BS: Brain = Digital Computer?

Subject: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Pied Piper
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 07:07 AM

The assumption that the
Brain functions like a digital computer underlies a lot of thought about the mind but as the article shows this is erroneous.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 09:44 AM

The article looks pretty solid. But when dealing with recently published studies, one should always remember: "One study points a finger. Ten studies are interesting. A few hundred may have gotten it right."

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:19 AM

Any such assumption is only valid at a very broad level. The differences are inordinately glaring.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 11:17 AM

what is likely is that we designed computers to work like we 'thought' our brains worked, and then stretched metaphors to fit....and not all computers work that way anymore.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 01:20 PM

Digital computers basically work on TTL -- transistor-totransistor logic. This means that every choice is reduced in the final analysis to a two-valued decision -- yes or no, 1 or 0, true or false, high or low voltage. This kind of either or thinking has been smoothed over by lots of complex algorithms to imitate life to some degree. There is no quality assessment in digital computation, also. There is only stimulus-response numerical logic.

But when life thinks, it thinks in terms of infinite scales of very large numbers of qualities, not just quantities, and it furthermore (when it is in good shape) can be aware ofitself being aware.

A digital computer can pretend indefinitely, but will never achieve that condition. Setting a flag to "I am aware=true" because, say, there was an input on a video bus input is not the same thing by orders of magnitude.

But from what I know of computer science, it is not the case that we designed computers like we thought our brains worked. We designed them to be von Neumann machines, separating storage, processing, program data and short-term memory. THis was based on high-level design philosophy developed in the early days of cybernetics by John von Neumann, who coined the term cybernetic.

The design decisions are a natural outgrowth of the very binary limitations inherent in switches and transistors. Note that transistors CAN be used for infinite-gradient responses, and are so used in audio systems which are not digital, but they are not used that way in most computing devices. There is a branch of computer science devoted to analog-based computers, but it is not widely known or pursued despite the fact that it offers many possibilities binary systems do not.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: GUEST,Spock
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 01:34 PM

Fascinating.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 02:58 PM

"For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have treated mental processes as though they involved passing discrete packets of information in a strictly feed-forward fashion from one cognitive module to the next or in a string of individuated binary symbols -- like a digital computer," said Spivey

An assertion with no substantiation, that is not really a general truth. Some researchers have used simplified models of the sort flippantly described, but those working in the same kinds of studies as the one reported, and in numerous other lines of study, have generally qualified their assumptions and recognized that real mental processes are not strictly binary - which is really what the article is all about. The "conclusion" in the article has been an integral understanding in the analyses of cyberneticists since before Norbert Weiner in the 1940s.

The work reported here looks pretty good, but it's not an earthshaking new and novel concept as the short review attempts to depict it. It's another "possibly useful" contribution to a long line of studies that attempt, with more or less success, to "model" thinking (and reacting) processes with a wide variety of methods.

Attempts to create "fuzzy state" devices where logic(?) can be implemented other than as discrete on/off states in physical objects have been a regularly recurring subject of study for decades (with relatively little success) simply because many researchers have recognized what this report claims to have "discovered." A couple of different "trinary" (3-state switch) devices are known, but one researcher several decades ago described the "brain" as a "highly interconnected analog device containing trainable preferred-state elements and interconnections." Not exactly a simple binary/digital machine.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 04:43 PM

John hints at a conclusion I reached about twenty years ago when I ventured into the study of LISP and a couple of other approaches to what was then the glamourous and futuristic topic of AI. I spent several months surveying the field and I reached the conclusion that Artificial Intelligence was neither.

It is true IMO that neural networks and fuzzy-logic algorithms do a better job of emulating the kind of conclusions that intelligence comes to in situations that are largely repeating, such as well-established medical diagnoses or trouble-shooting a plumbing problem. I mean, better than more main-stream sorts of programs.

But that doesn't mean they approach the subtle high-speed network performance of a brain, let alone a mind.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 06:42 PM

Don't worry- I'm not entering this discussion! However, when I taught basic computer in adult education I came up with a truism that worked. I frequently told students that the reason that the computer is so swift is because it can't *read* and thus doesn't have to slow down for comprehension. Processing only by symbols manually entered into its 'brain', it is far inferior to the rankest beginner's perceptions and ultimate powers.

