Why did this article trigger Veeky Forums so much the last time it was posted?

Why did this article trigger Veeky Forums so much the last time it was posted?

>aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

We should stop comparing the human brain with the current technological breakthroughs. The model could help explain some parts of human intelligence but in the end it will always fail, for it's way too simplistic.

And worse of all it will probably lead to some shitty sci-fi novels.

The article is wrong in all possible ways.

The brain does store and retrieve memories.
It moves information around for processing and storage. Memories are processed and transformed before they're stored.

And you can find Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in the brain of some people, certainly including Beethoven.

The article is written by a psychologist that had his feelings hurt when the human psyche moved from some abstract concept to a more concrete model.
I'm sorry that he doesn't like it, but this is the reality.

>The model could help explain some parts of human intelligence but in the end it will always fail, for it's way too simplistic.

It's actually abstract enough to work.

Not a peer-reviewed scientific journal?
Into the trash.
Why is Veeky Forums so fulled of /x/ and /pol/ these days?
At least when Veeky Forums was here they avoided using fallacies.

>And you can find Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in the brain of some people, certainly including Beethoven.

Well, you do realize this doesn't make any sense at all, don't you?
I mean, let's say Beethoven was 5'8'' and a human brain is ~9'' in length. Now tell me: how can a 9''-thing include a 5'8''-thing? You have to fold Beethoven pretty often if you want to get him into a brain; not to say anything about Beethoven being dead, which means, there is no "Beethoven" anymore, which means: how is a brain supposed to include something which doesn't exist?

What I'm trying to say is: it would help if you guys actually analysed the statements you made instead of just stating stuff which doesn't make sense at all.

Is this joke?

>HURR DURR YOU DON'T REMEMBER EVERY LITTLE DETAIL OF THE ONE DOLLAR BILL THEREFORE MEMORIES AIN'T REAL
Let's take all the brainlets to the backyard and end them with a shovel.

>And you can find Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in the brain of some people, certainly including Beethoven.
>facts I've pulled out my ass

we already knew neurons are not transistors, but the brain simulates many of the processes that go on in computers, for example brain waves are like ticks

The brain is not a computer in the modern sense (Turing machine and the likes). Though it sure does process information and can be simulated on a Turing machine with the arbitrary precision (like any other physical phenomenon)

It's obvious.
There are people (called musicians) who's job it is to play music and (I kid you not) these people might actually play Beethovens symphonies quite often and If you asked them about a specific part or even the whole symphony they could play it for you without much hassle.

>Why did this article trigger Veeky Forums so much the last time it was posted?
Because it's obvious bullshit that still sounds pretentious?

I'm sorry to be that harsh, but it's not obvious, it's plain bullshit.

From:
>There are people (called musicians) who's job it is to play music and (I kid you not) these people might actually play Beethovens symphonies quite often and If you asked them about a specific part or even the whole symphony they could play it for you without much hassle.
does not follow:
>you can find Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in the brain of some people

You can use an MRI or anything like that and you can scan the brains of 500 000 musicians - you won't find Beethoven's 5th in any of it.

First of all: what is Beethoven's 5th?
Is it the score of Beethoven's 5th? Obviously not. You can learn the score of the 5th by heart but without being able to play an instrument, you won't be able to play the 5th.
And even if you're able to play parts of the 5th on your instrument, you won't be able to play the whole 5th, because you need different instruments playing at the same time.
Beethoven's 5th is the proper actualisation of the score of Beethoven's 5th by an orchestra.
The 5th is not a thing, it is a happening in time.

How are you able to "store" a happening in time in your brain? If you were able to do that, you could break down a four dimensional thing into a three dimensional thing - tell me, how you're able to do that!

It's a huge difference to say: a guy learned Beethoven's 5th and thereby influenced his brain, so he (not his brain) was able to play (his part of) the 5th, and to say:
>you can find Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in the brain of some people

And I'm really sick of it, because you find bullshit like that even in specialist literature (and it influences experiments and the interpretation of experiments in a really bad way).
The brain is not able to contain symbols or feelings or thoughts or anything like that, and as sure as hack it isn't able to contain Beethoven's 5th Symphony. That's not how the brain works and that's not what you can see on an MRI of the brain.

Have you lost your mind?
>You can use an MRI or anything like that and you can scan the brains of 500 000 musicians - you won't find Beethoven's 5th in any of it.
Obviously not but that has to with the technology being bad not with anything else.
>Is it the score of Beethoven's 5th?
It's exactly that. Nothing more nothing less.
A musical composition is a set of instructions written by a composer.
A human brain can just like a computer save these instructions and return them either in their original for or interpreted as music.
Therefore a musician can have a composition in his brain which would also be measurable with sufficiently advanced instruments.


