WEBVTT - Scientific Reductionism 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:14.160 Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.000 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:21.439 In Today, we're gonna be looking at the philosophical underpinnings 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.319 of science. Don't run away, stick here, because we're gonna 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:30.280 be talking about scientific reductionism. Now, we've done episodes before 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:33.240 where we've talked about not just you know, the fruits 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.400 of scientific investigation, but the ideas that lie underneath what 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:41.360 we do when we do science. Uh, we've talked before 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.000 about that Daniel Dennett quote from Darwin's Dangerous Idea where 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.440 he says that you know, scientists a lot of times 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:51.360 think that philosophies what those other, you know, naval gazers 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:55.200 do over there, and that that science is really free 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.160 from all the constraints of that naval gazing, that they're 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:02.720 immune to, quote the confusions that philosophers devote their lives 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.199 to dissolving. But what Dennett says is there's no such 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:10.000 thing as philosophy free science. There's only science whose philosophical 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.560 baggage is taken on board without examination. And I think 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:16.080 that makes a lot of sense. I think that's a 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.520 maximum we should adhere to to to look at what's 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:24.680 lying underneath science intellectually and and always ask ourselves the question, like, 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:28.520 is what is what we're doing philosophically grounded? Does it 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:30.880 make sense? Yeah? I mean it gets it down to 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.560 the idea of to what extent can we truly just 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:39.520 sort of mathematically, passionlessly, uh, breakdown things into their fundamental 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.120 parts in order to make sense of them. Yeah, And 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:44.160 that is the idea we're gonna be talking about today. 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:48.360 It's the concept of scientific reductionism. Now, I want to 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.200 start by clarifying the meaning of that term, because if 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.800 you've heard that term used in conversation, there's a very 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:56.560 good chance that you've heard it used in a way 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.560 that's different than what we mean today. So people did 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.440 bonding on Facebook to say a new story about a 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.720 scientific study or a theory and say, well, that sounds reductionist. 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.480 You're just being a reductionist here. Uh. Yeah. So there's 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.839 one version of the word reductive that means something sort 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.880 of like oversimplified. Like if I say that you know, 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.560 the only reason French cooking tastes good is because they 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:23.520 use like a full stick of butter and every dish. People. 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.120 You know, some French chef might say, no, wait, there's 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.120 a lot of technique. You're taking a very reductionist attitude. 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.399 It's not that simple um or another one you might hear. 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:35.560 I think often these days, if you hear people talking 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:40.560 about scientific reductionism, you're hearing it used, uh, not in 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:45.359 a philosophical argument about the underpinnings of science, but more 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.840 in an argument about the validity of world views. And 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:51.520 it works as this kind of snarl word that means 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:55.280 something like nihilism, or the belief that there is nothing 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.799 of value, beauty, or goodness in the world. That is 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:00.920 not what we mean. That's not what the term means 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.160 in philosophy of science, and that's not the way we're 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:05.120 going to be using it today. Yeah. I think a 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:07.480 lot of this gets back to the concepts that we 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.520 tackled in the Wicked Problems episode and as well as 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.480 the illusion of explanatory depth. And that's the idea that simple, 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:18.760 broad solutions to complex societal problems, complicts problems in general 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.840 tend to be ineffective and spawn new problems. And you 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:25.000 could say that's that's because they take a reductionist approach 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.480 to it. Robots are dangerous, so we ban all robots. 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.560 Humans are the cause of war, so exterminate all all humans. 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.200 Right now, I wonder if that way of using reductionism 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.120 fits more into the hater's definition or the definition we're 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:38.400 going to look at today. Well, the interesting thing, isn't 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:43.760 it that the hater's definition is itself reductionist, right, and 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.480 then maybe my that definition is also reductionist because to 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.480 a certain extent, Yes, when you there are some things 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:52.960 that they're complicated enough and if you boil them, you know, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.800 you can boil them down to sort of concrete solutions 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:02.200 and concrete um causes. And it depends on what you're studying. 