Now, if I was *way* off base, be gentle with me!

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 08:17 PM

Spot on, Ebb; back in the 1980's I would tell nervous beginners that the first thing they had to realize is that the hard thing is not how smart the computer is, but how to understand how stupid it is. They are so literal minded that a human in that condition would be deemed an idiot at best. A human being has to slow WAY down and look VERY hard to think in such a robotic manner.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Peace
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 09:35 PM

Well, if we DO think like computers, I want to think like a Mac and not a PC.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Bert
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 09:41 PM

Or Linux not Microsoft Windows Peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:27 PM

Aw, Peace, ya just don't want to be politically correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: number 6
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 11:18 PM

I prefer analog.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: number 6
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 09:03 AM

I got the digital blues, my soul is just another number
I got the digital blues, my soul is just another number
You check it out, we're all the same
You check it out, we're one again
I got the digital blues, my soul is just another number
Three forty-four point six, is that really me
Three forty-four point six, you're kidding me
How did we get into the shape we're in
I check it out, I'm one again
I got the digital blues, my soul is just another number
In the year thirty-two thirty-two, how will they remember me
In the year thirty-two thirty-two, how will they remember me
My appetite will be a digital code
Information in the new code
I got the digital blues, my soul is just another number
I got the digital blues, my soul is just another number

.... Digital Blues by JJ Cale

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 04:30 AM

This research has set up something of a straw man. I don't think anyone seriously talking about the workings of the brain has imagined it to be a simple digital computer for many years now. That's not the same thing as saying it's not a computer at all.

One of the current fruitful models is Dennett's, in which a (large) number of primitive responders (reflexes if you like) provide inputs to a serialised process that evaluates the competing and often conflicting promptings. in "Consciousness Explained" (ambitious title or what?) Dennett gives several examples very similar to the Cornell experiment, in the course of demonstrating that you are often NOT conscious when you think you are- but several tens of milliseconds later- it's almost as though the conscious mind is "telling you the story" of what it thinks happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Pied Piper
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 07:03 AM

I think we're all in agreement that the analogy between digital computers and the Brain is deeply flawed.
Just an update Amos, TTL has been superseded by CMOS but all the points you make are still valid.
Feed forward AND feedback are very important concepts when thinking about the CNS especially in connection to the senses; the Brain is not a passive receiver of information, it interrogates the external world and is in effect coupled to it.
The Thalamocortical Phase Locked Loops are a good example of this type of system.
Work is being done to use similar techniques in electronic systems such as a PLL Memory.
The complexity of the behaviour of Spiking Neurons is quit remarkable.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 09:41 AM

Thanks, PP....I had heard of the TTL to CMOS transition, but had forgotten about it as outside my immediate zone of work. The difference, is more of a hardware distinction -- what kinds of transistors are used, and what voltage levels are used to signal high/low states.

The "logical methods" in the abstract are constant, as far as I can see, the logic being entirely predicated on two-state reasoning.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: autolycus
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 04:27 AM

The other month I thought about what a computer would never ever be able to do.
My answer was:- A computer will never be able to live my life; I'm the only one who can do that.
Autolycos

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Grab
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 07:41 AM

Do they think they're the first people to see emergent behaviour in an AI algorithm? Hell, even your simplest neural network gives you emergent behaviour from the interaction of the "neurons".

In addition, the whole premise of "fuzzy logic" is that computers *could* be designed to take action based on uncertainty and grey areas. It's only been around for 20-some years...

The article was written by a moron. The researchers are doing interesting work, and that work has *nothing* to do with whether the brain is a "digital computer".

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 10:21 AM

A computer will prbably never be able to "be there", in the human sense; it will never reach a state of understanding; and it will never be able to intend.

They can mimic these things, or will be able to, but it ain't the same. This means that no matter how much message-passing it does, genuine communication will remain a peculiarity of life, in spite of all the apparent noise centered around networks of computers.

a

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 10:42 AM

Why not? What do you mean by "intend"? You are making a big assumption here: that there is a FUNDAMENTAL difference between life and non-life.

