@@EnlightenedMinarchistLOL... What?! What a ridiculous statement to make. Which of the MANY researched points in his videos are not good or valid? This comment is CLEARLY just you being a hater.
18:20 ANDDDDD this touches my soul. I've worked with plants all my life and I do Bonsai by the same means. By bending, twisting, applying pressure to and sometimes binding the young tree's branches, you can influence its future growth and transform it farther into an individual plant. We have much to learn from organisms that behave differently to us. Thank you for making videos like these. You make use of your mind very effectively sir!
@@SofaKingShitSo you should... what? Just not raise your kids? Let them do whatever they want? Give them no guidance? Teach them nothing about the world and how you should behave within it?
@@cordlefhrichter1520 "today we observe a 1 year old toddler in it's natural environment as it hunts for prey" in all seriousness though humans need to be raised to actually survive, that's the point of social groups it's in our evolution after all, just look at our ancestor species
You cannot raise kids. You can only live by example. If you don't, they learn all your misbehaving traits. Kids learn by observing the people around them, not by some stupids waving their fingers talking nonsense. If you steal, they learn how to steal. You can talk for the whole next decade about not stealing and that it's wrong. They saw what you really do, that's what they learn. That doesn't mean they become thieves as adults, as they too have the ability to choose their fate by themselves. You can talk from the chalkboard about responsibility as much as you want. Kids sitting still in a classroom learn to sit still and nothing else. And if you think you are your kids authority, you lose their friendship for life. You are supposed to care for your kids, not to rule them. 👀😉
I'm a biologist. One of the most difficult type of organisms to envision as an individual is the order of jellyfish called Siphonophores which comprises 175 species, one of which being the venimous Portuguese man o' war. A siphonophore individual, as surprising as it may seem, is made if a colony of "parts" called zooids, where each zooid is only a part of the whole "individual", and where those zooids vary in shape, structure and function. Thus, you have reproductive zooids, digestive zooids, defensive zooids, and other that play mainly mechanical purposes, acting as supports for other specialized zooids, such as tentacles, which can actually be very long (several meters) and on which adhere polypoid zooids that are armed with cnidoblasts, little microscopic bags containing darts (or nematocysts) which are projected at extremely high velocity, penetrate the victim's epiderm thereby injecting a highly posonous toxin. The conceptual oroblem with siphonophores starts when one wants to define what each zooid is relative to the whole 'beast'. Individual zooids are only specialized versions of the whole "individual". The life cycle begins with the budding of one blob from one zooid of the "colony", which then forms buds which will evolve into one specialized type of zooid or another, according to a precise genetically programmed body plan. The question arises: since every zooid retains autonomous properties to a certain extent, and can free-float to reach its destination on the large jellyfish that a single siphonophore is in reality, one can't call these zooids organs of one individual. On the other hand, as one specialuzed zooid wouldn't survive without the others, at least for a significant period, one cannot consider them as separate organisms (with the same genetic material as rhe others). Many theories have interpreted suphonophores as one example of the type of intermediate lifeform that could have existed between liwer and higher invertebrates. So-called lower invertebrates (protozoa, sponges, etc.), which appeared early in the evolution, follow a simple body plan, where different cell types specialize from embryonic one layer out of the main 3 ones. However, that body plan reaches its limits rapidly and is not suitable for larger-sized animals. With siphonophores, which are a relatively primitive type of "coelenterates" (now xalled cnidarians), the specialization of zooids performing unique functions could be thought as one way specialized organs could appear. According to that theory, after increasing integration of the various zooids in one single individual, different "systems" or organs would have ultimately become sheltered under one distinct individual where the various organs cannot obviously exist separately from the other - unlike zooids. Such an evolutionary pathway could mean that siphonophores mught be an intermediate body plan between a lower invertebrate and the higher AND larger ones we now know. In fact, siphonophores could well the earliest body plan used by cnidarians (hydrae, jellyfish, sea anemones, corals, etc) before they adopted the more induvidualuzed organization we know today
Absolutely great video. These described processes apply to individuals in reality as well as the entirety of existence itself. The material was wonderfully lit, I appreciate the illumination.
Thank you very much. This video gave me a new way to appreciate the bond between me and someone very dear to me who recently died. I am not spiritual, and I was struggling, but the ideas in this video are something my excessively rational brain can accept. So, thank you for making this video!
Well, that makes sense, since it's all gooey-mushy feel-good psuedoscience. It's barely deeper than those tumblr nonsese posts about how "you're made of stardust, so you're one with the universe!" or something similar. Unfortunately this video is useless in any real scientific sense, in fact it's pretty antithetical to most models of biology, since it attempts to deny categorization altogether. We don't have categories because we don't understand the concepts explained in the video - we have them because, without _some_ form of categorization, there's no meaning to anything, and words might as well be gibberish. I'm glad this made you feel better (which is the point), but don't be fooled into thinking this is rational or scientific in any real sense. It's more "nebulous" than that! 😅
HAHAHAAH that's literally what Newton though; whooops, here comes all general relativity! Science is about searching for the truth, anyone who thinks they achieved ultimate truth and can efortlessly make the distinction between "valuable" and "useless", that's a true acientific point of view! Categorization is extremely useful but depending the focus you give something it can also be polivalent (light is both a wave and a particle), categories are not meant to be ultimate, and there is a fundamental flaw in thinking science and categories gave birth to "meaning" and organization. No. Human language and it's intrinsic capacity for abstraction is what gave and gives "meaning", "value", "sense" or "direction" (used here as almost synonims) to life since the origin of "humans" (wether you think that is the first civilization, the development of consciousness, language, or something in between/simultaneously). Science is just A KIND of organizational and methodological approach to life problems (the best one for sure!), but you are waaaay off if you think that without "categorization" or a scientific approach, life is meaningles. One last thing, "rational", "scientific" and "logical" are completely different things. False things can be logical, objective things can be non-rational (like tradition, say, eat dinner on the table and not on the kitchen countertop), and science can be rethought, contested, and even eventually be proven wrong -usually but not exclusively by that same scientific thought-@@bugjams
@@bugjams I think you are missing the point. Categorization and the information theory of individuality are not mutually exclusive. Consider digital objects in a simulated world such as a video game. Both software engineers and players can categorize objects into classes such as structures, avatars, weapons, etc --- but what are they all, really? They are just mathematical constructs.
Having experienced loss, I thought you might find comfort in the following poem, which to me seems to have many parallels to this video: Memory is not enough... I do not recollect. What I am is alive in me because of you. I do not reinvent you at sadly cooled-off places you have left behind. Even your absence is filled with your warmth and is more real than your not-existing. Longing often meanders into vagueness. Why should I throw myself away when something in you may be touching me, very lightly, like moonlight on a window seat. Rainer Marie Rilke, Uncollected Poems
Wow - this video is really beautiful, I honestly don't have another word for it. You tied together the big-picture philosophy, the biology, and the day-to-day experience of being an individual so well! At the end, the idea of others becoming part of your individuality and flow of self hit me hard, I wasn't expecting that ❤️
‘Who am I’ can definitely not be answered by rational thought alone. Spinoza outlines this very beautifully and so did Greek philosophers and Advaita Vedanta as well as the Mahayana Buddhists. Our rational thought is like a small boat on the Atlantic Ocean, reality is so much bigger than our rational mind. There is so much more to reality. Mystics are therefore developing knowledge by applying and honoring Rational Thinking, Practice and Experience. The world ‘beyond’ space, time and matter is not accessible for the dissociated human mind, we can only access our ‘real I’ when we gently fall back, in ever widening rings, into the unthinkable and unspeakable here/now, the ONE. Thank you for addressing these key-topics so beautifully and accessible.