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.560 Like sometimes, especially with societal issues, it's not always that 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.720 cut and dry. There's just too many factors and it's 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.119 difficult to test out the solution, certainly in real time. Yeah, 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.520 because by the time you've deployed the answer, you've created 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:20.440 all these additional problems. So that's that it's only butter explanation. 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.559 Somebody is trying to explain deliciousness in terms of butter 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:27.680 only when we in reality it's much more complicated. Yes, Okay, 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.360 so what what what I mean by scientific reductionism, and 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.960 what's usually discussed in uh philosophy of science, is that 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:40.520 as a method, it means that any system or entity 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:45.280 existing in reality will ultimately be best understood if broken 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:50.040 down into its simpler constituent parts, and the workings of 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:54.000 those parts are understood. Uh. And we see this all 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.680 the time in science, right, the science is constantly trying 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.560 to reduce a complex phenomenon into its part and find 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.640 out how it's parts work. Yeah, what's it's kind of like, 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:07.160 I mean, it's basically what how stuff works is all about, right, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.520 It's about how is this actually working? What are the properties? 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.279 What are the physical laws involved? Even if it's something 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.080 as simple. Well, for instance, I wrote an article on 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.520 how hula hoops work a while back, and so part 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.200 of that is like the culture of the history, who 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:22.080 in the in the history of the hula hoop, where 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.839 it came from, how it gained popularity, how it's utilize 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:26.840 different ways. But you also get down to just the 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.320 basic physics of what's going on when a hula hoop 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.760 is swinging around a body and motion, and you can 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.200 reduce it to physicals. So in that sense, I think 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:38.400 that is a perfectly valid way of using a reductionist 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.200 approach is saying, like, what are the most basic laws 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:45.000 and elements and explanatory UH systems that are in play 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.080 when you see somebody hula hooping and there man and 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:49.960 I can see where there would be people who would say, 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:52.640 who are like such hula hoop enthusiasts? And it would 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.360 say stop explaining trying to explain the magic of hula hoops. 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:58.800 When you explain the physics of hula hoops, you take 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.400 all the fun out of it. That would be a 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.320 crazy statement because the fun still there. We're just explaining 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.799 how the fun works, right. And the controversy we're talking 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.240 about today, and this example we can probably use a 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:14.559 better example in the minic would not be uh whether 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:16.720 it takes the fun out of it, but whether it 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.960 misses something crucial. If you just describe a hula hoop 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.120 in terms of the basic physics of of how it 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:27.120 goes around the body, are you missing something factually crucial 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:31.040 and autonomously true about the phenomenon of hula hooping? Who 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.880 is something vital to its functionality? Yeah, that's probably not 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:37.839 a good example. But one other way we can look 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.320 at what scientific reductionism is is that it's a it's 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:45.320 a hypothesis on the final nature of the relationship between 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.400 science and reality, and so it can be interpreted to 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:52.039 mean that in effect, every correct explanation of the world 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:57.039 can be reduced to the most fundamental, lowest theory of reality, 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:02.200 and essentially everything is physics if you go deep enough. Uh. Now, 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:04.800 there're gonna be a lot of reductionists who will say, now, 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:10.400 I understand that we need sciences like psychology and chemistry 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.000 and political science and sociology to explain things that it 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.880 would be ridiculous to think we can explain by looking 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:21.080 at all the elementary particles. Um, but that in principle 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.480 we should be able to explain all those things given 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:28.040 just our understanding of elementary particles and forces. They're just 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:32.440 too complex for us to understand right now. Okay, So 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:36.360 let's try to put this into a specific concrete example. Uh. 