This assumption has dogged science since the 18th century and before. First it was 'animal electricity', then 'organic chemistry', then the (ongoing) resistance to the idea that people evolved from non- human ancestors, and that those ancestors can be traced back to the simplest recognisable life forms. And now, you are assuming that there is a discontinuity between thought/ feeling and the earlier, more 'primitive' processes that our finest human emotions are built on.

To me, IF humans evolved from earlier animals, and IF earlier animals evolved from processes we would currently describe as non- living, there is no a priori reason why other constructs of matter should not be capable of feeling in a way parallel to ours.

Of course, that's not saying that any currently used technique or system is even vaguely on the ball.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 11:22 AM

Hell, Paul, I dunno how to say this well, but to me there is such a huge difference between the ability to generate intent and the sad mimicry of it that machines do that it constitutes a qualitative leap, not just a quantitative one.

I don't have much theory to throw around on it; it strikes me that just inventorying those instances where you've seen a person really generate an intention, compared to the many instances where people or devices just chew up reactions and spit them out, will make the difference pretty clear. Pre-fabbed automated signaling systems whether in machines or in people don't carry the intent to communicate. They're displaced in time and context.

Here's a silly example -- you know those tags they put on pillows and mattresses that say "Do Not Remove under Penalty of Law"... how many times have you torn one off? :>D They have no intention, they're in the wrongplace and time as far as a communication goes -- they're meant for someone else and they are so far removed from any original intention that the communication impulse is lost in time and space.

Or when Windows starts up and says, "Welcome!". Or when you ask someone how are you, and they say, "Fine" before the words are out of your mouth, automatically.

Or when a web page says , "Congratulations, you've been selected".

These are all almost completely intention-free signals.

There are, as Bill D put it, about 47 pages of exceptions, clarifications, and so on, omitted here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Grab
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 07:50 PM

Amos, you're assuming that because we don't know how you or I "intend" something, it is and will always be inexplicable. I guess you're also assuming that "intending" requires the same physical process (ie. a few pounds of grey mush using currently-unknown methods) to be used for anything else that can "intend".

With emergent systems, very simple systems with very simple rules can have amazing behaviour. That behaviour comes from the initial rules, but you couldn't predict that behaviour in advance from the rules. And if you make the system and rules more complex, you're increasing the scope of what behaviours are possible. With a computer, you always know you're feeding it a program, so you know in advance that your neural network program would have the capacity to learn behaviours, for example - you've set it up so the rules allow that. But then instinct is nothing more or less than preprogrammed behaviours, hardwired into our brains, and the ability to learn is certainly hardwired in us, so we ain't so fundamentally different.

It's certainly true that no computer today is capable of meeting the Turing test - fooling a human into thinking they were talking to another human. But with the powerful hardware available today, that's more a factor of lack of software than lack of hardware. Keep plugging at the software, and I reckon it'll happen eventually.

Remember that we've had computers (as we know them) for less than 40 years, and it's only in the last 10 that computers with any reasonable power have been available for these kind of experiments. I think you're doing the equivalent of a Galileo-era person saying "OK, maybe Mars is a planet like ours, but it's never going to be possible to do anything with it, because even our best siege engines couldn't shoot an arrow that far..." ;-)

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 08:00 PM

I'm aware of the general outlines of complexity theory; but the thing is that (IMO, anyway) intent is a pure simplicity, not a complexity, and not something that emerges from compounding large numbers of transactions from simple rules and elemental participants. There are some elements that do not have the same aspects or qualities of emergent systems and complex behavior. Among them are beingness itself, understanding, and imo, intention. Nor do I think these things are inexplicable. I think, rather , that they are the pure and simple inherent spiritual abilities that drive most mental conduct, emotional conduct, goals and insight.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 05:35 AM

Where do you think intentionality comes from then? Not asking for a proof or a solid theory, just a punt to get us going.

Look at it this way. If humans evolved from bacteria, at various points in the last 4 billion years, there have to be stages at which you can look and say "this looks more like intentionality than the last stage that I looked at", all the way through worms, fishes, early mammals, lemurs, apes to us.

Unless bacteria already have intentionality, of course. In which case you are either postulating a moment of creation of life (= intention: and created by what? And what created the creator's intentionality?), or the problem is just pushed back until perhaps more research gives us evidence of a pre- bacterial reproducing form about which to ask the same question.

