Dennis Hackethal’s Blog
My blog about philosophy, coding, and anything else that interests me.
Tweets
An archive of my tweets and retweets through . They may be formatted slightly differently than on Twitter. API access has since gotten prohibitively expensive – I don't know whether or when I'll be able to update this archive.
But in case I will, you can subscribe via RSS – without a Twitter account. Rationale
RT @amatueradult:
@dchackethal @RichardDawkins
I like that your name has "hack" in it
Brains were designed by biological evolution. And it’s not an analogy: anything that processes information is a computer.
Yeah, good intentions standing in the way of error correction.
Yes, and also the level of hostility with which they'll greet anyone who dares question that animals are conscious.
Hopefully one day we'll be effectively immortal and so everyone, no matter how old, will always be near the beginning of his life.
Not a "sentience gene", no. And I'm no reductionist. But I agree that sentience is an emergent property (though not of brains (hardware) but of certain software).
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
That said, 'citation needed' has its place and all, but when somebody comes up with a genuinely new idea, there can't be any citations for it, and that doesn't make the idea any worse.
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity chapter 5 amazon.com/Beginning-Infi…
Not about bits specifically but explains the reasoning behind the reality of abstractions and emergence.
Even if you disagree the whole thing is still a fantastic read so I recommend it either way!
@ADocetist @lucid_crow @alistair_ware
Humans make errors too but they can correct them much more easily and through different and better means than dogs.
RT @JeriousK:
@dchackethal @RichardDawkins
Nobody click on that. No telling what viral malware is there. Given that the previous sentence a…
RT @BissetteHunter:
Being skeptical toward the existence of gratuitous animal suffering is even more bold than being skeptical toward the e…
Read the blog post I linked and maybe you'll find a reason? (depending on what you mean by "systems")
Humans are much more than language robots.
@AVoiceForField1 @RichardDawkins
Yes, I've commented on it here: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/analyzin…
@pipcem @BallWw123f @RichardDawkins
I agree that brains (hardware) are very similar. But our minds (software) are very different from other animals'.
@pipcem @BallWw123f @RichardDawkins
I've spent time with dogs and other animals. I used to be vegan out of concern for animals so I get it. But eventually I changed my mind because I was exposed to new ideas and developed some of my own that I think work better.
@Annascreativemo @LouiseH74531141 @RichardDawkins
I watched 'Earthlings' a few years back. Does that count?
RT @diemauerthewall:
West Berlin in 1961. Thousands of citizens flocked to the Brandenburg Gate to see the division of their city first han…
“[…] if you do go out of your house, I will tell the police to return you to your home.” — The President of the Philippines twitter.com/toadmeister/st…
California trying to make error correction harder. Not surprising. Take note. twitter.com/KevinKileyCA/s…
Highly doubt this is true as I keep hearing deaths with COVID are counted as deaths from COVID. If that’s true, this ‘statistic’ just fuels fear and isn’t helping. twitter.com/AlecStapp/stat…
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
magnetically arranged atoms are not bits or bytes they're just atoms
Bits aren't just useful. That's instrumentalist. They really do exist objectively, but as more than atoms.
And I think atoms themselves are also emergent phenomena, btw.
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
I think many people would describe themselves as more than just atoms configured in interesting ways... and they'd be right. A car is also just atoms configured interestingly. There must be more.
In any case, what the dog does in your video doesn't show it knows about water or its dangers. Genes that happened to code for collaborative behavior like that may simply have spread through the gene pool because fewer of their organisms drowned. No understanding required.
Cool, I didn't know it was false. I take it they did experiments to refute the idea?
I don't think I said dogs don't understand what water is. Do you have a quote?
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
bits and bytes aren't matter btw
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
So people are also just atoms bumping into each other?
"[...] the much derided idea that frogs don't jump out of boiling water." It may be derided but is it false?
I've seen it now. And?
I have, and I think we should be careful to label those things 'fun' for them. It's anthropomorphizing and then concluding they're conscious like us, which is circular.
What looks like fun to us may be them trying things out, updating parameters, 'learning' in ways we don't.
