Thanks, by the way, for indulging my question and elaborating on something tangential to your point.
Besides, I am smarter than my brain, after all.
This is similar to the ‘corrupted hardware’ claim insofar as both seem to me to be in tension with the software/hardware metaphor: if your brain is your hardware, and your rational deliberation and reflection is software, then it doesn’t make sense to say that the brain isn’t as smart as you (the software) are. It wouldn’t make sense to say of hardware that it doesn’t [sufficiently] perform the functions of software. Hardware and software do different things.
So it has to be that you have two different sets of software. A native software that your brain is running all the time and which is selfish and uncontrolled, alongside an engendered software which is rational and with which you self-identify. If the brain is corrupted, it’s not in its distinctive functions, but just in the fact that it has this native software that you can’t entirely control and can’t get rid of.
But that still seems off to me. We can’t really call the brain ‘corrupted hardware’ because we have no idea what non-corrupted hardware would even look like. At the moment, general intelligence is only possible on one kind of hardware: ours. So as far as we know, the hacked together mess that is the human brain is actually what general intelligence requires. Likewise, the non-rational software apparently doesn’t stand in relation to the rational software as an alien competitor. The non-rational stuff and the rational stuff seem to be joined everywhere, and it’s not at all clear that the rational stuff even works without the rest of it.
Well, when metaphors break, I say just toss ’em. It’s not exactly like the distinction between hardware and software; your new metaphor makes a little bit more sense in terms of what we’re discussing now, but in the end, the brain is only completely like the brain.
We could think of it this way: the brain is like a computer with an awful user interface, which forces us to constantly run a whole lot of programs which we don’t necessarily want and can’t actually read or control. It also has a little bit of processing power left for us to install other applications. The only thing we actually like about our computer is the applications we chose to put in, even though not having the computer at all would mean we had no way to run them.
I was not being 100% serious when I said I was smarter than my brain; it was sort of intended to illustrate the weird tension I have: all that I am is contained in my brain, but not all of my brain is who I am.
So as far as we know, the hacked together mess that is the human brain is actually what general intelligence requires.
This hacked-together brain results in some general intelligence; it’s highly unlikely that it’s optimized for general intelligence, that we can’t, even in theory, imagine a better substrate for it. In short, “corrupted hardware” means “my physical brain is not optimized for the things my conscious mind values.”
Thanks, by the way, for indulging my question and elaborating on something tangential to your point.
This is similar to the ‘corrupted hardware’ claim insofar as both seem to me to be in tension with the software/hardware metaphor: if your brain is your hardware, and your rational deliberation and reflection is software, then it doesn’t make sense to say that the brain isn’t as smart as you (the software) are. It wouldn’t make sense to say of hardware that it doesn’t [sufficiently] perform the functions of software. Hardware and software do different things.
So it has to be that you have two different sets of software. A native software that your brain is running all the time and which is selfish and uncontrolled, alongside an engendered software which is rational and with which you self-identify. If the brain is corrupted, it’s not in its distinctive functions, but just in the fact that it has this native software that you can’t entirely control and can’t get rid of.
But that still seems off to me. We can’t really call the brain ‘corrupted hardware’ because we have no idea what non-corrupted hardware would even look like. At the moment, general intelligence is only possible on one kind of hardware: ours. So as far as we know, the hacked together mess that is the human brain is actually what general intelligence requires. Likewise, the non-rational software apparently doesn’t stand in relation to the rational software as an alien competitor. The non-rational stuff and the rational stuff seem to be joined everywhere, and it’s not at all clear that the rational stuff even works without the rest of it.
Well, when metaphors break, I say just toss ’em. It’s not exactly like the distinction between hardware and software; your new metaphor makes a little bit more sense in terms of what we’re discussing now, but in the end, the brain is only completely like the brain.
We could think of it this way: the brain is like a computer with an awful user interface, which forces us to constantly run a whole lot of programs which we don’t necessarily want and can’t actually read or control. It also has a little bit of processing power left for us to install other applications. The only thing we actually like about our computer is the applications we chose to put in, even though not having the computer at all would mean we had no way to run them.
I was not being 100% serious when I said I was smarter than my brain; it was sort of intended to illustrate the weird tension I have: all that I am is contained in my brain, but not all of my brain is who I am.
This hacked-together brain results in some general intelligence; it’s highly unlikely that it’s optimized for general intelligence, that we can’t, even in theory, imagine a better substrate for it. In short, “corrupted hardware” means “my physical brain is not optimized for the things my conscious mind values.”
Point taken, and you’re probably right about the optimization thing. Thanks for taking the time to explain.
You’re welcome! :) Thank you for forcing me to think more precisely about this.