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.240 If if you accept that everything in the universe is 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:41.680 subject to the laws of physics, and I think Robert, 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:43.360 you and I can agree that as far as we 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.400 know it is, uh, then everything in the universe ultimately 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:51.560 could be best explained by fundamental physics or whatever we 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.560 find lying underneath fundamental physics, whatever is the ultimate theory 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.840 of everything, the ultimate underlying law of the universe. Uh. 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.720 And so let's look at a higher order phenomenon and 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.040 and try to say what it would mean to reduce it. 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.760 So I came up with this horrible example and an 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:14.920 apparent case of psychogenic blindness. So you are with your 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.200 family on Thanksgiving, and so they get to pick what 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.600 movie you go out and see, and you are overruled, 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.000 and you go to see the new Adam Sandler movie, 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.360 in which I imagine the next one is going to be. 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.480 Adam Sandler plays the fifteenth Dalai Lama and also plays 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:35.120 the Dalai Lama is really loud, flatulent twin sister. Twenty 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:37.560 five minutes into the onset of this film, you go 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.080 blind in both eyes. Now you go to the doctor, 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.840 and the doctors can find no evidence of injury or 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.480 neurological dysfunctions, So they classify this as a rare case 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:53.040 of psychogenic blindness, blindness that's induced by psychological distress rooted 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.920 in a state of mind. And we've discussed this on 0:08:55.960 --> 0:09:00.079 the show before, especially in terms of certain almost for 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.719 natural occurrences right right, where like there's a mystical experience 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.880 and it leads to a bodily manifestation. Yeah, and so 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.400 in psychology there might be some framework for explaining what 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.000 happened to you uh, and that framework would be a 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.880 theory like knowledge. It would be explanatory talking about causes 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.719 in the mind and uh, and perhaps solutions that take 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.160 place in the mind. But of course, assuming that we 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.520 had a complete understanding of the whole state of your 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:31.040 body at the level of neuroscience, fully explaining all of 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.319 your brain tissues and functions and how they were interacting 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:40.120 on the reductionist hypothesis, we actually shouldn't need the psychological explanation, right, 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.320 that's just a convenience. If we understood everything there was 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.760 to understand about the physical nature of your brain, we 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.920 wouldn't need psychology. We wouldn't need the psychologist to say, 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.440 what's happening with your blindness. We could just look at 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.800 the cells in your brain. Now. Of course, if we 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.720 had a perfect understanding of your brain from perspective of 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.600 cell biology, explaining what all the cells in your body 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.920 are doing and how, we technically wouldn't need the neuroscience explanation. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.400 We just say, okay, here's the cell theory that you know. 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.800 This is what explains everything that's going on. And then 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:14.560 you could reduce it further. You could say, well, of 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:18.440 course we had a perfect understanding of every molecule in 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:22.720 your body from the standpoint of fundamental chemistry, understanding what 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.080 all the atoms and molecules are doing and how, we 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:29.080 wouldn't need the biochemistry you know, the biology or biochemistry explanation. 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.000 And of course, if we had a perfect understanding of 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.280 the whole state of your body from the standpoint of 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:39.040 fundamental physics, you know, elementary particle physics, the quantum mechanical 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.000 wave functions of all the particles and energy states in 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.960 your body, we wouldn't need the chemistry explanation. So ultimately, 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:48.760 the hypothesis goes like this, if we're able to explain 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.040 everything in the universe in terms of fundamental physics, we 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.480 would and that would be the best explanation. It's only 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.800 our lack of understanding and our lack of knowledge and 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:04.960 computational power that forces us to conceive of explanations of 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.600 things that are more complex than fundamental physics, like chemistry, 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:13.120 like biology, like psychology like you know, sociology, or or 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:17.479 political science. Um, but that at bottom, the best explanation 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.240 for everything is here are the particles and their energy 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.200 states and vectors. Now it's almost impossible to think about 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:27.559 something of this without like this, without thinking about comparisons 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:31.320 to like our modern computing experience, right, you know, like 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.400 thinking of hardware, and then a type of hardware, the code, 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:36.960 