If intentionality evolved from non- intentionality, why can't another non- intentional process later evolve intentionality?

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 04:44 PM

"I reached the conclusion that Artificial Intelligence was neither"

The US Military has done a lot research into Artifical Intelligence - it finally having noted a shrtage of the real thing... viz 'Military Intelligence'

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Kaleea
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 04:47 PM

shades of gray matter

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 05:09 PM

Sharing biological and elecronic language to describe the brain compromises the truth of both discrete systems. But one should not be so hasty as to say never the twain shall meet. Electronic enhancement of the brain is already here in a manner of speaking and has a long way to go. Making electronics more brain has likewise had a few inroads.

The holographic storage of memory throughout the human brain is a very interesting phenomenon. But we should not say that we use a holographic software operating system to think. Just as I think we should not so easily assume a similarly functioning holgraphic electronic brain would not experience awareness. For example I may know you are aware, but I do not experience your awareness.

Now I'll go back and look at some of those interesting links.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 05:10 PM

Wal, Paul, I think I answered that at the end of my 10 Jan 06 - 08:00 PM post.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Grab
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 07:29 PM

Amos, basically you're saying it comes down to "soul", right? (Or something equivalent, anyway.)

I guess my worry with that is the situation covered ad nauseam in fantasy/SF. Because humans are the only fully self-aware species on the planet, we assume that self-aware equals human. If something else comes along that's self-aware, we're not then equipped to deal with it, and things turn to shit. Slavery is the classic example - because black humans weren't thought of as "human", it was thought to be acceptable to treat them like that. By today, we've all made the jump to thinking of "human" as non-skin-colour-dependent, but if we're still stuck in the must-have-two-legs-two-arms-and-be-covered-in-skin definition of sentiency then I think we risk missing something further down the line.

At the risk of sounding like a total SF geek, I can only quote a line from the film DARYL: "A robot becomes human when you can't tell the difference any more". The best summary of the Turing test that I've ever heard. The hypothesis that it'll never happen because computers don't have souls is perfectly legit. At the moment, who knows? The trouble is that if it ever *does* happen then there's a danger of people reversing that logic to say "it can't be happening" in defiance of the evidence.

Me, I'd like to see it happen though, just so the religious nuts can try and work out where the hell it fits in... ;-)

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 08:05 PM

"A robot becomes human when you can't tell the difference any more".

there was a wonderful short SF story called "Roll Out the Rolov" about a woman who bought a very humanoid copy of herself to send on a date, because she wasn't sure she'd like the guy.....you guessed it, so did he!

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 08:50 PM

LOL! What a grand untangling that brought about!! Did they l;ike each other? If so was it love? Or just some terahertz phase-synchronization going on -- and would it have been inductive or capacitative? Was their skin a dielectric? Inquiring minds want to know. And when they went home and told their masters how great each other was, did it ever pan out? This reminds me of O. Henry's Christmas Gift story.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 04:39 AM

"Because humans are the only fully self-aware species on the planet"

Obviously, you have never known a cat...

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 10:56 AM

No you didn't Amos. You said what you though it was. I asked where you think it came from, or when you think it kicked in- how it is that brick isn't (as far as we know) self- aware, but most people are.

Foolestroupe- it's the recursion that seems to be the big difference between humans and other aware creatures. A human can not only live their own life, but create other virtual lives in parallel. Sometimes it even gets out of hand, and they can no longer remember which is their own self and which is my friend Cecil.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 01:35 PM

Where do you think intentionality comes from then?

The furthest I have examined this, Paul, is that (a) there seems to be an "I" that transcends the normal limits of the meatspace we usually associate ourselves with, that participates in the oddities of OOB experiences, spiritual discoveires, epiphanies, NDEs, and other things pretty outside the ordinary realms of physical science; and that the core nature of this "I" includes inherent ability.

Physical particles do not, as far as I have observed them, seem to have any "ability", but living beings do seem to. This is another reason why I keep returning to the "something other than physical model". The primary abilities inherent in a being are intending and perceiving.

That's how I see it, anyway. It is the minimal postulate I can make that accounts for all the data that physics seems to leave out. But I am always open to learning experiences! :)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Grab
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 01:42 PM

BillD, who wrote that? Have to go looking sometime! Sounds like a fun Asimov or Bradbury pulp story.

