Your brain is not a computer. It contains no data, it performs no calculations. That's simply not how brains work.
It is human nature to compare the working of the brain to the most advanced technology of the time. Back in the Bronze Age, that was weaving, ceramics, and distillation. Thus, humans were made from clay and animated by the spirit/breath of God. The fact that the visible vapors coming off of distilled spirits are flammable is where the imagery of the soul as an eternal flame comes from. Think Pentecost. In the Iron Age, the most advanced technologies were glass and hydraulics. Thus the Universe is composed of crystal spheres, with the soul are a gem and your mind working by the fluid interactions of different humors or xi. During the Renaissance and Enlightenment, the most advanced technology were clockwork machines and optics. We thus get the image of the mind as a clockwork machine or engine and the soul as insubstantial light. In late Enlightenment and early modern times, the most advanced technologies were electronics and magnetism. You thus get images like Frankenstein reanimating corpses with electricity and the animal magnetism of Mesmer. In modern times, Chemistry and computers are the most advanced technology. Thus you get the chemical imbalance theory of mental disease; a theory that has been thoroughly debunked in all but a few, specific cases. You also get images of the mind as a computer. And if you can transfer a computer program from one machine to another, why not a human mind? This is the origin of nonsense like transhumanism and the singularity.
In reality, nothing a computer does is remotely like what a brain does. Your brain is not a computer.
Your brain is not a computer.True. It contains no dataFalse. it performs no calculationsFalse. That's simply not how brains work.False.
I am not sure what you are on about, but what you said is easily demonstrated to be false. For example, I have my phone number memorized. That's data, and it is stored in my brain. What would you challenge about this? Do you think it is stored in my toenail? Or that a phone number somehow doesn't qualify as "data?" What in the world else would it be???
Computers are made of silicon and such, and have no biological components at all.
The point is not what a computer or a brain is made out of (silicon or biological bits). What matters is what the brain does, compared to what a computer does. I think the idea is that most of what the brain does is not what one could class as computing, or at least, that is yet to be demonstrated. The fact that human brains can do recognisable computation does not mean that computation is what the brain does most of the time.
I design a fair bit of analog electronic circuitry. There is no actual computing d
Note that I agree mostly with what you said. That last statement has a certain finality to it though that I think goes a bit far: the fact that brains can do arithmetic and store raw numbers is not necessarily proof that "this is how they work". Today a computer can be constructed to perform certain "human domain" tasks fairly well - like telling cats from dogs and such. That's not proof that a computer fundamentally operates by object recognition and pattern matching. In both cases these abilities are more
Actually, at least living human brains with help from an attached consciousness can usually store data and can perform computations. They are not very good at it, admittedly, and it is clear a lot of translation to other mechanisms is needed to do it at all. And absolutely nobody knows how that "consciousness" thing works, what it is or how it interfaces with a human brain. All we know is that it is essential and that a human brain without it can only do very basic house-keeping stuff.
Define consciousness. The entire concept of consciousness is a philosophical leftover from Christian dualism. It is a replacement for the concept of a soul to distinguish humans from animals. Which is nonsense from an objective perspective.
Define consciousness. The entire concept of consciousness is a philosophical leftover from Christian dualism. It is a replacement for the concept of a soul to distinguish humans from animals. Which is nonsense from an objective perspective.
You have it ass-backwards. We find consciousness to exist. Hence we cannot define it. We can only define the word for it and for that I direct you at many nice definitions you can find online. Incidentally, you are wrong. The recognition of consciousness is far older than the Christian religion and far more universal than their limited ideas.
The idea of consciousness predates Christianity. Your conceptualization of consciousness is directly derived from Christian thought. "Cognito ergo sum" is a statement from a faithful, fervent Christian who was an affirmed dualist. It is a sentiment you literally just paraphrased. All scientific investigation has found that the perception of consciousness to be an illusion. One that is quite likely culturally determined.
It's not a Turing machine, but I'd urge you to study any of the good papers on how neurons work that compare them to individual computational elements. I've already cited this one:
Well, for starters, both the authors listed on that paper died in 1969. And the paper itself was published in 1943. So, not the most up-to-date research. That paper is famously wrong about the fundamental functioning of neurons.
Can you cite a single fundamental error? It is, indeed, nearly 70 years old. Microscopes and electronics have improved since then, so there was certainly room for refinement. But the ideas of small feedback loops interacting to create quite sophisticated sensory or processing systems seems well established.
First of all, there is no evidence at all, that our brains would utilize anything similar to a loss function with a single output, nor backpropagation. These are the essential elements of all neural networks, no neural network can train itself without these. Most neural networks have layers too: no evidence at all that our brain would arrive to conclusions using similarly layered structure. Oh well, you could say, they do have “neurons”, right? Ok, but they are completely different, and if you actually use this comparison for anything, you get into trouble.
Great: Where did the original paper I created say there is no backpropagation, no feedback? The models didn't provide extensive feedback because feedback often occurs at higher layers of mentation, layers too complex to model for such a restricted element. The response to a cold sensation relies extensively on local processing, but the model need not include the higher level behavioral feedback of "why did someone expose their flesh to cold".