There’s so much noise in the world, and sometimes I get overwhelmed by how much meaninglessness is being shoved into my brain all the time. Then I come across a video like this and it doesn’t feel so bad to be alive in this day and age.
Very rare to find someone who synthesizes Eastern and Western concepts, ancient and modern, mysticism, philosophy and science, and makes sense of it all.
One personally impactful application of this kind of thinking for me is with regard to considering parenthood as a sort of "immortality": you impart not only some portion of your literal genes but also your vibes, values, and ways of interacting with the world in the process of raising a child, and they go forward with that influence in hand. So they become an extension of your impact on the world, in a much more nuanced way than classical "fame"-based immortality or "immortality" through recordings of particular moments in your life which might influence the future when they're watched. Reproduction serves as a temporal extension of the things that make you you, where that "you"-ness gets diluted with all the other influences but continues to interface in a dynamic way with the world.
I've been noticing this most of my life and have been trying to put it all together for myself and friends and family to understand but it's always been piece by piece. You've done a great job putting it in a very digestible fashion. Great job 👍
I've stumbled upon one of your videos by chance and I wish I could've found your channel sooner. (Past me, or the person from the past that has no recollection of memories i've picked up recently would've also like this lol) The topics you choose and the way you present them, everything is great- keep at it!
I have done some thinking similar to this and reached the conclusion, similar to yours, that we are not objects but events. We don't exactly exist so much as we occur. We happen. It's nice to see that I'm not the only one thinking about things like this. And you've explained it here in a manner more lucid than I think I might have been able to. Very well done. Thank you.
A very interesting video! Good job👍 As a matematician interested in the foundations of mathematical biology, I would love to see more videos like this one. Thanks!
Loved the video! I have a somewhat similar philosophy that I didn't know had a sefinition put to it like the one you've explained. I have mine simplified as 'Our purpose is to qualitatively measure internal and external states' which I feel captures some of the 'continuous' nature of identity like you highlighted. That being said, thank you for the entertainment and enlightenment!
Thank you so much for the kind words! That sounds interesting, similar to Alan Watts philosophy of continuous energy. ua-cam.com/video/4yaBJVfyy00/v-deo.html If you’d like to read more there is also a sources/further reading doc in the description. Jake
"A qualitative measuring of internal and external states" = a relation. We exist by relating. Everything relates and is changed - permanently - by everything else.
Hi, Juniper! Just found this channel, and there's a strong resonance with my work, don't you think? Maybe we should link some of this on RNA's SM channels...
Just wanted to say, few videoessays have stuck with me as much as this one, I keep coming back to it, I think of the perspective of individuals as "processes that propagate information about themselves" a lot (especially since I've started studying compsci). The way you also framed it as as a 'twist' in the last chapter was masterfully done! Also I think that applying this lens of process ontology to art/culture (which no doubt has already been done) provides some really profound perspectives as well. It feels meaningful on many levels.
Holy crap, what a great channel! I'm just discovering you (first the genetics misconceptions, now this), and you deserve way more subs. I hope my experience is representative of the algorithm starting to favor you. Maybe this comment will help strengthen that =)
this channel is amazing. I never saw someone communicatr the most modern ideas in theoretical biology as well as you! As a biology major I am quite frustrated with the mechanistic, deterministic and reductionist lines of thought which are even in academic circles quite present but should not be the proper way of thinking when discussing the mechanisms of the most complex systems we know. Thank you for your contribution to science!
I've had some of these ideas/questions, floating around in my head, for a long time. This video, did a good job, of connecting the dots, and adding clarity to the subject of who/what we are, and how connected/changing, we are.
he's just recycling stuff that has long already been talked about by other channels (like the ship analogy), and then using such things to come to his own conclusions (which aren't exactly accurate)
So, I've become a bit of a UA-cam snob, i.e. if I can tell you're AI talking, I immediately dislike, close, and block the channel. I've also found presentation styles and keeping the conversation linear are very important to me. You do all these things beautifully, Jake. I look forward to more content from your channel. This one did break my brain a bit. One thing on consciousness I've never seen explored, though, (at least, in a non-fiction way) is the possibility that it exists in some point of quantum flux or alternate dimension, and the human mind was the only one that evolved to tap into that state/dimension/whatever? At least, on our planet? I won't even pretend to get the math, so I'm not sure if that's even a logical road to explore, but it would be nice to find if it's gotten any treatment. I haven't been able to find anything, so far.
This is excellent. Process ontology works beautifully in the context of neuroplasticity. Neuroscience is in a great position to help demystify this way of thinking about things.
@16:17 I think the eternal factors are superfluous in the cloud analogy. external forces, when all lumped together, become a constant...there's always gonna be at least one force, one pathway for energy transfer, in the mix to perform the influencer role. So now space, the room to move, the existence of somewhere where change is possible, the spectrum of potentiality, is what makes a cloud less individualized than a person.
great video! thanks for sending me here. I fell in love with the idea of interacting humans becoming their own organisms in 2021 so it’s validating to see someone back it up with some actual literature 😂. as one small point of criticism: something this video underrepresented is the sense of self from a psychological perspective. the psychological conception of self doesn’t care about replacement of cells and has temporal longevity despite changes in characteristics. i concede that if you try to break down our built in sense of self logically then it gets messy (which i understand is what this video is trying to get at) but i still think it’s the best definition of self out there (almost tautologically lol) my point is: the best/most practical way to define the individual is the way we have already been wired to define it
Thanks again Avi! Glad to hear you enjoyed this older video :) You're right I didn't focus much at all on a psychological perspective on the self, which has a lot of depth in its own right. I guess I wanted to focus more on biology as a whole, and it's difficult to talk about minds beyond the realm of humans. Certainly many philosophers of mind try, but I haven't read much of that literature at all. Peter Godfrey-Smith's (yes him again) Other Minds was pretty interesting though. Octopuses are very cool: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_the_Sea,_and_the_Deep_Origins_of_Consciousness
I absolutely loved this video. It's amazing that our ancient ancestors, despite not having the scientific background of knowledge we have today, were able to acknowledge and integrate into their religious stories this idea of the impermanent, ever flowing self. It's been over a year since this video was released, so I'm sure no one's reading the comments hear. But, there was one point in the video that I disagreed with: the part mentioning the more concrete "line" that separates objects that don't exchange sufficient amounts of information. When we touch a tree, that interaction itself might not impart much change in either entity. However, the c02 we breathe out statistically will end up being breathed by that tree. At some point in time, my desire for a piece of paper may cause the tree to be cut down. Driving a car and creating plastic dust with my tires might flow into a stream and eventually make its way to the water that nourishes the tree. I could go on, but the point is that if we zoom out far enough, we really are a singular, connected process: the universe. It's not a terribly useful idea at our scale, thinking of us and existence as a singular flow. But at a fundamental level, we are but a piece of the remnant dust of the big bang interacting with other pieces of big bang dust.
I think you hit the nail on the head (and I bet SubAnima would agree with you). I guess the point is that although we are all connected at some quantum level, i.e., we're all part of one process, our world can be characterised by regularities at the level of the human (e.g., when a ball collides with another in the middle of a pool table, the second ball will likely move), such that some interactions are more "meaningful" than others. So although individuality can probably never reach 100%, some may be considered sufficiently close enough to 100% for all practical purposes (e.g., planets in different solar systems are practically independent entities because the interaction with the local star will swamp any interstellar interaction).
