Thanks to @[email protected] for the links!
Here’s a link to Caltech’s press release: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/thinking-slowly-the-paradoxical-slowness-of-human-behavior
Here’s a link to the actual paper (paywall): https://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(24)00808-0
Here’s a link to a preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.10234
You say “we don’t think in bits because our brains function nothing like computers”, but bits aren’t strictly related to computers. Bits are about information. And since our brains are machines that process information, bits are also applicable to those processes.
To show this, I chose an analogy. We say that people have 10 fingers, yet our hands have nothing to do with numbers. That’s because the concept of “10” is applicable both to math and topics that math can describe, just like “bits” are applicable both to information theory and topics that information theory can describe.
For the record: I didn’t downvote you, it was a fair question to ask.
I also thought about a better analogy - imagine someone tells you they measured the temperature of a distant star, and you say “that’s stupid, you can’t get a thermometer to a star and read the measurement, you’d die”, just because you don’t know how one could measure it.
Bits are binary digits used for mechanical computers. Human brains are constantly changing chemical systems that don’t “process” binary bits of information so it makes no sense as a metric.
It’s not about how you measure it, it’s about using a unit system that doesn’t apply. It’s more like trying to calculate how much star costs in USD.
Maybe try looking into the topic instead of confidently repeating your wrong assertions? You’re literally pulling a “my hand is not a number!” right now.
Just because you have a limited understanding of a unit, doesn’t mean that unit is only applicable to what you know. Literally the star example I brought up.
I already did before I formed my conclusion. It’s clear you have not and are just looking for someone which whom to argue.
Goodbye.
Ah, so you just choose to ignore information you don’t already know? What a rational thing to do. You’re not anti-intellectual at all.
Or are you seriously trying to gaslight everyone into believing Shannon entropy doesn’t exist?
Bits are also a unit of information from information theory. In that context they are relevant for anything that processes information, regardless of methodology, you can convert analogue signals into bits just fine.