IIT is a…preudoscience?

So the famed integrated information theory, which I’ve found in Life 3.0 (Max Tegmark) had been called a pseudoscience for one reason: it’s challenging and, perhaps, impossible, to even test it.

In an open letter, it’s called ambitious but a steaming pile of bullshit: > IIT predicts that it is theoretically possible to calculate a value for the level of consciousness, termed phi, of any network with known structure and functioning. But as the number of nodes within a network grows, the sums involved get exponentially bigger, meaning that it is practically impossible to calculate phi for the human brain — or indeed any information-processing network with more than about 10 nodes.

Domestication and floppy ears

An overview of domestication

Phenotype

• Brains of domesticated animals are substantially smaller than their wild counterparts
• Piebald coloration is common in domesticated species
• Domesticated species tend to have floppy ears
• Domesticated species have shorter snouts and smaller teeth

Genes

• Agressive -> stress hormone
• Domestication syndrome
• Selection for tameness
• PCDHGA1 + DKKL1 expression
• GRM3 expression
• GRK7 (ACTH release) expression
• Cortisol levels are lower in domesticated foxes

“Comorbidities”

• Modern brains are smaller than brains of humans 50,000 years ago.
• Autism presents with particular physical features that correlate with lack of domestication syndrome
• Expression of genes related to ASD and domestication in chimp and autistic brain

Question

Are we domesticating ourselves? Where will this lead us? Maybe to snake oil seller coaches?

Product managers’ tech stack

16 product discovery tools

How to Upgrade Your Product Strategy and Tech Stack

A comprehensive guide to a product manager’s tech stack

Other linkageddon

Emdash — organize your book highlights with AI

Too good not to share.

Using Clojure in…banking

Founders of a neo-bank, Griffin, describe their experience of using Clojure, a flavor of parseltongue Lisp, in production.

Reuse

MIT

Citation

BibTeX citation:

@online{kogan2023,
  author = {Kogan, Zakhar},
  title = {IIT, Products And...},
  date = {2023-10-01},
  url = {https://teleogenic.com/posts/231001-iit},
  langid = {en}
}

For attribution, please cite this work as:

Kogan, Zakhar. 2023. “IIT, Products And…” October 1, 2023. https://teleogenic.com/posts/231001-iit.

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