Thanks for literally becoming a part of my feature self. 😊 Throughout the video as you mentioned various theories based on individuality composition I felt there always wasn't something quite right about them. But the information theory and viewing self as a process rather than a bunch of parts make a lot of sense. In my favorite Czech potcast Brain we are (it's in Czech unfortunately.) I heard an interesting concept of something they called a "mind field". That is, parts of our environment provoke certain thinking and thus might become a part of us. Our individuality is constantly changing as we are moving in the world. In a kitchen for example there is a higher chance of thinking of food. So it's not just the living things that influences who we are. Moreover you can sort of program your enviroment to generate a wanted mind field. If you want to learn to play guitar for example, just put it in your room. It will naturally become a part of the rooms mind field. Next time you go there, there's a greater chance of you thinking of playing.
This is hands down the best philosophy video I've ever seen. It wasn't just a long rant of random philosophical ideas (which most other philosophy videos, IMHO, are), but actually shared very meaningful ideas in a very structured and scientific way. Keep up the good work!
Organisms are made of particles like atoms. Due to the large collection of these particles and the underlying physical laws you get emergent behavior (Conway's Game of Life with physical laws as the rules). Human concepts like "organisms" are just a phenomena we observe (aka an emergent system). However, they are as complex as the underlying mechanisms from which they emerge. Their behavior is not bound to our simplification. Concepts like "organism" has their use in everyday life for communicating ideas, but we should be aware that they are significant approximations.
Beautifully done and a great conclusion. Thank you! Was just pondering about "every interaction being information exchange"... and UA-cam recommended this video. Looks like Google has invaded minds too... 😊
Enjoying the video. I generally don’t like music behind people talking but you did it well. The pace of the speech went well with it and you changed it up. Maybe that’s the trick.
Really excellent storytelling. I’m a psychotherapist and artist and my background is continental philosophy, so I know a thing or two about this field and you nailed it.
Not sure if you've read "Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology" by Danial Nicholson and John Dupre. It's open source, I think, but it has a series of essays expounding on exactly what you talk about here video. It's a great read for anyone interested.
I like the idea of "Informational Individuals". Because I think it also pretty neatly defines life and death. Alive is "being an individual". And death is when the individual can no longer sustain itself, which cause it to collapse and no longer able to effect it's future.
Very interesting Jake! Food for thought 😊 Wait, now my food is part of my individuality, changing my microbiome, which makes me a different person. I wonder how this non stable sense of me can be actively manipulated to improve healing ie of chronically damaged tissue? Cheers
Thanks Shane! I would say one of the biggest takeaways that could have applications (at least in our thinking) is that genetics isn't everything. Our environment and our choices have way more control over our future selves than we might think if we take what's in our DNA too seriously. I think most doctors and practical physicians know this well (else what would be the point of doing any treatment at all) but in research we can often fall prey to over-trusting in an organism's genes as a definition of what they are. The person with chronically damaged tissue who gets good treatment will end up a very different individual to the person they could have been without treatment. - Jake
Very pleased to see a discussion on individually that took processes into consideration after discussing the Ship of Theseus. It's an interesting thought experiment, but it's never been appropriately applicable to living beings because the ship doesn't metabolize, doesn't reproduce, and doesn't have any sort of experiential line (so far as we can discern). We are not ships. This was excellent.
Also, his sources are linked in his description. If that is hard to believe, than what Im about to say will really blow your mind. You are 99.99999998% empty space, and not a single part of "you" has ever made contact with any other part of "you" or any other object. anywhere, ever.
So a few years ago I was talking with a friend about the ecology of a prairie as being the convolution of bison, their predators and grasses within a geophysical and climate context. Lots of other organisms and abiotic factors, but the point being that the complex settles into state space and transfers information as waveforms into the future. This is a simple example of what all ecosystems are constantly doing unless severely disrupted.
Right but like in his example a river isn't defined by the indevual water molecules that make it up. Since if the specific atoms that make up stream doesn't matter, so long as more watter comes to fill it. In the same way the particular atoms that make you up right now doesn't matter in regard to defining your ideviduality. All that matters it that more atoms of the right type replace those atoms that leave. It is the difference between defining us as the atoms themselves or as a process that atoms do.
@psychedelic_funk Well nothing is truly individual in this universe, Energy and matter transfers exchanges properties and eventual evens out to a low entropy state. No system is truly individual or isolated from a physics perspective
I feel like we need a word, that names the kind individual we become when tied to something else in an informational feedback loop. I'm taking this from the eucalyptus tree & tiktok example. A name that acknowledges the symbiotic individual we become that includes an AI relationship, much like that of a microbiome relationship. Thank you so much for this video! This gastalt theory has been on my mind since reading Alan Watts The Book, which introduced these concepts to me, reshaping how I see the world.
Wow, I'm amazed by this video conclusion. I once arrived at a similar idea when thinking about causal links and free will: that the reason why we perceive humans as integrated agents is to reduce the computational complexity. Though humans are determined by miryad of factors, their internal characteristics as agents (= self) are the key determinant and can be treated as an independent factor.
Process ontology (doing) goes some way to understanding the situation but importantly things are also constituted by their relations, relationships and roles in particular activities. At heart every "thing" is just a constantly changing collection of Plank-scale wobbles in space-time, and where we put the boundaries has as much to do with the particular type of activity we are participating in as anything physical. And of course these are socially constructed notions...
I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS SO MUCH!!! ❤ they are so fascinating and are just the right level of “indepthness” that I’m looking for while still easily understandable while also discussing things I can see throughout my life. Your videos match my brain very well :) so thank you so much for all your hard work!! I can tell how much effort you put into each video and I can’t wait till more and more people keep finding the amazing content you make. Keep it up! 🫶
0:07 speak for yourself, I’ve literally come up my reflection in a context having no expectation of seeing a reflection. It wasn’t until I tried to got close enough for the reflective situation to reduce to a transparency that I realized it was me.😂
I would suggest watching the episode of Bump in the Night called “Farewell 2 Arms”, in regards to the Ship of Theseus problem. It’s a really interesting take: Molly, the girl’s doll, fears her vulnerability, and so replaces each part of herself with something strong and powerful, until she is a giant monster. Then her friend puts her old pieces back together, and she is Molly again! In this case, her self-reconstruction denied her original identity, and so Molly Coddle is “within” her original body parts.
Fantastic video! The conflict between defining things in discrete categories vs on a continuum, reoccurs again and again in different areas. F.e. autism becoming a spectrum, this video, definition of species and much more. The central issue is that on one hand, defining things along a continuum is pretty much always gonna be less contradictory, defining discrete categories can be really, really useful. There doesn't have to be a conflict though, so long as one isn't too rigid. For example, one can both recognize that what contitutes a species is an approximation, but also that it can be useful and capture some distinct properties of a population, even if those aren't completely universal, or unique to them. Different systems can be more or less suitable to being described by continuums or discrete categories. For example, if weight measured in BMI follows a bell curve distribution, separating it into categories is inherently a bad idea (I'm aware that is how it is) But if the correlation between heart disease and weight starts increasing sharply when weight exceeds ~30 BMI, creating two categories separating those below and above ~30 BMI might not just be very useful, but also a good approximation for the system of interactions between BMI and heart disease. Some approximations are worse than others, and sometimes just missleading and unhelpful. But just because a property exists along a continuum does not mean that it is linear, or following a bell curve. Some continuums are well approximated by distinct groups. A crude example graph would be |_/\_/\_ where there is a blurry line between the two groups, but they are much more distinct than a bell curve. A good example where there is no controversy is electromagnetic waves, which certainly form a very smooth continuum, but is also categorized into infrared, visible, microwave, radio etc. Even though the line between them is blurry, and not set firm, they still (approximately) exhibit distinct behavior. The classification is not just useful, but also a good approximation of the behaviors of the system. Aliens around the universe probably created similar categories. (Is that what defines a good categorization, it being independently arrived at? Not perfect, but funny thought). Oof, that is a long one, I probably wouldn't read that myself! But at least trying to explain something helps one to understand and make sense of it, so there is that.