Here's an example of the kind of intimidation some 'compassionate' people employ against dissenters: twitter.com/Soph8B/status/…
The part that goes "there is sth VERY wrong with your ability to read faces". Also makes the same mistake, thinking that what's true is plain to see.
The analogy serves to point out that what's true is very hard to see and that appearances can be deceptive.
"heartless" is an implicit threat serving as argument from intimidation (very common in the animal-rights community): aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/argume…
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Ah, well, I bow to your superior academic pedigree. Surely academics are never wrong!
Yes. Switch may have been a rare genetic mutation that occurred in one of our ancestors having to do with self-replicating programs: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/the-neo-…
In the blog post, I explain how humans are a lot less algorithmic than animals and respond differently to bugs.
RT @jordan_rw:
@BallWw123f @dchackethal @RichardDawkins
Dennis definitely used to burn bugs with a magnifying glass as a kid
@LouiseH74531141 @RichardDawkins
I don't know much about animal testing, but I'd guess for one because physical responses can be very similar, and for two things that look painful in animals often are painful in humans.
But maybe animal testing is deeply flawed (beyond moral concerns), I don't know.
@LouiseH74531141 @RichardDawkins
I don't think there is or ever was a god or that man was made in his image, nor am I trying to justify animal 'abuse'. I'm trying to understand if animals are conscious, wherever that may take me, that's all.
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
Well, I guess I should have written "almost all programmers". ;)
Joking aside, programmers know it's the program that instructs its computer, not the other way round, no matter how loudly they may try to deny that.
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
There'd be no reduction there. (And we do know that cognition is computation.)
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Another problem with the view that a person is like a computer [...]
I never claimed that. Read my tweets again.
Like how people "clearly" saw the sun revolving around the earth and had no doubt that was the case?
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Non-dualism isn't reductionism, no.
Why not?
How does a immaterial thing move a material thing?
Programs are instantiated in material substrates. That's how they move other material substrates. Again, all computation requires physical substrates.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
And same issue I stumbled upon in this thread:
You don't know that they're not my "epistemic peers". Maybe I have fancy biology degrees. You don't know that. (But again, it doesn't matter.)
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Argument from authority, invalid. Truth is truth whether they're my peers or not.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Thinking that it can't is reductionism which is false. Paraphrasing Deutsch, it's the program that instructs its computer, not the other way round. Programmers understand this deeply and don't find it mysterious at all. And they're right not to.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
And I do not discard it with the same goal in mind. So that still doesn't really tell us anything.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Souls are supernatural, programs are not. And dualism is true. (Well, pluralism, but w/e.)
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
See twitter.com/dchackethal/st…
I suggest continuing the discussion there in a single thread so this doesn't branch off.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
That quote literally says "There's no dispute [...]".
But again, it doesn't matter. We shouldn't care about what people think or if they agree or not or whether they're scientists or not, but about what's true.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
People have bodies that can be felt, yes. Deutsch explains why computation always requires a physical substrate, so again there's not conflict here.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
And btw, I think Dawkins replicator-centric view of evolution has been mainstream science ever since he wrote The Selfish Gene at the latest, possibly since much earlier than that. Not that it matters for figuring out what's true.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Shouldn't judge ideas by source or consensus (ie what's "mainstream"), see this thread:
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
He's a philosopher, too (not that it matters...). Deutsch argues very convincingly that people are abstractions. So if he's right there's no conflict there.
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
Sorry I keep throwing blog posts at you but I think that post explains it well with more details than Twitter will allow me to type.
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
Why would consciousness be a binary attribute [...]?
I think it has to do with a rare genetic mutation humans inherited from their ancestors and other animals didn't:
@Der_Prometheus @grain99806254 @RichardDawkins
First off, humans are animals.
Agreed.
Second, how do you know non-human animals are missing the program that would make them conscious?
If animals were conscious, I think they'd be less algorithmic. Modus tollens.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Care to elaborate?
