me know when a computer worm can turn my laptop into 2 laptops
Otherwise you’re just arguing that Sims are totally alive because Sims can make baby Sims.
The assertion is not that cells are machines built by humans (obviously false), merely that they are machines. Which they pretty clearly are, unless you assume the supernatural.
There is no need to assume the supernatural. They are machines based on what? By definition, a machine is something build by humans, or any intelligent life form (because we extend the definition from our own experience as self defined 'intelligent life forms'). Living organisms and machines do share traits under our current frame of reference in modern science. But that doesn't mean cells are machines. The right framing would be 'cells exhibit behavior and certain internal relations that we can conceptualize them as machines', which is different from 'cells are machines'.
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What exactly is there about cells that's inconceivable to replicate or synthetize? "I cannot conceive it" is a fallacy, an argument from incredulity. Trying to disguise it by draping it in the passive voice does not change that fact.
Nothing. It is just that they are so incredibly complex, that after +100 years of research we still don't know how they work or why. Will there be a time when we finally understand them 100% and could replicate them? Could be. That does not make them machines in any case, and the fallacy of thinking that mind/consciousness can emerge from machines will still be there.