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b_b  ·  3791 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Scientists threaten boycott of European commission-funded Human Brain Project

I gave up on Searle summarily after reading Freedom and Neurobiology, which is a dismal piece of cynicism that essentially boils down to, "If we stimulate a neuron in culture it behaves predictably. Therefore, you have no free will, and your agency is illusory." I just said in two sentences what he goes on for volumes about. It's not a philosophy I find inspiring, although I'm sure if I dug deeper into his writings I might find something worthwhile.

As for the connectome, here's what I think about that in a nutshell. If we want to understand sociology, we don't do it by drawing a detailed map of where everyone lives and which way all the roads go. Why? Because a society is far more than the sum of where everyone goes and at what speed they travel. The connectome is trying to answer the question of how by simply describing what the brain look like. It's a fools errand if ever there was one.