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noetic flatulence » Fundamentalism in the workplace

TrackBack — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 13:36:00 GMT

noetic flatulence » Fundamentalism in the workplace

RE: The Threat of Pigeons and Other Fundamentalists

don@ghostdev.ca (Don Newman) — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 01:04:00 GMT

I have seen superstitious managers many times in my past. In the past I have been the type to question the "why" of everything before just accepting it. After reading your insights on this I am worried that now I am in a position of management I will slowly become superstitious as time goes on too.

re: The Threat of Pigeons and Other Fundamentalists

TheCyberKnight — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 16:48:00 GMT

Very interesting piece of paper.
Food for thought.
Thanks for sharing.

re: Sin Taxes

Prasanna — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 18:40:00 GMT

This is interesting. I maybe wrong (I am certainly naive when it comes to economics) but FWIW here are my 2 cents...

Moving to a licensing model for smokers is simply pushing the time inconsistency onto an yearly basis rather than a daily (or weekly) basis. Smokers still have to decide every year whether they want to acquire the license or not. Instead of making this choice 1000 times over their lifetime, they will be doing this 20 times. I somehow think that the pattern that can be discerned in the 1000 choices will continue to exist in the 20 choices. In other words, I don't think this helps remove the inconsistency - it merely pushes it to a macro level (fractals anyone?).

Will managers ever understand us Geeks?

TrackBack — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:26:00 GMT

Will managers ever understand us Geeks?

TrackBack — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:18:00 GMT

re: Daniel C. Dennett – from BIG THINKERS

Tony Soper — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 19:19:00 GMT

Daniel:
I really like your thoughts here. Re: Sci-fi conceptions about where the mind resides, if you haven't yet - check out Altered Carbon by RICHARD MORGAN.
For a great extended philosophical discussion of mind/brain issues, see The Mind's I by Douglas R. & Dennett, Daniel C. Hofstadter, Daniel C. Dennett

re: Daniel C. Dennett – from BIG THINKERS

Daniel Ramski — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:41:00 GMT

>Yes, we have a soul. But it’s made of lots of tiny robots.

That doesn't ring true. That's like trying to claim that software equals hardware. Yes, hardware functions in a finite, boring manner; each bit stores a 0 or 1. And software is made up of a configuration of many of these bits. So when you put lots and lots of the hardware bits together in a certain way, you come up with software. But that doesn't mean that those specific bits ARE the software. If you have 2000 bits representing a program on Machine A, you can reproduce the program on Machine B by setting 2000 bits in the correct order. In other words, although the hardware serves as a convenient place to store the software, the hardware does NOT equal the software.

Ok, so if you wanted to abuse the analogy a bit more, you might now say that the software (mind) is just a certain configuration of hardware bits (neurons), in a purely mechanical way. But what if we had a computer whose basic memory units somehow stored, say, 4 states? Instead of a binary digit (bit), we somehow come up with a machine that can store four states, a quadratic digit (um. . . a qit, for lack of a better (not-already-existing) word). These new qits are still boring, manual hardware, yet you could still get exactly the same software to run on it (after what I suspect would be a nightmarish porting session). But the _configuration_ of the hardware elements would change. And this could extend to eight-state (octogonal digits. . . octits?) hardware, 16-state hardware (not even gonna try making one up), etc. with the configuration of the hardware parts changing, but the result (software) staying the same. Thus you may be able to point at a collection of bits on your machine and declare "this is software X", but all you've identified is the place in your hardware where software X resides.

**finally arrives at his point**

In other words, the software (mind) exists independant of whatever kind of hardware (brain, ganglia, etc.) is currently housing it. Saying that your mind is "lots of little bits doing very rigid, ungraceful, inflexible things" is misleading - your mind is merely being _stored_ by those rather banal bits. The software could exist on a completely different piece of machinery wholly unregcognizable to you or me.

Sure, your mind isn't (currently) portable to other hardware, campy sci-fi movies notwithstanding. But you can't say that those neurons ARE your mind--they aren't. They're just running the program.

Thanks,

Daniel Ramski

[Bonus fun with analogies:]
(1) Ok, so your mind isn't as durable as software either; you've only got one copy of, and it's running on a single piece of hardware (so you're locked in to the platform, running proprietary OEM software full of bugs--ok, ok, I'll let the joke fall). Once that solitary piece of hardware fails, you've lost your software. Kind of makes you wish we had tape backup slots in the back of your head. . .

(2) Incidentally, the whole idea of "an absolutely mindless, ignorant, mechanical process which generates minds" is only valid if you accept the theory of evolution. Which is just a _theory_ although a widely held one. Just like Biblical Creationism is a theory. You shouldn't state either view as fact for a position unles you have in your possession (a) a full-length video showing millions of years of evolution, or (2) a full-length video of the Creation happening. And neither of us has either item--and I seem to have misplaced my Polaroid of the Big Bang, too.

re: Daniel C. Dennett – from BIG THINKERS

Brant Gurganus — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 23:18:00 GMT

Nice article.