When you described interacting with an algorithm, food, friends, and family, and becoming an informational being. I believe this is what the Norse concept of Wyrd is describing.
The only way to answer the question, “What am I?” is to look at all those not-arbitrary attributes that come together as a whole; the multitudinous things all working together as one toward a goal. What Goal? The only goal that I am capable of perceiving. The Goal of Me. My existence, my intentions, my experiences. My memories. Whatever the experiences of the bacteria and cells making up my body might be having they are irrelevant to my experiences of myself. What am I? I am My Self. I am incapable of knowing anything else as intimately as I know My Self. If at all.
"We are whatever we choose to do with our lives . . . " A beautiful truth. Coincidentally, I've been trying to tell myself that for a number of whiles now, to no great effect. But then, what most consterns the thoughty encephalon? Not enough Zinfandel, or hosts who don't know how to pour with a heavy hand.
It I'd an easy question, nothing tricky at all. You are you. As for what that means, it's all perspective... ultimately, the only "what" there is, is the Source. Everything is a "part" of the self, a projection, an aspect, a perspective. As for who you are... we get back to the first answer, "you are you," the story of you. All Things are nothing more or less than stories (questions, answers, interactions).
This is fantastic, you've earned a subscriber. My personal favourite way of looking at it is that the self, and the ship of Theseus are simply patterns. They are dynamic but continous patterns with semi-solid boundaries defined mainly through our intrinsic understanding of the world. That is why the real ship of Theseus is the one with all the new parts, because that was the continuous pattern of "ship" traceable back through time from its creation and initial identification as the "ship of Theseus". That is why the baby you is you, despite you basically sharing no atoms any more, the continuous pattern of "you"-ness can be traced back through time, distinct from the atoms that made it up at various points. This seems to be the definition that is the most internally consistent, and agrees with what we deeply "feel" intrinsically about the separation of self. Though its arguably a bit fuzzy on the boundary details, so is any definition, and the line is drawn somewhat arbitrarily depending on the situation and use-case. I would argue that for a "self" to exist, at least with our current intrinsic feeling of the situation, it does need to be continuous. I think this is why at the moment one would consider a perfect simulation of your brain in a computer not to really count as "self".. though this may well change in the future, we might come to see the pattern of "self" as something that can be non-continuous. Though, of course this raises the issue of whether the self can be duplicated and all still be considered the same "original". At the moment I would argue not, though this may change. EDIT: I love the informational exchange definition of the individual. Its a wonderfully interesting and thought provoking, more objective way of defining where the (fuzzy) boundary of the pattern of "self" lies.
Database and processor. Read/write access to a database that runs alongside a processor. Everything within the confines of this control is your personal body. Organisms within you have a similar database and processor that defines who they are. Corporations have databases but not one that is completely accessible by a single central processor per se. A.I. could very well change that and comparmentalize humans within a larger entity. Full control might sound scary, but do we really have full control of every organism within our body? It's more like a sway using nutrition, exercise, rest, and excretions.
Wow this was such a thought provoking video. You have impacted my future self. Right away I have lots of questions come to mind. I'm just starting to read Dr. Robert Sapolky's book, Determined, on how free will does not exist, but how nonetheless we can be changed and change others. Also, immediately I'm thinking of how beautiful the mathematics describing this all must be, and the religious traditions like vedanta and Buddhism, and how they all relate to this topic. Lots to think about! Thanks so much!
I have now decided that if _I am_ something, that's a contiguous ever changing experience whose continuity feels so as much for me as for others around me and vice versa.
Thank you so much. I'm 66 years old and have been grappling with the concepts of individuation vs. collective and individuation vis-a-vis collective all my like. Because I was stuck in thinking of individuation as being far to singly defined and static, I created a dichotomy that needn't have existed in my mind had I allowed for a more fluid concept of individuation.
If you are trying to be the Vsauce of biology then you are going about it the right way. Looking forward to seeing this channel grow.
This guy is NOT the Vsauce of biology. Vsauce actually makes good points.
@@EnlightenedMinarchistLOL... What?! What a ridiculous statement to make. Which of the MANY researched points in his videos are not good or valid? This comment is CLEARLY just you being a hater.
Definitely NOT the Vsauce of biology. He's unique.
Vsauce is more artist-entertainer than “educator”
@@Wizznilliam How about the clickbait title?
It's a rare gem to find correct interpretations of Buddhist teachings
18:20 ANDDDDD this touches my soul. I've worked with plants all my life and I do Bonsai by the same means. By bending, twisting, applying pressure to and sometimes binding the young tree's branches, you can influence its future growth and transform it farther into an individual plant. We have much to learn from organisms that behave differently to us. Thank you for making videos like these. You make use of your mind very effectively sir!
Its not an individual plant. Your manipulating it to your own will. Its self gratification…
It's the same with children. Inflicting bending, twisting, applying pressure and binding the young person's dreams
@@SofaKingShitSo you should... what? Just not raise your kids? Let them do whatever they want? Give them no guidance? Teach them nothing about the world and how you should behave within it?
@@cordlefhrichter1520 "today we observe a 1 year old toddler in it's natural environment as it hunts for prey"
in all seriousness though humans need to be raised to actually survive, that's the point of social groups it's in our evolution after all, just look at our ancestor species
You cannot raise kids. You can only live by example. If you don't, they learn all your misbehaving traits.
Kids learn by observing the people around them, not by some stupids waving their fingers talking nonsense.
If you steal, they learn how to steal.
You can talk for the whole next decade about not stealing and that it's wrong. They saw what you really do, that's what they learn.
That doesn't mean they become thieves as adults, as they too have the ability to choose their fate by themselves.
You can talk from the chalkboard about responsibility as much as you want. Kids sitting still in a classroom learn to sit still and nothing else.
And if you think you are your kids authority, you lose their friendship for life.
You are supposed to care for your kids, not to rule them.
👀😉
I'm a biologist. One of the most difficult type of organisms to envision as an individual is the order of jellyfish called Siphonophores which comprises 175 species, one of which being the venimous Portuguese man o' war. A siphonophore individual, as surprising as it may seem, is made if a colony of "parts" called zooids, where each zooid is only a part of the whole "individual", and where those zooids vary in shape, structure and function. Thus, you have reproductive zooids, digestive zooids, defensive zooids, and other that play mainly mechanical purposes, acting as supports for other specialized zooids, such as tentacles, which can actually be very long (several meters) and on which adhere polypoid zooids that are armed with cnidoblasts, little microscopic bags containing darts (or nematocysts) which are projected at extremely high velocity, penetrate the victim's epiderm thereby injecting a highly posonous toxin.
