Gunnar_Zarncke comments on Rationality Quotes Thread November 2015 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: elharo 02 November 2015 12:30PM

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Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 24 November 2015 10:07:00PM *  0 points [-]

...it will be illuminating to discuss briefly an aspect of the biology and chemistry of yesterday, namely vitalism. Vitalism is the notion that living matter contains a vital principle which is absent from non-living entities, so that living matter obeys different laws from those that rule non-living matter. This is an old idea, and it is by no means ridiculous. This idea has led in chemistry to a distinction between organic and inorganic substances.

-- POST-HUMAN MATHEMATICS by David Ruelle

(strange that this very winding-road like insight follows from a comment almost at the same time as The Winding Path)

Comment author: Glen 25 November 2015 10:06:54PM 0 points [-]

Why is it not ridiculous? From skimming the source, he seems to be using a long discredited biological idea and applying it to intelligence because there's a vague resemblance if you squint at it. There's no clear reason to believe that vitalism would be any more possible, let alone plausible, with regards to intelligence as opposed to organic compounds.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 26 November 2015 08:31:17PM 2 points [-]

'long discredited' sounds like hindsight bias.

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