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it is an exposition of a certain biased, but informed perspective.
The Mind is a computational structure which results from the mixture of Genes, Cultures and Consciousness. While these three interact in complex ways, they are ultimately computational systems on their own
John Von Neumann
his last book, The Computer and the Brain,
Herbert Simon (1916-2001), the only person to have obtained both the Nobel Prize and the Turing Award.
his book The Sciences of the Artificial, Simon said, “I am not expert-perhaps not even literate.” [Simon, 1968, p.183].
Alan Turing (1912-1954)
Turing Machine, which can perform a simple set of operations to transform inputs into outputs. He then proposed that any transformation that could be performed by such a machine should be called a “computation”.
David Chalmers
Chalmers points out, the computation being performed and the concrete physical transformation in which it is implemented are different things.
Take digestion for example. The stomach (like any system) is simultaneously performing an energetic transformation of matter and implementing an informational relationship between inputs and outputs; but what we care about is the energetic transformation. If I were to run a simulation of digestion that maintained the same informational relationship between inputs and outputs in my laptop, I would be implementing the same computations but I would not be doing digestion. This is precisely the opposite of what happens with my laptop. What matters is the computation;
phenomena have two predominant aspects, the energetic and the informational.
Fourier Transform (a mathematical function that decomposes a signal into its different frequencies)
It has even been argued that because of different energy costs, animals spread their required computations across networks which absorb regularities over different timescales: neurons and nerves adapt the fastest but are most costly, hormones respond at intermediate speeds, muscles adapt at monthly or weekly rates by growing or shrinking, and bones absorb regularities slowest but cheapest
‘cognitive revolution’
(Molecular Neuroscience)
(Systems Neuroscience).
(Cognitive Neuroscience).
Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852)
we did not know that neurons existed until Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934) saw them in the microscope for the first time
Whichever systems have properties that allow them to persist in an environment are the systems that do persist.
tautological
DNA and RNA. They simultaneously play the structural, the informational, and the chemical roles
the chemical process which allows molecules to transform through sequences of intermediate energetically stable stages
Even though there are still many details to be worked out, we now conceptually understand what life is, how it works, and more recently, how it originated. As amazing as it is, there is nothing magical about it.
daunting
‘survival of the fittest’ as through survival of whatever could survive, or ‘survival of the fit enough’.
To analyze the sensory-motor circuits of the fixated flies, scientists have to create fake virtual worlds so that when the fly tries to move, the visual field changes as if it were indeed moving.
connectomics
As Yuval Harari says, ““the most important thing about prehistoric humans is that they were insignificant animals.”
At some point, cultural evolution started to become intertwined with genetic evolution by changing the evolutionary landscape. This co-evolution gave us long childhoods to learn, long postmenopausal periods to teach, and large brains to store and process information.
300,000 years ago – in the brains of the Homo sapiens, anatomically identical to ours.
propagation.
Behavioral Modernity.
Because of Cultures, humans were no longer insignificant.
it is our social nature and our social learning capabilities more than our cognitive abilities or any other trait which sets us apart from other species.
the blog ‘Wait but Why’ [Urban, 2017]).
Humans became sedentary around 10,000 BC with the invention of farming.
Selfish Gene, several scientists have argued in favor of using the metaphor of the Selfish Meme
it is ideas, much more than individuals, that have directed the course of human history. A history of religions, of nations and of political ideologies.
The power of Cultures is most enhanced when brains are built to adopt the beliefs of people around them. It is no coincidence that humans excel at imitation.
docile,
Boyd suggests that the reason why Christianity rapidly spread in the Roman Empire and prevailed over Paganism may be that it fomented mutual aid and care for the sick. This in turn resulted in reduced mortality and a higher quality of life.
anti-rational memes can sometimes become standards of praise and favor, as is the case of religious faith which precisely consists on believing without proof and without questioning;
until the 19th century, people did not think about progress and governments did not think about growth. “Most premodern rulers and business people did not finance research about the nature of the universe in order to develop new technologies, and most thinkers did not try to translate their findings into technological gadgets.” On the contrary, “rulers financed educational institutions whose mandate was to spread traditional knowledge for the purpose of buttressing the existing order”
Slowly, a shift in equilibrium
resulted in the period known as the Enlightenment which brought along a new type of society. In direct opposition to Static Societies, in an Open Society it is rational and progress-oriented memes get selected in a self-reinforcing way. Their value comes not from following tradition but from finding the truth. Unlike imitation or religious faith, experimentation and questioning become useful and valued. In direct opposition to the “lazy and cowardly submission to the dogmas and formulas of religious and political authority”, Enlightenment’s motto became “Dare to understand!”
modern liberal democracy. Its roots are founded in a contradiction: while democracy is in its essence majoritarian, liberalism consists on fixating limits to what the majority can do.
in Athens, everything was for the public and freedom consisted in active participation and in collective power. Opposite to that, modern freedom consists of the uninvaded enjoyment of independent privacy.
