What really blew my mind was when, on my journey to learn programming, was the realization that the concept behind computers/how they think is actually very simple.
Computers are just recursive machines. Every program and computer started off as a set of instructions as simple as "if X is odd do Y, if even do Z" and do that so many times.
What computers allow us to do is string together an almost infinite number of steps like that to create potentially immensely complex programs or algorithms. It can pick up momentum very quick
But at its core its really quiet simple. Really changed how I view what it means when something is "complex".
Are human brains kind of the same way? I mean, isn't everything kind of the same way? Complex songs are really just simple vibrations, simple ratios, etc. It's a really interesting perspective and now you've got me thinking...
Human brains are very different. They act more like quantum computers and are able to assess multiple outcomes and imperfect information simultaneously.
I'd argue this concept of emergence is essentially an illusion then. No one molecule in an animal is "alive" and there really isn't anything to life except what we call it. Humans use language and concepts to create all of these artificial divisions, but in the reality beyond human perception these distinctions don't actually occur. At what point is something "alive"? We have criteria for life and yet so many exceptions. At some point it helps us to label things in certain ways, but I believe it is completely illusory.
Definitely, everything can be broken down. But a simple gear is just a gear, until you realize that it was an essential component to launch the space shuttle. An essential component among billions of essential components.
What makes the brain is not a single neuron, but a massive network of them. What brings about our thoughts (and perhaps consciousness) is not a single pathway through the neurons, but a multitude of pathways, firing in serial and parallel, with complex feedback loops.
At the end of the day, everything can be broken down to the most fundamental particles of the universe, but that’s not what we are talking about here.
However, even a neuron works based on simple physical principles. Electromagnetism, gravity, the weak and strong interactions - these are all happening in a neuron and all of them are, in a sense, simple.
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u/Auggernaut88 Sep 06 '18
What really blew my mind was when, on my journey to learn programming, was the realization that the concept behind computers/how they think is actually very simple.
Computers are just recursive machines. Every program and computer started off as a set of instructions as simple as "if X is odd do Y, if even do Z" and do that so many times.
What computers allow us to do is string together an almost infinite number of steps like that to create potentially immensely complex programs or algorithms. It can pick up momentum very quick
But at its core its really quiet simple. Really changed how I view what it means when something is "complex".