Your only argument is the appeal that music is not an objectivly measurable thing which is complete bullshit but even then completely unrelated to the comparison between humans and computers because even your insane definition of music leads to the conclusion that neither computer nor humans can "save" music.

>The brain is not able to contain symbols or feelings or thoughts or anything like that
It should be obvious that this is false.
Consider the symbol "A" I can go into a room which has no information about "A" and write it on a sheet of paper therefore it is part of my brain.
Claiming otherwise is lunacy and the reason why psychology is a joke.
And not a funny one.

This is completely right. It is very idiotic to assume that brains work like computers. Don't listen to the Veeky Forums idiots, they don't know a thing about cognitive science.

To be honest, I'm just tired of discussions like that. I'm tired of people who lack the basics of the philosophy of language. I'm tired of people who think the "A" they write on a sheet of paper is part of their brain (just show me this "A" in a MRI), or that they can listen to the score of Beethoven's 5th.

I'll just leave this one

Well I'm sick of lunatics who simply ignore everything that contradicts them.

Answer me one question.
I enter a room which has no information about the symbol "A". But I can still write down that symbol "A" how is that possible if the knowledge about "A" is not part of me?
If it wasn't in the room and it wasn't in me how could I possibly write it down?


Secondly shut up about that MRI thing it makes you seem very uneducated an MRI is not measuring your brain down to the quantum level(the point where thoughts can be measured, memories read and symphonies be seen) it is a broad scan of brain activity.
Compare it to the earth. You are essentially claiming that just because a picture of earth doesn't show life there can't possibly be life on earth.
And you use that as an argument that life in general can't possibly exists.


Also I think you completely misunderstood that music thing.
Music is completely defined through its score but you can only listen to an interpretation of that music.
Although that is (pointlessly) debatable.

You realise all an MRI shows you is the relative concentration of water in the brain right?

Well I'm sick of lunatics who simply ignore everything that contradicts them.
I'm not ignoring anything that would contradict me - you only don't seem to understand what I'm talking about.

For example, I'm totally fine with this one:
>I enter a room which has no information about the symbol "A". But I can still write down that symbol "A" how is that possible if the knowledge about "A" is not part of me?

But this is not what you said; you said >Consider the symbol "A" I can go into a room which has no information about "A" and write it on a sheet of paper therefore it is part of my brain.

"You" and "your brain" are not the same thing. Although I consider "your brain" to have a lot to do with what you mean with "you", there's still a difference.
If we go back to the metaphor, the author of OP's text highly critisizes, "your brain" can be considered a computer, "you" are in a strange way both the virtual reality that runs on it's parameters as well as the observer of this virtual reality: the computer isn't able to operate with symbols, you are - nevertheless, while "you" can operate with symbols in said virtual reality, there has to be a process in your brain which enables you to do so. But that process isn't the same as the operation with symbols. For example: when you click on a desktop item, the operation "you" did is "clicking on a desktop item" - the operation the computer does is something completely different and has a lot to do with 1s and 0s. That's all I'm trying to say here.

>Also I think you completely misunderstood that music thing.
As someone who did quite a bit of music in my life, let me tell you: you don't learn a piece of music by learning it's score by heart - neither are you able to write down a score of a piece of music you learned without a process of retranslating your movements on the instrument into the notes on a score. But that's another subject.

>"You" and "your brain" are not the same thing.
Yes, it should be obvious that the brain is a subset of oneself.
Therefore what is in my brain is in me.
Everything else leads to the point where physical parts of the brain that are attached to the rest are not me which is contradictory in itself.
Because considering these parts to be not you is ignoring the obvious.

>the computer isn't able to operate with symbols, you are - nevertheless, while "you" can operate with symbols in said virtual reality
What does that mean?
A computer can operate with symbols. in fact most mathematics eg. solving (diff.) equations etc. , even proofs is something a computer can do.

>when you click on a desktop item, the operation "you" did is "clicking on a desktop item" - the operation the computer does is something completely different and has a lot to do with 1s and 0s. That's all I'm trying to say here.
And when I'm walking a step the operation my brain does is something completely different and has to do with physical or chemical interactions.

Of course a brain does not work like a computer in fact we have no clue about how our brains work.
So claiming that our brain works in any specific way is wrong.

But it needs to be pointed out that computers are modeled after how we think and if you believe me or not the only real application the theory of languages has is in computer science where the Idea of how to express thoughts is very important.

I'm glad we finally met.

>What does that mean?
To clarify that (it was not clare et distincte at all); I meant: the physical processes taking place in a computer are different to a process which can be described as "operating with symbols". Nevertheless, those physical processes can be used to help you "operating with symbols" if you write/have a proper software (but this is up to the one in front of the keyboard).

Have a nice day, sir or madam.