The question I pose to you is simple. Who is to be the master, you or the bits of talented meat that secrete hormones for you? Your glands are the product of aeons of evolution, and they are not to be scorned, but neither are they to be obeyed blindly.
--Prime Function Aki Zeta-Five, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
Removing all those glands and hormones (assuming they are pars pro toto for our evolved urges), what would be left? A frontal lobe staring at the wall?
While I’m not privy to exactly what Prime Function Aki Zeta-Five meant to imply, this especially:
Who is to be the master, you or the bits of talented meat that secrete hormones for you?
… creates an impression of a homunculus, a little man in the box (the brain). An entity (“you”) who’d still have a utility function after removing all the evolved urges that initially drove it. I object to that kind of mystical thinking (and the frontal lobe just staring can also serve as a visual cue of criticism).
I think that the parts of ourself that we identify with don’t comprise all of our hormones. Yes, parts of the quote seem to border on dualism, but I think that it only does so because dualism is a neat little persuasive trick.
--Prime Function Aki Zeta-Five, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
Removing all those glands and hormones (assuming they are pars pro toto for our evolved urges), what would be left? A frontal lobe staring at the wall?
Why the criticism?
While I’m not privy to exactly what Prime Function Aki Zeta-Five meant to imply, this especially:
… creates an impression of a homunculus, a little man in the box (the brain). An entity (“you”) who’d still have a utility function after removing all the evolved urges that initially drove it. I object to that kind of mystical thinking (and the frontal lobe just staring can also serve as a visual cue of criticism).
I think that the parts of ourself that we identify with don’t comprise all of our hormones. Yes, parts of the quote seem to border on dualism, but I think that it only does so because dualism is a neat little persuasive trick.