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
All humans share a program that makes them conscious. (This is David Deutsch's idea about people really being programs not bodies, roughly summarized.) That's the program animals are missing. So no solipsism. I'm heavily influenced by DD on animal consciousness too btw.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
People had the 'scientific method' (not really a 'method' per se but that's a different story) when they all agreed that time passes equally fast for all observers. Einstein showed them they were wrong. (And his explanation was good regardless of his credentials.)
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
I don't know that... nor do I think it would matter if you provided good astrophysical explanations.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Some, not all questions. You answered the last one. Not the previous one.
The question was how you know that I'm not a biologist or zoologist.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
He definitely does. He entertains their ideas and therefore knows where and why they're wrong. He doesn't just say 'creationists are silly'. He explains why they're wrong, which he can only do once he understands their position.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Why do you ignore some of my questions?
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Indeed. You'd have an easier time arguing against flat earthers too if you entertained their ideas rather than dismissing them out of hand.
Back in the day it was flat earthers who dismissed the idea that the earth is a sphere because they thought it was "silly" btw.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Right. So you're contradicting yourself, as I've explained. And, meta, contradicting yourself once more by claiming you're not contradicting yourself.
@fman123 @BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Why would anyone care that people agree with each other about something they may well be wrong about?
Take @BallWw123f's favorite example: people used to all agree that the earth is flat. That was consensus. Didn't prevent them from being wrong.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
[...] I’m not contradicting myself.
Then you either don't think I'm a lay person, or that I make "extraordinary scientific claims". But I think you think both of those things.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
I’m not actually considering you’re argument.
That's the problem. Again, be much easier for you to make your case if you did.
@fman123 @BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
I don't really care about the consensus.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Do I need to bring up the word disingenuous again?
No.
Or are you now resorting to an argument in bad faith?
No.
Answer q?
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Right, so her opinion isn't indifferent in that case after all?
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
[...] I would disregard a lay person making extraordinary scientific claims like yourself.
You're not disregarding me but engaging with me a lot. So you either don't think I'm a lay person, or that I make "extraordinary scientific claims", or you're contradicting yourself.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Now you're saying her opinion is indifferent, earlier you said you'd count it:
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Btw, I don't think you know that I'm not a biologist or zoologist.
Right. You didn't really give it a chance. It's much harder to argue against an idea you haven't entertained.
I, OTOH, really have entertained the idea that animals can suffer. I used to be vegan. I get where animal-rights activists come from. But I changed my mind.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
In this example she's not contradicting "the current science" but agreeing with it. That's the whole point. And yet you still seem to think that the source of an idea matters even when the idea's content is the same regardless of the source. Surely that can't be right?!
I thought your "I did?" was in response to my "If you entertained my idea before dismissing it as silly you’d know that."
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
So if she doesn't, but she makes the same argument as a zoologist with all his fancy degrees from all his highfalutin schools, you consider her argument less valuable than his, am I understanding you correctly? Since you're qualifying it.
@Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Also dogs are bred to do things that resonate with humans so dogs (and domesticated animals) are tricky. Better to go off of wild animals (like some of the ones that allegedly "mourn" the dead).
@Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Yeah I've thought about those behaviors. They could be any number of things and anthropomorphizing and then concluding their conscious would be a bit circular.
Dogs being "depressed" could be buggy again. Same for "mourning" animals.
And again, “no” what? Please answer questions, don’t ignore them.
No, I’m not. If you entertained my idea before dismissing it as silly you’d know that.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
If a cooking-show host said the same thing, would you count that, too?
This has nothing to do with the earth being flat other than you thinking my argument is “silly”. I explain in my post why humans having bugs is different from animals having bugs.
Judging an idea “silly” before even giving it a chance isn’t fair or productive.
@Pyrrho19 @BallWw123f @RichardDawkins
Fair enough, I could clarify why ‘bug’ is a fitting term from the start. But I think this shouldn’t stop you from reading on, now that you know what I mean. ;-)
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Yes, humans also contain programming, and humans also contain bugs (which I explore later on in the post; I give a specific example). I wasn’t arguing that humans don’t contain programming or bugs.
The reason why people jump in those situations is because of inborn reflexes.
Great! I think lots of people don’t even want to go there although it seems so basic. Like we shouldn’t eat animals even if they’re not sentient. 😅