The conceptual oroblem with siphonophores starts when one wants to define what each zooid is relative to the whole 'beast'. Individual zooids are only specialized versions of the whole "individual". The life cycle begins with the budding of one blob from one zooid of the "colony", which then forms buds which will evolve into one specialized type of zooid or another, according to a precise genetically programmed body plan.
The question arises: since every zooid retains autonomous properties to a certain extent, and can free-float to reach its destination on the large jellyfish that a single siphonophore is in reality, one can't call these zooids organs of one individual. On the other hand, as one specialuzed zooid wouldn't survive without the others, at least for a significant period, one cannot consider them as separate organisms (with the same genetic material as rhe others).
Many theories have interpreted suphonophores as one example of the type of intermediate lifeform that could have existed between liwer and higher invertebrates. So-called lower invertebrates (protozoa, sponges, etc.), which appeared early in the evolution, follow a simple body plan, where different cell types specialize from embryonic one layer out of the main 3 ones. However, that body plan reaches its limits rapidly and is not suitable for larger-sized animals. With siphonophores, which are a relatively primitive type of "coelenterates" (now xalled cnidarians), the specialization of zooids performing unique functions could be thought as one way specialized organs could appear. According to that theory, after increasing integration of the various zooids in one single individual, different "systems" or organs would have ultimately become sheltered under one distinct individual where the various organs cannot obviously exist separately from the other - unlike zooids. Such an evolutionary pathway could mean that siphonophores mught be an intermediate body plan between a lower invertebrate and the higher AND larger ones we now know. In fact, siphonophores could well the earliest body plan used by cnidarians (hydrae, jellyfish, sea anemones, corals, etc) before they adopted the more induvidualuzed organization we know today
Absolutely great video. These described processes apply to individuals in reality as well as the entirety of existence itself. The material was wonderfully lit, I appreciate the illumination.
Thanks for the support Benjamin!
Thank you very much. This video gave me a new way to appreciate the bond between me and someone very dear to me who recently died. I am not spiritual, and I was struggling, but the ideas in this video are something my excessively rational brain can accept. So, thank you for making this video!
Well, that makes sense, since it's all gooey-mushy feel-good psuedoscience. It's barely deeper than those tumblr nonsese posts about how "you're made of stardust, so you're one with the universe!" or something similar.
Unfortunately this video is useless in any real scientific sense, in fact it's pretty antithetical to most models of biology, since it attempts to deny categorization altogether. We don't have categories because we don't understand the concepts explained in the video - we have them because, without _some_ form of categorization, there's no meaning to anything, and words might as well be gibberish.
I'm glad this made you feel better (which is the point), but don't be fooled into thinking this is rational or scientific in any real sense. It's more "nebulous" than that! 😅
@@bugjamswow. i dont like you.
HAHAHAAH that's literally what Newton though; whooops, here comes all general relativity! Science is about searching for the truth, anyone who thinks they achieved ultimate truth and can efortlessly make the distinction between "valuable" and "useless", that's a true acientific point of view! Categorization is extremely useful but depending the focus you give something it can also be polivalent (light is both a wave and a particle), categories are not meant to be ultimate, and there is a fundamental flaw in thinking science and categories gave birth to "meaning" and organization. No. Human language and it's intrinsic capacity for abstraction is what gave and gives "meaning", "value", "sense" or "direction" (used here as almost synonims) to life since the origin of "humans" (wether you think that is the first civilization, the development of consciousness, language, or something in between/simultaneously). Science is just A KIND of organizational and methodological approach to life problems (the best one for sure!), but you are waaaay off if you think that without "categorization" or a scientific approach, life is meaningles. One last thing, "rational", "scientific" and "logical" are completely different things. False things can be logical, objective things can be non-rational (like tradition, say, eat dinner on the table and not on the kitchen countertop), and science can be rethought, contested, and even eventually be proven wrong -usually but not exclusively by that same scientific thought-@@bugjams
@@bugjams I think you are missing the point. Categorization and the information theory of individuality are not mutually exclusive. Consider digital objects in a simulated world such as a video game. Both software engineers and players can categorize objects into classes such as structures, avatars, weapons, etc --- but what are they all, really? They are just mathematical constructs.
Having experienced loss, I thought you might find comfort in the following poem, which to me seems to have many parallels to this video:
Memory is not enough...
I do not recollect. What I am
is alive in me because of you. I do not reinvent you
at sadly cooled-off places you have left behind.
Even your absence is filled
with your warmth and is more real
than your not-existing. Longing often meanders
into vagueness. Why should I throw myself away
when something in you may be
touching me, very lightly, like moonlight
on a window seat.
Rainer Marie Rilke, Uncollected Poems
Your videos are amazing!!!
I am sure your channel will blow up soon if you keep posting such high quality content
Thanks so much, I really appreciate it! Glad you enjoyed them :)).
Jake
Wow - this video is really beautiful, I honestly don't have another word for it.
You tied together the big-picture philosophy, the biology, and the day-to-day experience of being an individual so well! At the end, the idea of others becoming part of your individuality and flow of self hit me hard, I wasn't expecting that ❤️
susie pfp :O
Fantastic! As a student of Buddhism and Western philosophy I feel like you are finishing my sentences. Really good content expertly presented!
‘Who am I’ can definitely not be answered by rational thought alone. Spinoza outlines this very beautifully and so did Greek philosophers and Advaita Vedanta as well as the Mahayana Buddhists. Our rational thought is like a small boat on the Atlantic Ocean, reality is so much bigger than our rational mind. There is so much more to reality. Mystics are therefore developing knowledge by applying and honoring Rational Thinking, Practice and Experience. The world ‘beyond’ space, time and matter is not accessible for the dissociated human mind, we can only access our ‘real I’ when we gently fall back, in ever widening rings, into the unthinkable and unspeakable here/now, the ONE. Thank you for addressing these key-topics so beautifully and accessible.
There’s so much noise in the world, and sometimes I get overwhelmed by how much meaninglessness is being shoved into my brain all the time. Then I come across a video like this and it doesn’t feel so bad to be alive in this day and age.
Exactly.. this is how it felt for me as well to find this video.
Wow what a statement of appreciation
same
Very rare to find someone who synthesizes Eastern and Western concepts, ancient and modern, mysticism, philosophy and science, and makes sense of it all.
I love the idea that I am the flow. A self aware channel that atoms pass through. Very thought provoking. Thanks.
One personally impactful application of this kind of thinking for me is with regard to considering parenthood as a sort of "immortality": you impart not only some portion of your literal genes but also your vibes, values, and ways of interacting with the world in the process of raising a child, and they go forward with that influence in hand. So they become an extension of your impact on the world, in a much more nuanced way than classical "fame"-based immortality or "immortality" through recordings of particular moments in your life which might influence the future when they're watched. Reproduction serves as a temporal extension of the things that make you you, where that "you"-ness gets diluted with all the other influences but continues to interface in a dynamic way with the world.
I've been noticing this most of my life and have been trying to put it all together for myself and friends and family to understand but it's always been piece by piece. You've done a great job putting it in a very digestible fashion. Great job 👍
I've stumbled upon one of your videos by chance and I wish I could've found your channel sooner. (Past me, or the person from the past that has no recollection of memories i've picked up recently would've also like this lol) The topics you choose and the way you present them, everything is great- keep at it!
This is a really well done video. Good job.
Thanks! Your channel is pretty cool too - subscribed.
I have done some thinking similar to this and reached the conclusion, similar to yours, that we are not objects but events. We don't exactly exist so much as we occur. We happen.
It's nice to see that I'm not the only one thinking about things like this. And you've explained it here in a manner more lucid than I think I might have been able to. Very well done. Thank you.