and I'm simplifying here, but then on top of the 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:40.280 code the sort of uh user interface, and then our 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.680 interaction with that user interface. So it seems like you 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.880 would have I mean, realistically, you would have problems that 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:50.040 occur with the root of that problem at different levels 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.920 in that in that depth, right, something, you might have 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:55.560 a problem at the hardware level, you might have a 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:59.680 problem uh at the the the user interface level. But 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.000 if we had a complete enough understanding, we could address 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:06.720 any problem from the bottom exactly. So the physical reductionists 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.400 would say, okay, but if you had a perfect understanding, yeah, everything, 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.599 there would be energy states and elementary particles. If you 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.640 understood what all of them were doing, you could fix 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:18.880 any problem at any level. Yes, So, so so not even 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:20.960 going down to the hardware level, but going down to 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:23.959 the the the even more primal levels, going into the 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.240 very basement of reality. Yeah, and so the question today 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:31.640 is looking at that perspective of the world, is that true? 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.400 Is that a correct understanding of what science is? Um 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:44.120 or our higher level science is more complex sciences like chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:49.240 and so forth. Do these sciences have unique insights that 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:53.360 are not present at the lower levels of more simplicity 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.480 of you know, simpler realities. Are they just the best 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.040 we can do to understand complex phenomena like society, minds, 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:05.360 and organisms? Or do they Are they intellectually autonomous? Do 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:08.960 they have something original to offer? So, like, the counter 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:13.240 argument here would be that that physics and carpentry engineering 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.680 can explain the way that a stage is built, but 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.040 they're not going to have any impact on say, the 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.360 play that the actors on the stage you're reciting. Sure, yeah, 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.800 that that you might uh, well, yeah, I mean that 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.960 that that's sort of an analogy that works, I guess. Um. 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:31.520 One of the things that I do want to make 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:34.920 sure we're clarifying is that I don't plan on Robert 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.800 you can, you can violate this if you want, but 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.400 I don't plan on exploring arguments against scientific reductionism that 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:46.920 are based in a belief in supernatural causation, because, as 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.600 we mentioned in another recent podcast, I'm not even sure 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.960 the concept of supernatural causation is coherent. I'm not I'm 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.960 not sure that it's incoherent. But then again, try to 0:13:56.000 --> 0:14:00.440 picture it. What are you picturing? Usually you're just picturing 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:05.079 natural causation with with some kind of blurry nous or 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.680 some kind of detail obscured. Right, It's like the hand 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:11.000 of God. Analogy. If if the hand if God is 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.840 something outside of our universe, then for that hand to 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.640 reach into our universe to do something, it has to 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.520 adhere to the laws of physics. It has to wear 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.880 the glove of our reality at least, and then it 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.240 has to therefore be observable as a physical phenomenon. Yet 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.280 to do something, it has to do something right. Um. 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.760 But but we will instead look at a different concept, 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.760 that is the concept of emergentis um, a philosophical distinction 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.200 that says that there are large complex systems that show 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:45.680 genuinely novel properties due to their complexity, that are not 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:50.680 inherently predictable from or reducible to the combined effects of 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.920 their simpler, more constituent parts and ultimately not predictable from 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:59.080 or reducible to fundamental physics. So let's this is where 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:03.040 I come back to my perhaps imperfect analogy of the 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:05.720 stage and the actors on the stage. You can't have 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.240 one without the other, but one seems to be operating 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.200 in a way that the lower level cannot fully predict 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.800 or control beyond the very basic levels. Okay, that, yeah, 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:17.640 I can see that. I think that's a good analogy. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.320 Then I'm sorry if I was skeptical it to be. No, no, no, 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:25.120 A healthy dose of skepticism is uh is important here. Okay. 