Ode to Imperfection

Gary Marcus. An imperfect person. The randomness of brain evolution and its consequences

(Gary Marcus. Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind) Alpina non-fiction, 2011

An abridged version of the review was published in the pilot issue of the new popular science magazine “Science in Focus”

Any good popular science book, in addition to its general entertainment (well, to be read avidly without stopping) and obvious benefits from the point of view of increasing the reader’s banal erudition, also has a certain educational super-task. In order for something to motivate an author to write another bestseller, he must at least have a desire to introduce some fresh idea into our society, at least in some small way to change this whole world. Books-events coming from the pen of the same Dawkins or the same Hawking are imprinted not only in the brains of diligent schoolchildren and adult amateurs who are belatedly mastering alien sciences, but also “pop up” in discussions about the fate of the world among journalists, politicians and philosophers. Successful metaphors and expressions begin to live their own lives, but are still attached to the original book with an invisible anchor and sooner or later bring new readers to it, ashamed of ignorance of those things that everyone knows.

Of course, after the publication of Gary Marcus’ book, this new “all-explanatory” word “kluge” (a ridiculous, clumsy, but surprisingly effective solution to a problem) will inevitably fly into the media and blogosphere, i.e. something cobbled together from scrap materials and turned out to be tenacious due to the fact that the ideal solution no longer has the same urgent need). Unlike the original, in the Russian version the translators did not dare to use “kludge” as the main title, for which they have already received a reprimand from many commentators.

The author considers himself and you and me to be such “kludges”. Of course, we are not “complete kludges” in everything, and some solutions found by “blind” nature are extremely close to the ideal, if they are not such. But the presence of obvious absurdities in our body, which no reasonable and diligent engineer would leave to show off in a “finished” design, pretty much poisons the lives of perfectionists who love to talk about the greatness of “natural creations.”

Evolutionists have recently been increasingly inspired by such discoveries as the retina of the eye turned “backwards” (it is precisely because of this circumstance that each of us can find “blind spots” in our field of vision) or the spine, which has difficulty coping with its functions (not to mention the that “blatant” fact that human muscles are inferior in strength and efficiency to chimpanzees - here is the “crown of nature” for you!). Gary Marcus's book aims to debunk the last "stronghold of intelligence" - the human brain.

The structure of living beings and even the design of the “multi-component” brain itself is more reminiscent not of the creation of a patient sculptor or a skilled mechanic, but of the efforts of a hacky half-educated programmer (“redneck coder”), who makes full use of pieces of alien code that he does not understand, leaving here and there unnecessary but also rubbish that does not have any effect on the final result and generally poorly represents the work of individual cycles, which only by pure chance work as they should (and then only for the time being). But in fact, this is how it really is, the genetic code is a program that is far from perfect, created literally “on the knee” and “by different programmers.”

“Highly efficient neurons,” writes Marcus, “for example, are connected to their neighbors by strikingly inefficient synaptic clefts that transform efficient electrical activity into less efficient chemical compounds, which in turn waste heat and lose information.

What hidden purpose warms the “imperfect brain” of Marcus himself, who has once again undertaken to debunk the latest myth about the perfection of nature? One must think that he was inspired to do all this by the opportunity to create “proof by contradiction” and, in the eyes of the enlightened public, to offend the positions of “churchists and creationists.”

Once upon a time, the freethinker Omar Khayyam acted exactly according to the same scheme, in the 11th century he asked a provocative, and essentially rhetorical question in his “rubays”: “... if [a person] is not perfect, then who is the bastard?”

It seems that the chaos of “poor programmer” work cannot be reasonable, but at the same time, we, alas, do not know and cannot know the ultimate goal of all this activity. More precisely, if there is no Creator, then all this does not and cannot have any purpose; every creature, at best, chooses its own goal.

If we think about why a person is so poorly adapted to existence in this “best of worlds”, why he suffers from his imperfections and does not find answers to the most banal questions, then we will simply go beyond the scope of science (a question from a human point of view From a scientific point of view, it is natural, but from a scientific point of view it is meaningless - it is just a “cognitive error reinforced by nature”).

If a person is simply “created for happiness, like a bird for flight” or “the world is ruled by love,” then with such “technical specifications” he will look simply ideal, because only with animal atavistic passions and a sublime, vulnerable soul, a young man or girl in love is able to experience the whole spectrum of purely irrational experiences, torment and “soaring”; Only an “imperfect person” is probably capable of truly loving. Exactly the same applies to creativity: for art, man is also an almost ideal model - both as a creator and as, so to speak, a consumer of the product of creativity. That is, it may seem that a person is quite wisely and consciously conceived to be imperfect and contradictory, capable of irrational actions and thoughts that create this entire fabric and meaning of history, movement towards something higher and evolution.

It is very difficult to imagine how a perfect person would love and create, and why he would need it at all, because everything that a person decides to do is given to him only through self-deception...

From a rational point of view, in our time it would probably not be worth it for an individual to even have a family and children (unless he is strictly subordinate to society). Only atavistic inclinations and diligent delusions move him to live in this world at all and produce descendants.

Why is a person really hopelessly bad from the point of view of the author of this new bestseller? Probably bad for doing science? (Here it should be noted that the “adaptability” of a person for practicing art is practically not discussed in the book.) But can science even be outside of a person? After all, science is not at all a visible technology, as many people think; it is not aimed at obtaining unconditional benefits and is most likely a kind of interface between the imperfection of human perception of reality and nature itself. A perfect person should not need such an interface, he is not tormented by “extra” questions, the focus of his mind should be purely instrumental. In essence, there is not a single human activity known to us that an ideal person could engage in, except, perhaps, technology - for his widespread expansion, and even then this would be some kind of small “software” glitch, because perfection does not need in technogenic crutches for their existence and not obsessed with the essentially meaningless idea of ​​​​conquering the rest of the world...

It is even more amusing to point out that it is the imperfect man who is best equipped to acquire true faith, as it is now understood. As a matter of fact, it is precisely the imperfection of his own brain and the ability to be mistaken and aware of his delusions and his imperfection that allows him not to know, but to believe. Therefore, “proof of the randomness of the appearance of man” can just as well be considered a crafty proof of divine providence in the construction of an obviously imperfect creation (which, of course, is not at all necessary to know about all this).

In general, the book itself by Gary Marcus with all its passion, pathos and humor is also such a far from perfect kluge, which certainly works - it fulfills some of its tasks (it is bought, read, quoted and many, of course, like it ), - but it may not work ideally...

Maxim Borisov