The Brain is Wider than the Sky

Bryan Appleyard and Rod Liddle discuss how fast-moving technological forces are shaping our future and consider the shift from simple solutions to the "new complexity".

Listen to the full audio: www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2011/the-brain-is-wider-than-the-sky

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• 21st century enlightenment
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• bryan appleyard
• rod liddle
• artificial intelligence
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• brain
• neuroscience

[jed424]

Fascinating!!

[hrolvnir]

So, to summarize; the empirical method and computerized methods of modeling are great, but we shouldn't rely on them for everything because they're imperfect and simplistic.

[jgonsalk]

You can tell when someone has very little to offer when they offer an extended personal anecdote even when they have less than twenty minutes to speak. Another point he made that he failed to justify was the argument that the mind can't just be "on/off". The neural circuits are basically binary code (having either on or off as their only means of communication) but that is how computers work. He said the mind couldn't function like that and offered no explanation as to why and no alt hypothesis.

[jgonsalk]

Absolute rubbish. He basically said that science and technology are not always right (obvious, uninteresting point) and that neuroscience is very new and fMRIs are not yet accurate enough to really understand the brain (true, but that takes five seconds to express). Then he rambled aimlessly talking about how we aren't sure what will happen and generally retracted any point that was clearly wrong. He offered neither information nor insight and wasted my time in the process. Embarrassing.

[system3142]

At any rate, we're pretty far from actually mapping out the workings of a human mind. We've touched complex levels of computing and imitation, but we've yet to see how far technology can take us...

[Npowell01]

@philoposos

When people aren't people anymore, but something greater.

[Luper1billion]

@hrolvnir ya exactly. like they were saying at the end, he was overstating a point that could be boiled down into a sentence. his personal concern, i think, is what convinced him to expand on it so much

[hrolvnir]

@Luper1billion i think so too, but such an argument doesnt justify such a long video, or a book, for that matter, imho.

[Luper1billion]

@hrolvnir i think so

[xtronom]

@steeldragonx

There's a fundamental difference between reduction and synthesis (which is what you describe). Maybe in purely theoretical terms complex systems can be reduced to simple rules (and yes, this is what they all emerge from), but in reality all is different. We don't have infinite data points and we don't have infinitely accurate data points, hence we can't derive simple rules. We can guess simple rules and observe how well they fit. But that's not reduction.

[steeldragonx]

@xtronom Yes they can. A system is a structure, Linus Pauling won a a Nobel Prize for this discovery on molecules, in fact this is even how fractal geometry works. Basic principles giving rise to complex systems. Modern Antenna in your cellphones work based on this fact. A machine, is a structure, it is based on principles which make it work, regardless of how complicated that  machine is, including biological ones.

[philoposos]

Geee... When people will understand that repeating insistently their own opinions isn't a proof of a statement ?