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.120 So given our given our idea that we're gonna look 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.760 at emergentis um as a form of material understanding of 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.520 the world. You know, it's an extension of science, not 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.760 not an expression of like vitalism or supernaturalism. What are 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.960 some examples of things in nature that we might assume 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:47.840 are not able to be explained by fundamental physics. Well, 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.640 big one is intelligence. So yeah, even playing like Dungeons 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:55.000 and Dragons, where you have a definite intelligent score versus 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:59.120 like wisdom or charisma, I often find myself in conversations 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:01.800 with the poem i'm playing with, like, was this would 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:03.960 this be an intelligence check or wisdom check? Like, we 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:08.960 really have a very ambiguous idea of what constitutes intelligence. Yeah, 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.600 But at the same time, intelligence is I think by 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.120 the fact that you consider it this separate property, that 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.080 you have this separate score, and it's natural to think 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.080 of it as something that discreetly emerges at higher levels 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:26.760 of complexity and isn't reducible to simpler objects. So, uh yeah, 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.720 like you said, it's sometimes kind of difficult to define intelligence. 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.320 What is it? My favorite definition that I've come across 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.880 is that intelligence is the tendency of a system to 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:42.160 accelerate the solution of problems. It leads to faster solving. So, 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.280 however we define it, we know when we see it right. 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.560 Intelligence is highly useful, ubiquitous, undeniable. It's part of our 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.600 experience of the everyday world. But can intelligence be explained 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:58.040 in terms of simpler fundamental units. I don't know. After all, 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.640 there is no indication that a single goal neuron possesses 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:06.840 anything like intelligence. There's no analogy for intelligence below what 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.760 things like brains or computers do, at least as far 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:13.040 as I can tell. Well, even then, it's far more complicated. 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.240 We've all I felt we've probably even covered on the 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:18.120 show before the whole topic of what makes a genius? 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.679 What does a genius's brain look like? And yes, you 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.560 can you can draw certain Uh, you can look to 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.280 the gray matter and line up various factors, but a 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:29.199 lot of it is going to be beyond that. It's 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:31.720 going to have to do with with with it, with 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.879 the experience and personality of the individual. Yeah, it's the 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:39.000 whole Boys from Brazil scenario we're trying to colonial. Yeah. So, 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.720 I mean assuming that animal intelligence or computer intelligence is 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.520 not magic. We're not believing it's magic, but that it's 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:50.680 still possible that it can't be explained reductively by recourse 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:55.440 to more fundamental sciences. That chemistry alone can't explain intelligence. 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.359 It's something that only happens to matter at a certain 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.480 level of complexity and configure curation, and is not predictable 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.560 from lower levels of understanding. Uh so, what what would 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.880 it mean to understand intelligence of the level of single cells. 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.240 I don't know. Maybe it's possible to do that, but 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.520 at least sounds like a very difficult project. Yeah, I mean, 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.720 so the basic idea here is that interactions among smaller 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.960 entities lead to larger entities, and there's a self organizing 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:26.040 aspect to reality. So what economist Jeffrey Goldstein called quote 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.720 the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns, and properties 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.760 during the process of self organization in complex systems. So 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:37.879 I think, like a classic sort of science example I 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.120 always go back to, is just the accretion of cosmic 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:45.000 dust into smaller bodies and clouds, building mass, exerting gravity 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:49.680 forming stars, planet, everything everything else gravitating around each other, 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:54.760 held in uh in gravitational um enslavement to each other, 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:59.840 and becoming the system. A system that emerges initially from 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.639 particles floating around and bumping into each other, and thus 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.640 and thus it does obey the laws of physics at 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.760 every level, But is it reducible too and predictable from 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:14.879 those laws When the case of just like basic the 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:18.960 basic assembly of solar system, of of a galaxy, I 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.400 would think, yes, I think this is this is definitely 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:25.880 a physics based bringing together of properties. But it's such 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:28.320 a Maybe it's because it's just such a grandiose thing 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:33.880 to imagine assembling from such minute pieces. It feels an 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:38.040 