Erik Orrje
@erik-orrje·Member since September 2025
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#2228·Dennis Hackethal revised 3 months agoI have speculated in the past that ideas compete for attention, but they also compete for any kind of memory, be it something like RAM or hard-disk memory. The RAM-like memory in the brain is presumably closely related to working memory, if not the same.
The reason most people don’t (permanently) run out memory (of either kind) isn’t that memory isn’t scarce but that there’s a pruning mechanism in the mind. And again, there’s competition. That competition can involve predatory ideas which disassemble the source code of other ideas and use it for themselves because that’s cheaper than to construct source code from scratch.
That pruning mechanism is what constitutes natural selection in the mind.
#2228·Dennis Hackethal revised 3 months agoI have speculated in the past that ideas compete for attention, but they also compete for any kind of memory, be it something like RAM or hard-disk memory. The RAM-like memory in the brain is presumably closely related to working memory, if not the same.
The reason most people don’t (permanently) run out memory (of either kind) isn’t that memory isn’t scarce but that there’s a pruning mechanism in the mind. And again, there’s competition. That competition can involve predatory ideas which disassemble the source code of other ideas and use it for themselves because that’s cheaper than to construct source code from scratch.
Makes sense, thanks Dennis. Constant pruning is the explanation that retains scarcity and competition, while making the brain seem to have much more memory than it does.
The comment was rather an ask for clarification about scarcity in the mind, rather than criticism.
Most people (except in Alzheimer's, etc.) don't run out of memory in the brain. If there's no scarcity for the space of ideas, why do they have to compete?
Most people (except in Alzheimer's, etc.) don't run out of memory in the brain. If there's no scarcity for the space of ideas, why do they have to compete?
#2224·Dennis Hackethal, 3 months agoEveryone has scarce memory. Everyone’s brain has limited storage space.
Of course, memory isn't infinite. But most people don't seem to run out of it in their lifetimes. Is it more accurate to say that ideas compete for working memory, which is scarcer?
#2200·Dennis Hackethal, 3 months agoIn the neo-Darwinian view, any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals. This view is what Dawkins (IIRC) calls the gene’s eye view, and it applies to ideas as much as it does to genes. Any adaptation of any replicator is primarily in service of this concern.
So I think the answer to your question, “Are ideas also guesses of how to survive in the mind and across substrates …?”, is ‘yes’.
Most people (except in Alzheimer's, etc.) don't run out of memory in the brain. If there's no scarcity for the space of ideas, why do they have to compete?
Yeah, thanks! Are ideas also guesses of how to survive in the mind and across substrates, or is there more to ideas?
#2081·Edwin de Wit, 3 months agoPerhaps it’s premature, but I’d love to discuss:
why DD thinks the four strands already amount to a theory of everything
why DD presents quantum mechanisms as having already subsumed general relativity
what other (proto)strands we could envision and why they are indeed a meaningful addition to the 4 strands
Yeah (3) is interesting. Constructor theory is the contender I can think of for a future fifth strand. Any other suggestions?
@dennis-hackethal, could you expand your argument in Lucas' blog post that self-similarity must entail correspondence?
Can't think of how it could be otherwise. Do you have any examples of inexplicit explanations?