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Full Idea
The roundworm only has 959 cells, and 302 neurons in a fixed wiring diagram; it eats, mates, approaches and avoids certain smells, and that's about it. This makes it obvious that human 'free' behaviour comes from our complex biological makeup.
Gist of Idea
Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions
Source
Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5)
Book Ref
Pinker,Steven: 'The Blank Slate' [Penguin 2003], p.76
A Reaction
I find this a persuasive example. Three hundred trillion neurons cannot possibly produce behaviour which is more than broadly predictable, and then it is the environment and culture that make it predictable, not the biology.
| 7505 | Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker] |
| 7516 | In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel [Pinker] |
| 7508 | Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker] |
| 7510 | Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker] |
| 7513 | Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker] |
| 7509 | Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker] |
| 7511 | Neural networks can generalise their training, e.g. truths about tigers apply mostly to lions [Pinker] |
| 7512 | There are five types of reasoning that seem beyond connectionist systems [Pinker, by PG] |
| 7515 | All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent [Pinker] |
| 7514 | Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default [Pinker] |