appropriate metaphor for the emergence of say consciousness, the vergence 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:43.159 of intelligence, because if dust can turn into the Milky 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.960 Way galaxy, and and I'm simplifying, uh, but but if 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:51.440 if something so vast and complex and energetic can can 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.159 can can come together from such small pieces, then it 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:58.000 makes sense that's something as at least on the individual level, 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:02.080 as complex and amazing and brew as intelligence and consciousness, 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:05.359 that that too could emerge from just things bumping into 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.760 each other. Well, yeah, and there you do say something 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.159 that I think should put us on guard against the 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.520 concept of emergentism, which is that it feels good for us, 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:16.040 you know, the idea that no, no, no, you know, 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:20.400 things like intelligence and and higher order concepts really are 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.680 somehow unique at their level of organization, and they're not 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:28.000 just reducible to elementary particles and and energy states. Well, 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.800 that's that's something we like to feel, and so thus 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.080 I think we should be a little on guard about 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.320 about that idea. Yeah, but I would to counter I 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.879 would say that basically, the the idea of consciousness, of 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.400 being conscious, of being a live feels majestic. I think 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:48.080 we can look to just the universe itself and say, well, 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:52.359 the universe and all its majesty is based on things 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.240 bumping into each other, you know, randomly and in order 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.040 arising out of all of that. Then it's no great 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.359 stretch to say that the mind is the same the 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:05.240 cosmos is a humiliating analogy. Yeah, well yeah, because you 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:06.760 can go either way. You can say my mind is 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:08.919 like the universe, man, but you can also say, hey, 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:10.840 your mind is just like the universe. It's just stuff 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.920 bumping into each other until a system emerges. Okay, well, 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:16.720 maybe we should look at a few more examples of 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:20.240 supposed emergent behavior that you can see in nature systems, 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.560 where you know, at a complex enough level, things seem 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.720 to happen that are not obviously predictable from the simpler 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:30.399 components acting alone. Well, evolution is a big one, of course, 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.680 just the I mean, that's the basic underlying principle right 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:37.920 in the in this uh, this constant race, the survival 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:42.480 of the fittest, uh, natural selection that you have all 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.879 these different forms, these various mutations that are kind of 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:50.000 throwing out different different versions of the same product into 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:55.040 the open market of brutal survivalism, and then whatever sticks sticks, yeah, 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.560 uh yeah, And so that's the thing, like if you 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:00.960 were just in the universe where there was no life, 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.240 but there was just say, organic chemistry. Would you would 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.080 you be able to really predict the devolution was going 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:11.440 to occur? Maybe, I don't know. Um what about here. 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.280 Here's a product of evolution that's often been cited as 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:18.120 a really interesting version of emergent behavior, hive insect behavior. 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:20.520 Oh yes, yeah, this is this is always a cool 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:26.760 concept the view of you social insects, bees, wasps, ants, uh, termites, etcetera. 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.800 But especially especially bees and ants being like the prime 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:36.160 examples of this. Uh, they're they're essentially an emergent system 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.399 after all. You know, how else is all of this 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:43.520 behavior going to get there? Nobody's programming the ants, nobody's 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:46.919 telling them, Oh, you're the queen and you do this. Uh. No, 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:51.840 one ant or one b is able to display anything 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:55.200 like the hive behavior we see, And not even any 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:58.040 small group of them show these rudimentary signs of it. 0:22:58.040 --> 0:22:59.879 It's only when you get enough of them in our 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:04.280 acting that hive behavior emerges. Yeah, and out of all 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.320 of these little interactions, these roles, it all adds up 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:10.959 to a kind of and it's important to say, you know, 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:14.240 non sci fi and the non science fictional sense, a 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:17.679 hive mind. You know, they don't like share a conscious experience, right, 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:20.040 they're not, you know, they don't have their brains all 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:22.760 hooked up with tubes into a you know, floating mega 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:25.240 brain or something. But in a very real, non scie 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:27.840