Fear and Fragility: The Glass Delusion and Its History | Hacker News Reader

Fear and Fragility: The Glass Delusion and Its History

publicdomainreview.org

28 pointsPetiver7 comments

Intriguing article. The pattern is compelling, that perhaps there is something in the human condition that is attracted to the idea 'i'm made of this newly arrived magical stuff, and you can't prove otherwise'. New generations get to choose new stuff.

I'm reminded of Goethe's description of an athiest as a person with 'no invisible means of support'.

As I was reading, I was hoping to find an aside about the role of lead in glass production, but I suppose that'd be a distraction.

The Glass Delusion is one of those medieval conditions that sounds made up until you read about it. Says a lot that we had a named syndrome for people who thought they were made of glass.

The way we humans see ourselves depends a lot on the technology of the time. An example I quite like is that when steam engines were all the rage, Freud compared the brain to a steam engine. Now that computers are all the hype, we compare the human brain to computers.

Intuitively the latter does feel closer to the truth (although maybe quantum computer would be even closer to reality). Or maybe that's just our contemporary lens of viewing technology and our place in the world, who knows what's next in a few hundred years. :)

edit: link for more context https://metaphors.iath.virginia.edu/metaphors/24583

i personally never found that a compelling analogy, just because we do understand computers but we don't understand the brain.

but i guess that's the rhetorical move being used, substitute something the audience doesn't understand with something they do understand.

I think it’s more than just translating to a non-understanding audience. I think it’s their point of view being tainted by the technology of their age, so the firmly believe it’s true.

But I agree, it’s not a compelling argument especially when you do understand at least a bit of both domains.

We are getting close to understanding the brain at the cellular level and below. There is a photo of a charge exchange between neurons, occurring as the rat "recognized" an object - cell-level cognition mechanism.

And you can understand a single line of code. But when all that code is wrapped inside a cellphone, or all those ionic transmitters in a skull - do you really "understand" either? It becomes a black box, with semi-predictable outputs.

It's the same with some other mental health conditions. Centuries ago people with schizophrenia would hallucinate visions of angels or demons. Now they see "aliens". Expectations and interpretations are culturally programmed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com