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/sci/ - Science & Math

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4869969 No.4869969 [Reply] [Original]

lets say you have a computer. It has some operative system installed which you have no idea what is about, yet you manage to open a video file; its a film. While the film is running, you open the computer and take a look at all the electronic components. Lets say you are able to measure the electric impulses that travel through the transistors and wires. You have no knowledge about the computer except for his architecture. Would you be able to tell whats the plot of the film by ONLY observing the hardware?

>> No.4869976

All in all, this is what geneticist are attempting to do. Not a very efficient way to do things. How would you solve this problem?

>> No.4869981

I feel like you're full of shit.

Could just be the tripcode, though.

>> No.4869984

>>4869976
Watch the video file on the monitor instead of trying to read the electronic signals manually.

>> No.4869989

>>4869976
your analogy is a bit off I believe. They don't have a purpose like uncovering the great plot or anything. They just look at stuff and hope that it reveals something sooner or later. So far they realized/discovered that all species share a hierarchy of genetic structure which leads to evolution.
Your analogy is more interested in how thoughts are produced and mind general as I get it

>> No.4869991

>Would you be able to tell whats the plot of the film by ONLY observing the hardware?
If you only observe the hardware, you can't do anything. At least for human.
At least you can open the HDD and examine it, but not with just eye, you have to have tool.
>>4869976
And why is a geneticist has anything to do with this?

>> No.4870006 [DELETED] 

>>4869969
But the geneticist isn't trying to tell what the plot of the film is, he's trying to tell how the computer runs the video file, and he CAN do this by looking at the hardware (though that's on a very low level of abstraction, he still has a long way to go to get to the software, which is what science is currently doing with genetics).

You are correct in that the plot of the film has nothing to do with how the hardware runs the video file. But when it comes to the human body, diseases ARE related to genetics- the video file (the contents of the file, not the meaning that it conveys that is interpreted by a separate system, the human mind) is related to the hardware. The computer is not even programmed to interpret the plot of the video it's running.

Your analogy would make sense if you tried to show that the thing the geneticist is trying to uncover is actually running on a separate system. So the plot runs in the human brain, while the video file runs in the computer hardware; X runs in some separate system Y, while diseases are run by the genetics of the organism. I think a workable analogy would be to not change Y and make Y = a human interpreter, and X = the fear and realization that some other human is carrying a disease. I'm sure there are better ones, but I don't feel like coming up with one.

Hell, you could even put the two systems on the same physical body: consciousness and the products which arise from genes on the same human. But I don't think that makes much of a difference in this analogy.

>> No.4870014

Well the data is there to be decoded into a video, but there'd also be lots of background stuff going on. So doubtful altogether.

>> No.4870065

>>4869991
you have instruments that measure voltages and signals while the film is playing. Lets add that you know when the film is over., and is restarting. You can also use multiple computers playing the same vid at the same time. etc