Your brain cannot be trusted. It is not safe. You must be careful with what you put into it, because it will decide the output, not you.
This “it” may, or even should, relate to the idea itself. The same idea, the same meme, put into a healthy rational brains anywhere, will decide the same! Since the brains are just a rational machine always doing the best possible thing.
It is the input, what decides the output. Machine has no other (irrational) choices, than to process the input best way it can, and then to spit out the output.
It is not my calculator only, which outputs “12” to the input “5+7″. It is every unbroken calculator in the world, which outputs the same.
So again. The input “decides” what the output should be, not the computer (brains).
So far as I can tell you’re agreeing with me, or at least arguing at a right angle to what this post was intended to discuss. Whether it’s the brain or the input that does the deciding, there are some combinations of brain and input that produce results that may be contrary to one’s conscious preferences.
The fact that all brains work in roughly the same way doesn’t change the fact that they are not the ideal substrate for rational cognition in a modern environment.
There is do “default” to fall back to when you “distrust your brain”. Any act of “distrust” must be accompanied with a specific suggestion for improvement, which, where available, should surely be taken.
Look up “Neurath’s Boat” (sometimes “Neurath’s Ship”).
We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.
I believe we have more control then we think we have. I call it ‘mind maintenance’ if you think about and very carefully try to analyze problems, biases, personal traps etc.it is possible to make a difference to how you approach things in the future. As long as you feel you are separate from your brain/mind or have some sort of magical free will or mistrust your own thinking, it will be very difficult to do mind maintenance. There is not a you and your brain. There is one brain and within it there is widespread awareness of some of its processes—together being you.
Intractable. Brain inputs are partially dependent on brain outputs. Thus you need to exclude all inputs from inside future light cone originating at space-time point of brain formation to deny participation of brain in causal chain. This will render reasoning about brain functions nearly impossible.
The set of all possible inputs is larger and much more diverse, than the set of all human brains.
Do you mean set of all possible sequences of inputs? As one sample of input (dominated by visual perception ~10^8 cone and rod cells * ~10 bit per cell =10^9 bits) is much less diverse than brain that contains ~10^14 synapses.
The wast majority of inputs will be processed the same way, by the most brains.
If you talk about the sequence of all inputs from birth to current moment, including genetic information, then yes, the sequence uniquely defines brain structure and output (and the sequence is partially dependent on previous outputs of brain). But this means that brain participates in its own development, and you can’t say that inputs is all we need, as those inputs depend on brain’s reactions (brain in vat is not counter example).
If you talk about some recent part of input sequence, than I can’t see a basis for your assertion. If we have input space of N elements, output space of M elements, where N>>M, and M brains with different mappings from input to output, then counter example is that i-th brain always outputs i-th output.
Sorry for divergence from main topic, but I find it inappropriate and dangerous when brain is seen not as a “substrate” of conscious agent, but as a toy of laws of physics/circumstances. Especially because latter looks like rational point of view.
This “it” may, or even should, relate to the idea itself. The same idea, the same meme, put into a healthy rational brains anywhere, will decide the same! Since the brains are just a rational machine always doing the best possible thing.
It is the input, what decides the output. Machine has no other (irrational) choices, than to process the input best way it can, and then to spit out the output.
It is not my calculator only, which outputs “12” to the input “5+7″. It is every unbroken calculator in the world, which outputs the same.
So again. The input “decides” what the output should be, not the computer (brains).
This would also be true of unbroken brains, if there were any.
Mostly they are unbroken. At least the most of the time. They do perform their functions the best way they can.
And this is my point. They can’t “decide” the output. The input “decides” the output.
So far as I can tell you’re agreeing with me, or at least arguing at a right angle to what this post was intended to discuss. Whether it’s the brain or the input that does the deciding, there are some combinations of brain and input that produce results that may be contrary to one’s conscious preferences.
The fact that all brains work in roughly the same way doesn’t change the fact that they are not the ideal substrate for rational cognition in a modern environment.
So you say, you can’t trust your brains.
But you can trust them in this debate?
There is no obvious way in which genes that would cause my brain to deceive me in this sort of case would be selected for.
(If there is such a bias that applies here, I would lower the estimated accuracy of my argument accordingly.)
We have to repair the ship while at sail. What alternate means of thinking about it do you propose?
Don’t doubt too much in your brains. If you do, you can’t reason. That you brains are okay is a necessary premise for any rational thinking.
Your premise could be wrong, but then you are doomed anyway.
There is do “default” to fall back to when you “distrust your brain”. Any act of “distrust” must be accompanied with a specific suggestion for improvement, which, where available, should surely be taken.
When you distrust your brains, it is an internal affair. You can only hope, that you will “follow the good guy in you” in such an event.
Look up “Neurath’s Boat” (sometimes “Neurath’s Ship”).
Right now, you can’t repair your brains very much. We have no good access to them. You have to trust them. At least for now.
What doesn’t mean, they are right. It only means that this is your best bet you can make. At least for now.
I believe we have more control then we think we have. I call it ‘mind maintenance’ if you think about and very carefully try to analyze problems, biases, personal traps etc.it is possible to make a difference to how you approach things in the future. As long as you feel you are separate from your brain/mind or have some sort of magical free will or mistrust your own thinking, it will be very difficult to do mind maintenance. There is not a you and your brain. There is one brain and within it there is widespread awareness of some of its processes—together being you.
I believe that too. But only if the underlying mental process is sound. Than you will handle the inputs properly and the outputs will be satisfactory.
Even in the case of optical illusions, you can understand the context and everything will go by smoothly.
But if you doubt in your brains’ abilities generally, it’s nothing you can do.
Your point contains 0 bits of information about brain. Everything can be treated as object whose output is a function of history of inputs.
I tried to inform you about inputs, not as much about brains. My inputs decides your outputs. Your brains are, what they are.
Intractable. Brain inputs are partially dependent on brain outputs. Thus you need to exclude all inputs from inside future light cone originating at space-time point of brain formation to deny participation of brain in causal chain. This will render reasoning about brain functions nearly impossible.
To rephrase myself:
The set of all possible inputs is larger and much more diverse, than the set of all human brains.
The wast majority of inputs will be processed the same way, by the most brains.
The output is much more dependent of the input, than of the brains.
See this now?
Do you mean set of all possible sequences of inputs? As one sample of input (dominated by visual perception ~10^8 cone and rod cells * ~10 bit per cell =10^9 bits) is much less diverse than brain that contains ~10^14 synapses.
If you talk about the sequence of all inputs from birth to current moment, including genetic information, then yes, the sequence uniquely defines brain structure and output (and the sequence is partially dependent on previous outputs of brain). But this means that brain participates in its own development, and you can’t say that inputs is all we need, as those inputs depend on brain’s reactions (brain in vat is not counter example).
If you talk about some recent part of input sequence, than I can’t see a basis for your assertion. If we have input space of N elements, output space of M elements, where N>>M, and M brains with different mappings from input to output, then counter example is that i-th brain always outputs i-th output.
Here is relevant article “Thou art physics” with relevant links.
Sorry for divergence from main topic, but I find it inappropriate and dangerous when brain is seen not as a “substrate” of conscious agent, but as a toy of laws of physics/circumstances. Especially because latter looks like rational point of view.