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this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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Um that's a nice metaphor and all but that's all it is. You pretend like its a profound statement when just 150 years ago they would have used the wax phonograph metaphor.
The map isn't the territory no matter how hard you pretend it is.
Again, what we engaging is a philosophical discussion. And it is not a metaphor, it is analogy.
And while the map is not the territory, the question is what consciousness is. Is it the territory (brain) or the map (software)? It is very easy to argue that AI gives us a good indication that consciousness might appear somehow in AI systems too at some time, and there, there would be no question that it is a software.
If you don't understand the dangers of mistaking metaphor for wisdom then you are not worth talking with.
AI is an approximation of how humans think cognition works, a metaphor written in code, but is not equivalent in recapitulating human cognition. I am not saying this is a limitation of hardware or software, but rather a limitation of our currently primitive understanding of our cognition.
It is too easy and a path to misdirection to just say 'Well the cholesterol and nerve bundles are the hardware, and thinking is the software!', and is JUST as inaccurate as some 1910 hick looking at a new automobile and saying "Oh I get it, it's a carriage! But where's the horse?" because in the hick's mind they think in metaphors of horses pulling things (which is why we still use 'horesepower to rate car engines'). They could not imagine a reality in which the cart 'pulled' itself.
Actual scientists know the dangers of metaphors and use them cautiously, science communicators use metaphors more heavily because that is a shortcut to get laypeoples to understand in some way complex concepts. If you know Terry Pratchett, these things are called 'lies to children'.
And don't get me wrong, 'lies to children' serve an important purpose, building the foundations of understanding for later growth.
Like saying 'the sun burns hydrogen to make light', which I learned in 3rd grade.
It's a lie to children of course, the process that the sun uses to convert hydrogen to energy is a FUCKTONNE more complicated than an 8 year old can understand, but the 'lie to children' that it does means that when I hit highschool and start learning physics and do the chapter on solar fusion, the framework of understanding is there while I come to grips with random electron walks and density shells.
'The brain is the hardware and thought is the software' is 'lies to children', and no more useful to the discussion than telling people 'the sun burns hydrogen to make light' in a scholarly discussion of stellar development. At best it will make everyone feel a little condescending towards you, at worst you derail the discussion.
Once again, ANALOGY, not metaphor. It is not just a figure of speech, but direct comparison.
Of course, analogy does not prove a thing, however, all we are discussing here with you is not science, but philosophy. Is consciousness a structure which is upon substrate, or is it the substrate itself? Are you information or a physical body? These are not scientific questions, science can only answer how exactly the processes in the brain go, but it cannot explain the subjective feeling of “me”. Nearly by definition, - science deals with objective reality, not subjective perception.
This is exactly why we have stagnated in most of our social development this last half century, people deliberately misunderstanding the point so they can feel justified in arguing it.
So fucking done with that kind of thing.
This is why it is important to discuss definitions. But in this particular case (whether consciousness includes matter or not) the discussion belongs to philosophy.
However, what you have mention, is quite often happens in philosophy itself. Take for example discussion of whether free will exists. The actual discussion is what free will is. But not everyone admits this.