Post by @yoginho@spore.social

RE: https://spore.social/@yoginho/116634055234391590

The Cyborg Myth:
https://youtu.be/Bx9FV2W7otw

a talk given at the Hybrid Minds Symposium at MedUni Vienna on Feb 26, 2026.

It takes apart Moravec/Chalmers' neural substitution thought experiment — that you could replace all your neurons with artificial devices of the same function, and still be you — which is one of the main metaphysical arguments propping up the ideology of computational functionalism (or computationalism, for short). /1

Yogi Jaeger

@yoginho@spore.social · yesterday

I've recorded 3 recent lectures, on related topics:

1. The Cyborg Myth: a criticism of the replacement thought experiment & computational functionalism.

https://youtu.be/Bx9FV2W7otw

2. Make Biologists Think Again: a call for useful & actionable new theory (esp. a theory of the organism) in biology:

https://youtu.be/bbNWh8Wd7Mw

3. Why Computers Can't Think (or Act): they cannot (& won't ever be able to) judge, because of the way they are designed.

https://youtu.be/EIZD03bA1cc

More on each of these soon.

Yogi Jaeger

@yoginho@spore.social · 3 hours ago

My criticism comes in three steps:

I. The function of a cell (like a neuron) cannot be pinned down precisely in advance, because a cell is a self-manufacturing process without a well-defined state space, and not a static & precisely circumscribed machine part (like, for example, the planks of Theseus' famous Ship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus). Therefore, it's impossible to be sure that the organismic function we are replacing with a machine function is really equivalent in all relevant aspects. /2

Ship of Theseus: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

Yogi Jaeger

@yoginho@spore.social · 3 hours ago

II. Even worse: the substitution argument assumes that function (and hence identity, life & mind) continuously persist during each swap, which takes a non-zero amount of time. But, even though there are a lot of cells in a human body/brain, each cell remains a discrete unit. Therefore, the continuity of function is just an unproven assumption. We'd have to try the swaps experimentally to rule out the possibility that function does indeed get disrupted at some specific point during the swap. /3

Yogi Jaeger

@yoginho@spore.social · 3 hours ago

III. The differences between machine and organismic function can be explained through the dynamic organization of a self-manufacturing cell or organism, which stands in stark contrast to the static architecture/blueprint of a machine. The fact that all the essential processes in a living system collectively co-constitute each other, renders their functional capacities open-ended, while machines (by design) come with (potentially large but) precisely defined spaces of possible behaviors. /4

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 3 hours ago

In conclusion: assuming that the Ship of Theseus (a perfectly valid philosophical argument) and the substitution thought experiment (for either the brain or our whole body) are analogous is a logical fallacy. More precisely, it is a category error. We are comparing apples with oranges, and the idea that we can simply swap organic components for machine parts does not hold up to closer scrutiny.

Computationalism is not backed by evidence, but it is also not backed by logical reasoning. /5