Any reasonably thorough analysis leads here. Otherwise you have to make some very weird and arbitrary distinctions that probably break down somewhere.
We can create too.
You maybe should look into systems theory if you are interested in this kind of topic.
I came to watch a Biology video and ended up seeing one of the deepest philosophical questions I could never imagine. Superb video
A very interesting video! Good job👍 As a matematician interested in the foundations of mathematical biology, I would love to see more videos like this one. Thanks!
Thank you! More are certainly on the way :))
@@SubAnimabut the wolf does not control its genetics or environment and is just as subject to the determinism of the universe as the cloud is..
@@4bidden1The wolf is a more stable entity than the cloud. The wolf has the will to live and therefor tries to continue to exist.
@@I.Reckon right, but that will is determined by its evolutionary programming
@4bidden1 Determinism ensures cause and effect, but choosing the best survival strategy steers Determinism along the path of choice.
Loved the video! I have a somewhat similar philosophy that I didn't know had a sefinition put to it like the one you've explained.
I have mine simplified as 'Our purpose is to qualitatively measure internal and external states' which I feel captures some of the 'continuous' nature of identity like you highlighted. That being said, thank you for the entertainment and enlightenment!
Thank you so much for the kind words! That sounds interesting, similar to Alan Watts philosophy of continuous energy.
ua-cam.com/video/4yaBJVfyy00/v-deo.html
If you’d like to read more there is also a sources/further reading doc in the description. Jake
"A qualitative measuring of internal and external states" = a relation. We exist by relating. Everything relates and is changed - permanently - by everything else.
This is a wonderful, elegant explanation of process ontology and its implications for our everyday life! Well done!
Hi, Juniper! Just found this channel, and there's a strong resonance with my work, don't you think? Maybe we should link some of this on RNA's SM channels...
Just wanted to say, few videoessays have stuck with me as much as this one, I keep coming back to it, I think of the perspective of individuals as "processes that propagate information about themselves" a lot (especially since I've started studying compsci). The way you also framed it as as a 'twist' in the last chapter was masterfully done!
Also I think that applying this lens of process ontology to art/culture (which no doubt has already been done) provides some really profound perspectives as well. It feels meaningful on many levels.
Holy crap, what a great channel! I'm just discovering you (first the genetics misconceptions, now this), and you deserve way more subs. I hope my experience is representative of the algorithm starting to favor you. Maybe this comment will help strengthen that =)
Yeah
this channel is amazing. I never saw someone communicatr the most modern ideas in theoretical biology as well as you!
As a biology major I am quite frustrated with the mechanistic, deterministic and reductionist lines of thought which are even in academic circles quite present but should not be the proper way of thinking when discussing the mechanisms of the most complex systems we know. Thank you for your contribution to science!
I've had some of these ideas/questions, floating around in my head, for a long time.
This video, did a good job, of connecting the dots, and adding clarity to the subject of who/what we are, and how connected/changing, we are.
As someone who has studied fluid dynamics, this is quite easy. You are a control volume.
I love little hidden gems like this channel 😊
Incredible video! So interesting and thought-provoking, felt like prime Vsauce :))
Thank you
Great job!!
Thanks!
this is an absolutely beautiful video. what an encapsulation of so many ideas. can't believe i didn't find this sooner! excited to see more from you!
I think this approach of analyzing non philosophical fields through the lens of philosophy is really interesting and cool
It's just mumbo jumbo through. Pretty talk without empirical basis.
he's just recycling stuff that has long already been talked about by other channels (like the ship analogy), and then using such things to come to his own conclusions (which aren't exactly accurate)
@@gLitCheRR44 what have you noticed that he concluded wrong?
@@RaydensherajNo. You can do such kind of philosophy ON empirical things.
It's applied philosophy.
I find your video fantastic, thank you. Have to watch it again, greetings from Vienna
Thought provoking! I love it!
So, I've become a bit of a UA-cam snob, i.e. if I can tell you're AI talking, I immediately dislike, close, and block the channel. I've also found presentation styles and keeping the conversation linear are very important to me. You do all these things beautifully, Jake. I look forward to more content from your channel.
This one did break my brain a bit. One thing on consciousness I've never seen explored, though, (at least, in a non-fiction way) is the possibility that it exists in some point of quantum flux or alternate dimension, and the human mind was the only one that evolved to tap into that state/dimension/whatever? At least, on our planet? I won't even pretend to get the math, so I'm not sure if that's even a logical road to explore, but it would be nice to find if it's gotten any treatment. I haven't been able to find anything, so far.
Amazing video! I’ve been wondering about this for a bit and I was surprised to find a great explanation for it
back at it with the bees
This presentation was astounding. This is philosophy, psychology and biology combined - like us. ;)
Thx so much for this.
This is excellent. Process ontology works beautifully in the context of neuroplasticity. Neuroscience is in a great position to help demystify this way of thinking about things.
@16:17 I think the eternal factors are superfluous in the cloud analogy. external forces, when all lumped together, become a constant...there's always gonna be at least one force, one pathway for energy transfer, in the mix to perform the influencer role. So now space, the room to move, the existence of somewhere where change is possible, the spectrum of potentiality, is what makes a cloud less individualized than a person.
great video! thanks for sending me here. I fell in love with the idea of interacting humans becoming their own organisms in 2021 so it’s validating to see someone back it up with some actual literature 😂.
as one small point of criticism: something this video underrepresented is the sense of self from a psychological perspective. the psychological conception of self doesn’t care about replacement of cells and has temporal longevity despite changes in characteristics.
i concede that if you try to break down our built in sense of self logically then it gets messy (which i understand is what this video is trying to get at) but i still think it’s the best definition of self out there (almost tautologically lol)
my point is: the best/most practical way to define the individual is the way we have already been wired to define it
Thanks again Avi! Glad to hear you enjoyed this older video :) You're right I didn't focus much at all on a psychological perspective on the self, which has a lot of depth in its own right.
I guess I wanted to focus more on biology as a whole, and it's difficult to talk about minds beyond the realm of humans. Certainly many philosophers of mind try, but I haven't read much of that literature at all. Peter Godfrey-Smith's (yes him again) Other Minds was pretty interesting though. Octopuses are very cool: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_the_Sea,_and_the_Deep_Origins_of_Consciousness
I cant thank you enough for the way you cited all your sources on your website :) I love this very much thank you for the further reading ❤
I absolutely loved this video. It's amazing that our ancient ancestors, despite not having the scientific background of knowledge we have today, were able to acknowledge and integrate into their religious stories this idea of the impermanent, ever flowing self.
It's been over a year since this video was released, so I'm sure no one's reading the comments hear. But, there was one point in the video that I disagreed with: the part mentioning the more concrete "line" that separates objects that don't exchange sufficient amounts of information.
When we touch a tree, that interaction itself might not impart much change in either entity. However, the c02 we breathe out statistically will end up being breathed by that tree. At some point in time, my desire for a piece of paper may cause the tree to be cut down. Driving a car and creating plastic dust with my tires might flow into a stream and eventually make its way to the water that nourishes the tree.
I could go on, but the point is that if we zoom out far enough, we really are a singular, connected process: the universe. It's not a terribly useful idea at our scale, thinking of us and existence as a singular flow. But at a fundamental level, we are but a piece of the remnant dust of the big bang interacting with other pieces of big bang dust.
