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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 28/10/2025 19:01, Adrian Tymes wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.50.1761678116.23155.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap=""><pre wrap=""
class="moz-quote-pre">On Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 11:08 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org"
moz-do-not-send="true"><extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org></a> wrote:
</pre><blockquote type="cite" style="color: #007cff;"><pre wrap=""
class="moz-quote-pre">It's a shame, though. It would be nice to have a more orderly brain to
pick apart to see how they work, and to contrast with an equivalent
non-flying animal.
</pre></blockquote><pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">"If our brains were simple enough for us to understand, we would be
simple enough that we could not."</pre></pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Well, that just sounds defeatist to me. It makes a nice little
pessimistic soundbite (if you like pessimism), but is there any
evidence that it's true? Or any logical argument for it?<br>
There are also nuances. For example, different interpretations of
"to understand".<br>
<br>
Maybe you are right, given "understand completely" (whatever that
actually means). <strike>Maybe</strike> definitely not, given
"understand enough to be useful/worth the attempt".<br>
<br>
We have, after all, discovered a lot about how brains work already.
Maybe not a lot in comparison to all there is to be discovered, but
more than enough to be useful, and I doubt if we have reached some
sort of limit on what we are capable of discovering and
understanding.<br>
<br>
And there's always AI assistance with this kind of research, which
greatly extends our reach, and adds more variations of "to
understand".<br>
<br>
On the whole, I think the statement is harmful, in that it tends to
discourage even trying.
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben</pre>
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