Humans are not mere machines.
We're so industrialized/Western in our thoughts that we need to compare us to machines in order to visualize how our components interact. Yet it is the exact opposite. Industry has merely been mining biology for better ways to design things.
Our man-made machines are tools that imitate biological attributes/processes/designs. I cannot think of a machine that is not merely a doppelgänger of a biological element.
Comparing humans to machines is ass-backwards, like saying Mac OS is just a copy of Windows.
Humans have DNA but we are not mere player pianos.
DNA might be the assembly line but once we roll off the dealer's lot, we can do whatever the heck we want. The primal stuff might be encoded, but whether the individual or society agree on anything is nearly random. For some reason, we can always go counter to our parents/societies wishes at any time. We can even go against our own "better judgement" or "intuition".
I can agree with the human-as-machine metaphor only so much. At some point, some machines just come away as being better than some humans.
Better to leave that metaphor out of the argument, and keep biological as biological and not mention machines except in specific topics about they effect our biology.
We're so industrialized/Western in our thoughts that we need to compare us to machines in order to visualize how our components interact. Yet it is the exact opposite. Industry has merely been mining biology for better ways to design things.
Our man-made machines are tools that imitate biological attributes/processes/designs. I cannot think of a machine that is not merely a doppelgänger of a biological element.
Comparing humans to machines is ass-backwards, like saying Mac OS is just a copy of Windows.
Humans have DNA but we are not mere player pianos.
DNA might be the assembly line but once we roll off the dealer's lot, we can do whatever the heck we want. The primal stuff might be encoded, but whether the individual or society agree on anything is nearly random. For some reason, we can always go counter to our parents/societies wishes at any time. We can even go against our own "better judgement" or "intuition".
I can agree with the human-as-machine metaphor only so much. At some point, some machines just come away as being better than some humans.
Better to leave that metaphor out of the argument, and keep biological as biological and not mention machines except in specific topics about they effect our biology.
"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...
"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...