I think you hit the nail on the head (and I bet SubAnima would agree with you). I guess the point is that although we are all connected at some quantum level, i.e., we're all part of one process, our world can be characterised by regularities at the level of the human (e.g., when a ball collides with another in the middle of a pool table, the second ball will likely move), such that some interactions are more "meaningful" than others. So although individuality can probably never reach 100%, some may be considered sufficiently close enough to 100% for all practical purposes (e.g., planets in different solar systems are practically independent entities because the interaction with the local star will swamp any interstellar interaction).
Thanks for literally becoming a part of my feature self. 😊
Throughout the video as you mentioned various theories based on individuality composition I felt there always wasn't something quite right about them. But the information theory and viewing self as a process rather than a bunch of parts make a lot of sense.
In my favorite Czech potcast Brain we are (it's in Czech unfortunately.) I heard an interesting concept of something they called a "mind field". That is, parts of our environment provoke certain thinking and thus might become a part of us. Our individuality is constantly changing as we are moving in the world. In a kitchen for example there is a higher chance of thinking of food. So it's not just the living things that influences who we are.
Moreover you can sort of program your enviroment to generate a wanted mind field. If you want to learn to play guitar for example, just put it in your room. It will naturally become a part of the rooms mind field. Next time you go there, there's a greater chance of you thinking of playing.
This is hands down the best philosophy video I've ever seen. It wasn't just a long rant of random philosophical ideas (which most other philosophy videos, IMHO, are), but actually shared very meaningful ideas in a very structured and scientific way. Keep up the good work!
a spectrum really seems like a much better way to think about individuality
This is one of many reasons I call biology “the squishy science”
Organisms are made of particles like atoms. Due to the large collection of these particles and the underlying physical laws you get emergent behavior (Conway's Game of Life with physical laws as the rules). Human concepts like "organisms" are just a phenomena we observe (aka an emergent system). However, they are as complex as the underlying mechanisms from which they emerge. Their behavior is not bound to our simplification.
Concepts like "organism" has their use in everyday life for communicating ideas, but we should be aware that they are significant approximations.
Your room's background is very cool
Thank you!
your totally new perspective on scientific and other concepts are mind blowing, subscribed
Beautifully done and a great conclusion. Thank you! Was just pondering about "every interaction being information exchange"... and UA-cam recommended this video. Looks like Google has invaded minds too... 😊
Enjoying the video. I generally don’t like music behind people talking but you did it well. The pace of the speech went well with it and you changed it up. Maybe that’s the trick.
Wow that was a good video! It reminded me of Vsauce’s recent video on ontology, but from a more biological standpoint. Keep it up!
Haha bang on. That was a major source of inspiration but I was like “hmm I could totally do this for a biology video.” Thanks, glad you enjoyed !
Jake
Wow! Someone who respects their audience enough to PROOF-READ their captions BEFORE posting!?! I am in gracious shock.
Really excellent storytelling. I’m a psychotherapist and artist and my background is continental philosophy, so I know a thing or two about this field and you nailed it.
We need this philosophy everywhere.
Not sure if you've read "Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology" by Danial Nicholson and John Dupre. It's open source, I think, but it has a series of essays expounding on exactly what you talk about here video. It's a great read for anyone interested.
A fantastic book, yep it’s open access :) academic.oup.com/book/27525
@@SubAnima Right, open access, not open source haha
This was phenomenal. This is exactly what I've been trying to put into words.
Keep thinking and teaching my friend ❤️
I like the idea of "Informational Individuals". Because I think it also pretty neatly defines life and death.
Alive is "being an individual". And death is when the individual can no longer sustain itself, which cause it to collapse and no longer able to effect it's future.
Sub'ing now - so that I can say, 'I was there!' - when this channel expands exponentially!
Very interesting Jake! Food for thought 😊 Wait, now my food is part of my individuality, changing my microbiome, which makes me a different person. I wonder how this non stable sense of me can be actively manipulated to improve healing ie of chronically damaged tissue? Cheers
Thanks Shane! I would say one of the biggest takeaways that could have applications (at least in our thinking) is that genetics isn't everything. Our environment and our choices have way more control over our future selves than we might think if we take what's in our DNA too seriously. I think most doctors and practical physicians know this well (else what would be the point of doing any treatment at all) but in research we can often fall prey to over-trusting in an organism's genes as a definition of what they are.
The person with chronically damaged tissue who gets good treatment will end up a very different individual to the person they could have been without treatment.
- Jake
Very pleased to see a discussion on individually that took processes into consideration after discussing the Ship of Theseus. It's an interesting thought experiment, but it's never been appropriately applicable to living beings because the ship doesn't metabolize, doesn't reproduce, and doesn't have any sort of experiential line (so far as we can discern). We are not ships.
This was excellent.
Where do you get that we replace 98% of our atoms every year? This is not true.
Oak Ridge Atomic Research Center
While I dislike Google, it is still a thing. So, its seems it is more likely to be true.
Also, his sources are linked in his description.
If that is hard to believe, than what Im about to say will really blow your mind.
You are 99.99999998% empty space, and not a single part of "you" has ever made contact with any other part of "you" or any other object. anywhere, ever.
So a few years ago I was talking with a friend about the ecology of a prairie as being the convolution of bison, their predators and grasses within a geophysical and climate context. Lots of other organisms and abiotic factors, but the point being that the complex settles into state space and transfers information as waveforms into the future. This is a simple example of what all ecosystems are constantly doing unless severely disrupted.
At the most basic level, all organisms are made of a combination of atoms. They contain atoms that combine together to form molecules.
Right but like in his example a river isn't defined by the indevual water molecules that make it up. Since if the specific atoms that make up stream doesn't matter, so long as more watter comes to fill it. In the same way the particular atoms that make you up right now doesn't matter in regard to defining your ideviduality. All that matters it that more atoms of the right type replace those atoms that leave. It is the difference between defining us as the atoms themselves or as a process that atoms do.
@@johnwade7842 The title of this video is still click-baity and wrong.
@@haggismcbaggis9485
It’d be better phrased as “organisms are patterns” really, life specifically follows fractals of division trees.
@@haggismcbaggis9485cry
@psychedelic_funk Well nothing is truly individual in this universe, Energy and matter transfers exchanges properties and eventual evens out to a low entropy state. No system is truly individual or isolated from a physics perspective
I feel like we need a word, that names the kind individual we become when tied to something else in an informational feedback loop. I'm taking this from the eucalyptus tree & tiktok example. A name that acknowledges the symbiotic individual we become that includes an AI relationship, much like that of a microbiome relationship.
Thank you so much for this video! This gastalt theory has been on my mind since reading Alan Watts The Book, which introduced these concepts to me, reshaping how I see the world.
Kids crying now, thanks
Yeah sorry about that. Get them off TikTok.
AHAHAHA
Just found this channel and I'm loving it so far.
🤯
I always thought there was something strange with the way we categorize organisms. Thanks for making this video.
Nice click bait title bro👌
Wow, I'm amazed by this video conclusion. I once arrived at a similar idea when thinking about causal links and free will: that the reason why we perceive humans as integrated agents is to reduce the computational complexity. Though humans are determined by miryad of factors, their internal characteristics as agents (= self) are the key determinant and can be treated as an independent factor.
Process ontology (doing) goes some way to understanding the situation but importantly things are also constituted by their relations, relationships and roles in particular activities.
At heart every "thing" is just a constantly changing collection of Plank-scale wobbles in space-time, and where we put the boundaries has as much to do with the particular type of activity we are participating in as anything physical. And of course these are socially constructed notions...
