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
It’s 100% moronic, they use terminology that clearly isn’t fit for the task.
“100% moronic” is an even bolder claim for someone who has not evaluated any of the claims in the paper.
One might even say that calling scientific claims “100%” false is a not especially scientific approach.
If the conclusion is moronic, there’s a pretty good chance the thinking behind it is too.
They did get the thing about thinking about one thing at a time right though. But that doesn’t change the error of the conclusion.
Again, I would say using the “100%” in science when evaluating something is not a very good term to use. I think you know that.
Yeah OK that’s technically correct.
It’s also been pointed out that they are using ‘bit’ in a way people here are not thinking they are using it: https://lemmy.world/comment/14152865
Oh boy.
Which is exactly what bit means.
Which is not bits, but the equivalent 1 digit at base 10.
This just shows the normal interpretation of bits.
If it’s used as units of information you need to specify it as bits of information. Which is NOT A FREAKING QUANTIZED unit!
And is just showing the complete uselessness of this piece of crap paper.
I’m interested in what you mean. Could you ELI5 why bits of information can’t be used here?
I suppose it can, but just calling it bits is extremely misleading. It’s like saying something takes 10 seconds, but only if you are traveling 90% at the speed of light.
It such extremely poor terminology, and maybe the article is at fault and not the study, but it is presented in a way that is moronic.
Using this thermodynamics definition is not generally relevant to how thought processes work.
And using a word to mean something different than it usually does BEFORE pointing it out is very poor terminology.
And in this case made them look like idiots.
It’s really too bad, because if they had simply stated we can only handle about 10 concepts per second, that would have been an entirely different matter, I actually agree is probably right. But that’s not bad IMO, that’s actually quite impressive! The exact contrary of what the headline indicates.