> Most neural networks have layers too: no evidence at all that
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is
the triumph of hope over experience.
You Brain Is Not a Computer (Score:2)
Your brain is not a computer. It contains no data, it performs no calculations. That's simply not how brains work.
It is human nature to compare the working of the brain to the most advanced technology of the time. Back in the Bronze Age, that was weaving, ceramics, and distillation. Thus, humans were made from clay and animated by the spirit/breath of God. The fact that the visible vapors coming off of distilled spirits are flammable is where the imagery of the soul as an eternal flame comes from. Think Pentecost. In the Iron Age, the most advanced technologies were glass and hydraulics. Thus the Universe is composed of crystal spheres, with the soul are a gem and your mind working by the fluid interactions of different humors or xi. During the Renaissance and Enlightenment, the most advanced technology were clockwork machines and optics. We thus get the image of the mind as a clockwork machine or engine and the soul as insubstantial light. In late Enlightenment and early modern times, the most advanced technologies were electronics and magnetism. You thus get images like Frankenstein reanimating corpses with electricity and the animal magnetism of Mesmer. In modern times, Chemistry and computers are the most advanced technology. Thus you get the chemical imbalance theory of mental disease; a theory that has been thoroughly debunked in all but a few, specific cases. You also get images of the mind as a computer. And if you can transfer a computer program from one machine to another, why not a human mind? This is the origin of nonsense like transhumanism and the singularity.
In reality, nothing a computer does is remotely like what a brain does. Your brain is not a computer.
Re: (Score:3)
Your brain is not a computer. True.
It contains no data False.
it performs no calculations False.
That's simply not how brains work. False.
I am not sure what you are on about, but what you said is easily demonstrated to be false. For example, I have my phone number memorized. That's data, and it is stored in my brain. What would you challenge about this? Do you think it is stored in my toenail? Or that a phone number somehow doesn't qualify as "data?" What in the world else would it be???
I can do ment
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Computers are made of silicon and such, and have no biological components at all.
The point is not what a computer or a brain is made out of (silicon or biological bits). What matters is what the brain does, compared to what a computer does. I think the idea is that most of what the brain does is not what one could class as computing, or at least, that is yet to be demonstrated. The fact that human brains can do recognisable computation does not mean that computation is what the brain does most of the time.
I design a fair bit of analog electronic circuitry. There is no actual computing d
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So, quite simply, yes, that IS how brains work.
Note that I agree mostly with what you said. That last statement has a certain finality to it though that I think goes a bit far: the fact that brains can do arithmetic and store raw numbers is not necessarily proof that "this is how they work". Today a computer can be constructed to perform certain "human domain" tasks fairly well - like telling cats from dogs and such. That's not proof that a computer fundamentally operates by object recognition and pattern matching. In both cases these abilities are more
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Re: (Score:2)
Actually, at least living human brains with help from an attached consciousness can usually store data and can perform computations. They are not very good at it, admittedly, and it is clear a lot of translation to other mechanisms is needed to do it at all. And absolutely nobody knows how that "consciousness" thing works, what it is or how it interfaces with a human brain. All we know is that it is essential and that a human brain without it can only do very basic house-keeping stuff.
Physicalists: Stay out
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Define consciousness. The entire concept of consciousness is a philosophical leftover from Christian dualism. It is a replacement for the concept of a soul to distinguish humans from animals. Which is nonsense from an objective perspective.
You have it ass-backwards. We find consciousness to exist. Hence we cannot define it. We can only define the word for it and for that I direct you at many nice definitions you can find online. Incidentally, you are wrong. The recognition of consciousness is far older than the Christian religion and far more universal than their limited ideas.
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It's not a Turing machine, but I'd urge you to study any of the good papers on how neurons work that compare them to individual computational elements. I've already cited this one:
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~./epxi... [cmu.edu]
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Re: (Score:2)
Can you cite a single fundamental error? It is, indeed, nearly 70 years old. Microscopes and electronics have improved since then, so there was certainly room for refinement. But the ideas of small feedback loops interacting to create quite sophisticated sensory or processing systems seems well established.
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Correcting myself, the paper was nearly 80 years ago.
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First of all, there is no evidence at all, that our brains would utilize anything similar to a loss function with a single output, nor backpropagation. These are the essential elements of all neural networks, no neural network can train itself without these. Most neural networks have layers too: no evidence at all that our brain would arrive to conclusions using similarly layered structure. Oh well, you could say, they do have “neurons”, right? Ok, but they are completely different, and if you actually use this comparison for anything, you get into trouble.
https://medium.com/@zabop/why-... [medium.com]
Here's a paper from this century. [hilarispublisher.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Great: Where did the original paper I created say there is no backpropagation, no feedback? The models didn't provide extensive feedback because feedback often occurs at higher layers of mentation, layers too complex to model for such a restricted element. The response to a cold sensation relies extensively on local processing, but the model need not include the higher level behavioral feedback of "why did someone expose their flesh to cold".
> Most neural networks have layers too: no evidence at all that