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Comment by Rury | Hacker News Reader

>There's no evidence that anything about the way human minds work is fundamentally unexplainable.

Agreed. What I'm implying here is if we come circle to fully explaining how the brain works, then in theory we could predict how someone will function if given all input conditions (whether this is practical is another matter). If this is true, then wouldn't we just be biomechanical robots operating on stimuli? Would we be any more intelligent than say a rock, that similarly just reacts to physical stimuli? Or are we just a more complex rock?

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> If this is true, then wouldn't we just be biomechanical robots operating on stimuli

Yes, that's right. Which is one of the big problems with this line of argument for many people -- how do you reconcile "biomechanical robot" with the concepts of "free will" and "moral decision-making"?

I'm personally agnostic on the issue (I don't believe science is able to answer this question yet -- or possibly ever.)

I do think it's interesting that you say "just a biomechanical robot." The "just" implies that being a robot -- a fancy rock -- in some way isn't enough. But in my mind, there's absolutely no (objective) reason to think of a human as any better or more important than a robot, or a rock.

Yeah, sorry I don't mean to imply that.

I'm just trying to challenge people's assumptions of what makes something intelligent. To me, it's not precisely clear as to what makes something intelligent, and is why I think we've had trouble coming up with a satisfactory test for determining when a computer is intelligent.

Gotcha -- that makes total sense. Thanks!

(P.S. Sorry for putting words in your mouth -- I don't want to imply you said anything you didn't. My bad there.)

> wouldn't we just be biomechanical robots operating on stimuli?

> are we just a more complex rock?

of course we are. moreover, it's pretty straightforward to trace our evolution back to rocks or rock-like formations.

It's pretty straightforward to trace our evolution back to single cells, but to rocks? And I don't think there is a clear idea of where viruses and stuff come in. I vaguely remember an article suggesting there might be a previously unknown mechanism used by the brain to handle memories that resembles (literal) viral machinery. Some think there might have been a biosphere before DNA, that used RNA. But presumably early life underwent transformations that wiped out the very first, whatever it was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

(see the "Origin of biological metabolism" section - lots of good new research coming out recently, including simulations of the very early processes predating life as such)

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