
Artificial-Intelligence Breakthrough? “The Neo-Darwinian Theory of the Mind” - dchacke
https://medium.com/conjecture-magazine/the-neo-darwinian-theory-of-the-mind-d84c0bcc6485
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lostmsu
You will find no breakthrough there. It is just a very long philosophicalish
stream of consciousness revolving about a thought, that everybody fails at AI
because they forgot about replication.

The examples in the article are totally meaningless. An idea is _not_ better
accepted by some _because_ it replicates better in their brains. That's a
tautology.

~~~
dchacke
> The examples in the article are totally meaningless.

Which ones and why are they meaningless?

> An idea is _not_ better accepted by some _because_ it replicates better in
> their brains. That's a tautology.

I'm not sure it's a tautology, as the same phenomenon could be explained
(poorly) through updating of "credences," for example, or other explanations.
In any case, if you think that acceptance of an idea _must_ involve
replication (or is indeed synonymous with successful replication at the
expense of rival ideas), isn't that an argument _in favor_ of the theory?

~~~
lostmsu
It an argument against wasting your time reviewing a "theory", because if the
author failed to spot a simple tautology, what does it say about him being
logical in the rest of the work?

Especially with the extraordinary claims.

~~~
dchacke
You didn't answer my question about which claims you find meaningless and why.
But now you've changed to calling the claims "extraordinary," which is quite
different from "meaningless"\--one might argue a claim couldn't be both at the
same time. Which is it? Or which claims are which and why?

Btw, neo-Darwinism generally has been criticized for being tautological (the
"better replicators spread better" stuff). The article even addresses that. Do
you find neo-Darwinism generally to be a logical mistake because it contains
this well-known tautology? Or do you only find the tautology problematic in
this particular instance because it's a new application of neo-Darwinism?

If you found logical mistakes in the rest of the article, I'd be interested in
hearing them.

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lostmsu
I did not know about neo-Darwinism prior to your comment. I was addressing
specific statement.

Because of your request, I skimmed through parts of the article again, and
again only found tautology: "Why do some people believe some things over
others? Because some ideas spread through their minds better than others."

I can not claim it is illogical, but because it is highly tautological, it is
very useless, and I don't wish to spend any more of time on it.

~~~
dchacke
I'll respect your wish not to spend any more time on it, and will leave you
with two closing comments:

1\. Like I said, the article is aware of and _addresses_ the tautological
nature of neo-Darwinism generally.

2\. The part you quoted is not useless because, if true, it refutes other (en-
vogue but false) theories about "reasons for belief," such as higher/lower
numeric credences, stronger neuronal connections, etc.

