[Dprglist] seriously off topic rant about tonight's discussion
David P. Anderson
davida at smu.edu
Wed Oct 27 12:22:37 PDT 2021
Howdy,
I don't disagree. Once the topic moves from the roboty implications of
a perhaps new neural understanding of how human vision works to
conjectures about the nature of "conciousness" itself, we are all adrift!
cheers
David
On 10/27/21 1:28 PM, Carl Ott via DPRGlist wrote:
>
> */[EXTERNAL SENDER]/*
>
>
> OK - I confess to fueling (hopefully entertaining) intellectual
> fisticuffs - Sorry - I was aiming more to include representative
> fodder for the chat records versus a fringe representation...
>
> Now I'm even more intrigued than before to understand what this bru ha
> ha is all about ;-)
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2021 at 12:38 PM Karim Virani via DPRGlist
> <dprglist at lists.dprg.org <mailto:dprglist at lists.dprg.org>> wrote:
>
> pps. I don't expect David to respond to this - David was referring
> to the papers that Donald Hoffman has produced. I looked at his CV
> last night and he has plenty of the publish-or-perish normal
> scientific investigations into human perception systems. Somebody
> else posted the TED interview into the chat from a google search.
> That interview is related to what I'd call an alternative set of
> publications centered around his panpsychic philosophy which seem
> to be a distinct thread in his output, but which I would resist
> calling science. Anyhow, I found that particular interview to be
> outlandish enough to warrant some hopefully entertaining
> intellectual fisticuffs.
>
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2021 at 3:15 AM Karim Virani
> <pondersome64 at gmail.com <mailto:pondersome64 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> First, the Nature special on bees was just fantastic. I went
> ahead and watched it after the conversation tonight.
> https://video.kera.org/video/my-garden-of-a-thousand-bees-trjhzt/
> <https://secure-web.cisco.com/1Lm2J6Ce1g3H5QzXCZxnx3xCB0tmEnEcBuYCIskB3yK7Hz9CRDVJlZqCbNLUN2zBKQXUWX298newtFEHinx6AthimWo8G6QWabAfPdj_zUkcMak7KsqQE54jcC33xOIAssc_Xk9CN6R6fTptE0Qy9eMffAlSEAQ-SSjCOTzbQauA-XWDo76-Hj8YQoMPsB7ob7XE7vA9khrjTYHv8_VtHwBiSskPgWJ9cq69BIZyXrY7UUCA8IH4TO7p_Ze40NkOEU6_79Bpw2-wU29s90vkcp1mOmIGaVZfyO43FkMTA7hs/https%3A%2F%2Fvideo.kera.org%2Fvideo%2Fmy-garden-of-a-thousand-bees-trjhzt%2F>
>
> And then ... there's the Donald Hoffman TED interview ...
>
> OMG David!!!
>
> You were totally fun'in us. You meant to provoke! DH is just a
> Deepak Chopra wannabe. I resist giving credence to these
> peddlers of soft-shoe quantum theory tincture in pursuit of
> monetizable wishful thinking.
>
> Granted this was only one interview on a platform that often
> caters to the intellectual mystics among us (I used to be a
> fan of TED talks), but this dude outed himself completely.
>
> First he completely mis-characterizes the field of modern
> cognitive science (if that's what he considers to be his
> colleagues) and paints it in the light of 70's era progress.
> As if he was the first to consider fitness as the basis for
> how evolutionary development works. Almost nobody thinks
> sensory evolution is driven to create accurate or truthful
> interpretations of reality. He can't claim that as his unique
> insight. It's like he's saying his peers all have a 5th grade
> understanding of evolution.
>
> But then he goes totally bonkers:
>
> 1. Consciousness is hard to describe and investigate - ok so far
> 2. So let's throw traditional "reality" out the window and
> assume the universe is fundamentally made up of a network of
> multi-level conscious entities
> 3. For those entities bundled up as humans, the network has
> decided to give them an "interface" that creates time, space,
> particles, neurons, etc. as a useful fiction. (ie. the
> software is real and the hardware is the story)
> 4. Oh, and I have some math, so it's not really BS
> 5. Oh, and I may or may not believe this, but I'm brave for
> going out on a limb and daring to shake up the field because
> hard problems need disruptions to solve. (this is my get out
> of jail free card, maybe)
>
> I agree with step 1, but step 2, that's a doozy. The rest is a
> sophomoric attempt to confound interesting modern explorations
> into the foundations of physics with 70s era pop quantum
> psychology like in the Dancing Wu Li Masters or the Tao of
> Physics. My bet, he'd point to those books as his influences.
> They were fun reads when I was a pup. But they are truly works
> of fiction. So is this dude.
>
> Now I'm going to tell you how I really feel...
> ... Oh, and I'm actually very open minded about this guy...
>
> David, thanks for riling my sensibilities - haven't had a good
> rant defending honest inquiry in ages.
>
> Again, this is effectively a slam of a single interview but if
> you wish to point to a place where he offers a shred of
> evidence toward his theory, or can correct my interpretation
> of this interview, well please share. We can continue the fun :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Karim
> ps. dear reader, this acerbic review is a choice in creative
> expression. If it offends your viewpoint or sensibilities, I'm
> sorry, it was not meant to do so
>
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