I'm glad I stumbled upon your channel. This video really made me think! You've got my sub!
I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS SO MUCH!!! ❤ they are so fascinating and are just the right level of “indepthness” that I’m looking for while still easily understandable while also discussing things I can see throughout my life. Your videos match my brain very well :) so thank you so much for all your hard work!! I can tell how much effort you put into each video and I can’t wait till more and more people keep finding the amazing content you make. Keep it up! 🫶
Thanks!!
0:07 speak for yourself, I’ve literally come up my reflection in a context having no expectation of seeing a reflection. It wasn’t until I tried to got close enough for the reflective situation to reduce to a transparency that I realized it was me.😂
I would suggest watching the episode of Bump in the Night called “Farewell 2 Arms”, in regards to the Ship of Theseus problem. It’s a really interesting take: Molly, the girl’s doll, fears her vulnerability, and so replaces each part of herself with something strong and powerful, until she is a giant monster. Then her friend puts her old pieces back together, and she is Molly again! In this case, her self-reconstruction denied her original identity, and so Molly Coddle is “within” her original body parts.
This was very well done and really enjoyable. Well done! First time I've encountered your channel - will be digging in more. All the best.
love your analysis, glad I stumbled upon your videos. I share many of the same perspectives, but I think you articulate them better than I can
Fantastic video! The conflict between defining things in discrete categories vs on a continuum, reoccurs again and again in different areas. F.e. autism becoming a spectrum, this video, definition of species and much more. The central issue is that on one hand, defining things along a continuum is pretty much always gonna be less contradictory, defining discrete categories can be really, really useful. There doesn't have to be a conflict though, so long as one isn't too rigid. For example, one can both recognize that what contitutes a species is an approximation, but also that it can be useful and capture some distinct properties of a population, even if those aren't completely universal, or unique to them.
Different systems can be more or less suitable to being described by continuums or discrete categories. For example, if weight measured in BMI follows a bell curve distribution, separating it into categories is inherently a bad idea (I'm aware that is how it is) But if the correlation between heart disease and weight starts increasing sharply when weight exceeds ~30 BMI, creating two categories separating those below and above ~30 BMI might not just be very useful, but also a good approximation for the system of interactions between BMI and heart disease. Some approximations are worse than others, and sometimes just missleading and unhelpful. But just because a property exists along a continuum does not mean that it is linear, or following a bell curve. Some continuums are well approximated by distinct groups. A crude example graph would be |_/\_/\_ where there is a blurry line between the two groups, but they are much more distinct than a bell curve.
A good example where there is no controversy is electromagnetic waves, which certainly form a very smooth continuum, but is also categorized into infrared, visible, microwave, radio etc. Even though the line between them is blurry, and not set firm, they still (approximately) exhibit distinct behavior. The classification is not just useful, but also a good approximation of the behaviors of the system. Aliens around the universe probably created similar categories. (Is that what defines a good categorization, it being independently arrived at? Not perfect, but funny thought).
Oof, that is a long one, I probably wouldn't read that myself! But at least trying to explain something helps one to understand and make sense of it, so there is that.
very nice man, I'm sure when the internet was invented this was the type of exchange of ideas they had in mind.
Dude i love you, this channel is so good.
This is the kind of content yt was made for.
Thank you so much for making this
When you described interacting with an algorithm, food, friends, and family, and becoming an informational being. I believe this is what the Norse concept of Wyrd is describing.
The only way to answer the question, “What am I?” is to look at all those not-arbitrary attributes that come together as a whole; the multitudinous things all working together as one toward a goal.
What Goal? The only goal that I am capable of perceiving.
The Goal of Me.
My existence, my intentions, my experiences. My memories.
Whatever the experiences of the bacteria and cells making up my body might be having they are irrelevant to my experiences of myself.
What am I? I am My Self. I am incapable of knowing anything else as intimately as I know My Self. If at all.
Good final conclusion and very relevant right now.
"We are whatever we choose to do with our lives . . . " A beautiful truth.
Coincidentally, I've been trying to tell myself that for a number of whiles now, to no great effect. But then, what most consterns the thoughty encephalon? Not enough Zinfandel, or hosts who don't know how to pour with a heavy hand.
It I'd an easy question, nothing tricky at all. You are you. As for what that means, it's all perspective... ultimately, the only "what" there is, is the Source. Everything is a "part" of the self, a projection, an aspect, a perspective.
As for who you are... we get back to the first answer, "you are you," the story of you. All Things are nothing more or less than stories (questions, answers, interactions).
Yes, we are actually quite different. You have your belief and I have mine. Period.
This is fantastic, you've earned a subscriber. My personal favourite way of looking at it is that the self, and the ship of Theseus are simply patterns. They are dynamic but continous patterns with semi-solid boundaries defined mainly through our intrinsic understanding of the world. That is why the real ship of Theseus is the one with all the new parts, because that was the continuous pattern of "ship" traceable back through time from its creation and initial identification as the "ship of Theseus". That is why the baby you is you, despite you basically sharing no atoms any more, the continuous pattern of "you"-ness can be traced back through time, distinct from the atoms that made it up at various points.
This seems to be the definition that is the most internally consistent, and agrees with what we deeply "feel" intrinsically about the separation of self. Though its arguably a bit fuzzy on the boundary details, so is any definition, and the line is drawn somewhat arbitrarily depending on the situation and use-case.
I would argue that for a "self" to exist, at least with our current intrinsic feeling of the situation, it does need to be continuous. I think this is why at the moment one would consider a perfect simulation of your brain in a computer not to really count as "self".. though this may well change in the future, we might come to see the pattern of "self" as something that can be non-continuous. Though, of course this raises the issue of whether the self can be duplicated and all still be considered the same "original". At the moment I would argue not, though this may change.
EDIT: I love the informational exchange definition of the individual. Its a wonderfully interesting and thought provoking, more objective way of defining where the (fuzzy) boundary of the pattern of "self" lies.
Database and processor. Read/write access to a database that runs alongside a processor. Everything within the confines of this control is your personal body. Organisms within you have a similar database and processor that defines who they are. Corporations have databases but not one that is completely accessible by a single central processor per se. A.I. could very well change that and comparmentalize humans within a larger entity. Full control might sound scary, but do we really have full control of every organism within our body? It's more like a sway using nutrition, exercise, rest, and excretions.
We are not only this flow, but also a flow which lives inside a illusion of reality!
Well done SubAnima. You're getting into some nice meta-Metaphysics here.
Wow this was such a thought provoking video. You have impacted my future self. Right away I have lots of questions come to mind. I'm just starting to read Dr. Robert Sapolky's book, Determined, on how free will does not exist, but how nonetheless we can be changed and change others. Also, immediately I'm thinking of how beautiful the mathematics describing this all must be, and the religious traditions like vedanta and Buddhism, and how they all relate to this topic. Lots to think about! Thanks so much!
Come on algorithm, find this man
Next video: The Earth isn't made of atoms.
You are are awesome bro! Keep up the videos! You explain things so well and put it all in an a way I can understand and get interested inn
I have now decided that if _I am_ something, that's a contiguous ever changing experience whose continuity feels so as much for me as for others around me and vice versa.
Thank you so much. I'm 66 years old and have been grappling with the concepts of individuation vs. collective and individuation vis-a-vis collective all my like. Because I was stuck in thinking of individuation as being far to singly defined and static, I created a dichotomy that needn't have existed in my mind had I allowed for a more fluid concept of individuation.
This is da channel I’ve been waiting for