alt Hacker NewsWhat level of analysis would you consider "complete"? Certainly if we accounted for every neuron in their brain we could reduce their achievements to whatever configuration of gray matter produced the thoughts and actions that led to their success, and whatever external events produced that configuration. But then we would be at a level of analysis that regards us all as automatons, where nobody, including the group, is accountable for anything at all. This may or may not be technically correct, but I would argue that it is not useful. The question of who gets "credit" for an achievement would be entirely moot, as would the achievement itself and everything else any human has ever done.
I would think the correct level of analysis for this conversation is the lowest one that still allows people to be accountable for their own actions. Lower than that, and the central question of this thread is irrelevant.
> could reduce their achievements to whatever configuration of gray matter
Even if we could do that it would not "reduce" any personal value. I think these are biases you may have. Accountability can be defined, even in that total view.
And right now, even in the incomplete view that we have, it is defined socially and politically. And that's what my real take is:
That the ideas that most people have of self, person-hood, achievement, merit and value, are political ideas.They are not necessarily true/accurate ideas. They serve a political purpose.
> What level of analysis would you consider "complete"?
We can go further than what we have now. In fact I think we MUST go further in order to make the world a better place.
Our current analysis is really just a cheap political tool that serves to preserve a sort of caste-system, most employed for classism and racism. That vague notion that "some people are just different" is the base for many political violations.
If anything the ideal, final form of what I am saying is this: Real Incorruptible Democracy.
So we don't need a scientific model describing of a persons thoughts in real, chemical, atomic detail, we need a world that can take peoples individual circumstance into real political consideration and action.
This could be what a real science of people is.