Nah Foolestroupe, cats are just nasty self-obsessed little buggers. Doesn't make them smart.

Another point on the "two-arms-two-legs-and-covered-in-skin" definition of human-ness. Disabled people definitely suffer from the "does he take sugar?" syndrome, where other people assume that their disability is a reflection on their intelligence. I think this is a really telling example of that definition of human-ness. Once a person ceases to fit the full physical definition of a human, this innate check on "same/different" kicks in - and because anything that doesn't look human is automatically considered unintelligent, they start making bad assumptions. Given that, it's almost inevitable that any self-aware software is going to run into the same problems or worse.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 02:04 PM

Google says the Rolov story was by Christopher Anvil, writing as "Harry Crosby"

(as I remember, the robots met and had no particular luck, while the two humans met accidently while they were 'waiting', and Nature took it's course...it's been 40 years, folks...trying to find the original)

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 04:17 AM

OK, then Amos, when in evolution did the "vital spark" ally itself with molecular chemistry? What testable prediction does your concept introduce?

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Pied Piper
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 06:13 AM

Come come Paul "testability"
Testability does not apply to these mystical beliefs, what you have to do is sit under a Banyan tree meditating for 20 years until the truth "reveals" it's self.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 06:26 AM

'when in evolution did the "vital spark" ally itself with molecular chemistry?'

It's called 'emergent behaviour' - ask any Computer Operating Systems expert...

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:37 AM

Ya know, Paul, I do not know. I am not sure the time line in this respect operates the same way as the continuum is viewed in physical terms, from the Big Bang onward. As for predictions, it is pretty safe to say that under some circumstances people will encounter OOBs, telepathic links, moments of being bigger than or outside their bodies, memories of other bodies, encounters with those they have known before resulting in out-of-range emotional phenomena compared to their standard interactions with new acquaintances, flashes of seeign through mass, perhaps, or other perceptic phenomena that lie outside the box of th emeat-and-brain model of existence.

In addition, it predicts that understanding and awareness can happen. No physical model predicts that leap.

It predicts that the power to create changes by a single, intentional act will be found in individual lives under certain conditions.

More I think about it, the better I like it!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 12:53 PM

But apart from human awareness (the solisist in me says MY awareness), none of those experiences can be shown to exist, outside the mind of the person who experiences them!

We DO know that people can feel things that don't exist. There's everything from optical illusions onwards that shows that. And I'm sure we all have known people whose experiences we regard as hallucinations; we call them mad, stoned, disturbed or dreaming. So we can predict that people will have all sorts of experiences that don't happen.

There are no verified examples of telepathy, which is a pity as it could be very useful.

As for understanding and awareness, there's every evidence that it has evolved inside the animal nervous system. I'd recommend Dennett to you on this, as he's very readable. "Consciousness Explained" and "Freedom Evolves" are among the best.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 04:48 PM

There are no verified examples of telepathy, which is a pity as it could be very useful.


I would think there are plenty. I experience it all the time, in various degrees. I imagine you do as well. But you imply it could be useful as though it could be handed around like a pill or some kind of operation.

To me, the notion that the brain is the source of thought is like arguing that my transistor radio can sing. AFter all, listen to it! All those songs coming out of it! :D

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 07:18 AM

And all those tiny dwarfs on TV!

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 07:25 AM

Douglas Hoffstedder wrote about Emergent Behaviour and many other interesting things such as self referentiality in his famous Pulitzer Prize Book "Escher Gödel and Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid".

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 15 May 06 - 01:32 PM

A fascinating discourse on the ability of the individual to modulate his own brain's behaviour using an advanced functional MRI interface can be found in this New York Times essay entitled "My Pain, My Brain".

To me, it argues strongly in favor of the notion that the brain is not the entire story of human consciousness.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Bert
Date: 15 May 06 - 06:14 PM

When the brain is in 'problem solving' mode it often acts like a computer by eliminating unworthy solutions one by one.

Which is not surprising seeing as it's the brain that writes problem solving programs FOR the computer.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 15 May 06 - 08:27 PM

I don't think it really acts like a computer very much. It is not binary, and it's logic is not three-valued but infinitely graded in increments of greater or lesser "anything".

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 16 May 06 - 04:12 AM

For me, it argues that the brain IS the whole story of human consciousness. But also that there is a filter that intervenes between the "raw" sensory input and the conscious mind, telling it whether something "hurt" last time (all the previous times) this sensation happened.

This filter uses (what it can access of) your previous experience to interpret the sensory input, and when the inputs are turned off (sleep), keeps interpreting the noise as sensation- you dream (I dreamed last night that the Bishop awarded me a PhD and membership of the IEE at my mother's funeral).

The fact that it can be SEEN using MRI suggests strongly that we are dealing with fairly "ordinary" physical processes here. No angelometer needed.

As for binary, I thought we'd pickled that red herring months ago. Infinitely graded? Lets settle for "so many states as to be effectively analog", and remember those great analog computers, baroque in their complexity, that the graduate students were allowed to play with back in the 70s.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 16 May 06 - 09:23 AM

Well, if it does so argue, it leaves the self in the position of being a subroutine.

That does not feel like a true model to me.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 May 06 - 09:42 AM

Back in the Paleolithic, when I was at college, we were taught that neural impulses were binary in nature: a neuron either fired, or it didn't. Has this changed?

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 16 May 06 - 12:50 PM

That may well be the case for individual neurons. But the logic of human thought is analog to the max. There is no NOR in beauty.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 May 06 - 01:50 PM

Interesting article, but my reaction to it is similar to Paul's.

Placebos have always worked best with pain, so this is not surprising (in general) though of course amazing (in detail). Suppressing pain perception without strong medications is a worthwhile goal. And it will be possible.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 16 May 06 - 03:09 PM

This article also indicates that even "correct" medications work far less well without the support of the cognitive element behind it.

The difference between the two spheres is...dramatic. Like an elephant in the drawig room.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 May 06 - 03:27 PM

Research has demonstrated that our experience of pain is perceived within the human brain. The brain takes the electrochemical impulses generated from our body during injury and modulates or changes these impulses to ultimately become the conscious experience of pain....

the nervous system continues to misinterpret signals that should not be painful at all as being excruciating. We now understand that this patient’s pain is a result, in large part, through abnormal rewiring (i.e., central sensitization/neural plasticity) of the central nervous system (CNS) that perpetuate the pain despite the absence of a painful stimulus...

neuroimaging tools have allowed us to peer inside the human brain in ways once only dreamed about – unlocking mysteries of where pain is perceived and processed, how it affects the brain, and how it can act to change our thoughts and emotions. For the first time, we have the tools to effectively explore the impact of pain on the brain

You may interpret what you have read in your own way, Amos, but these quotes from the website of the man who does the research do not give much support for your interpretation.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: autolycus
Date: 16 May 06 - 04:20 PM

Can anyone suggest a good place to send an article explaining what a computer can never do?

Thanks


   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 16 May 06 - 04:41 PM

Vancouver is very nice.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 06 - 10:38 AM

From Autolycos.


   Let me rephrase that.

   Which publishing outlet would be good for an article on what computers willl never be able to do?



   Thaaaaaanks.



    Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 17 May 06 - 11:52 AM

As a sufferer of mild dyslexia, I can state unequivocally that Brian is not a digital computer.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 17 May 06 - 01:34 PM

Ivor:

In your local library there is probably a copy of the Writer's Handbook, which lists all kinds of mags and journals from which you may choose to whom you want to send it.

If it is well done technically, you could try Wired to see if they would stand the heresy!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: autolycus
Date: 17 May 06 - 02:34 PM

Thanks Amos, kind of you.



    Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 May 06 - 03:41 AM

Autolycus, what do you want to say a computer can never do (apart from break the laws of physics)?

If you are going to say anything that boils down to "be conscious like a human", you'd better start by saying what you think "conscious" means! I might well agree with you, if it doesn't invoke magic.

I can give you a short list.

As of now, computers can't:

- dance Strip the Widow and get it wrong.
- Enjoy 4 pints of Wadworth's 6X while blathering about history.
- worry.
- get aching feet because their boot laces are too tight.
- Try to show off and come out looking a charlie.

I'm sure there are a lot more things they can't do. Some might be possible with the next generation of hardware.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 18 May 06 - 10:01 AM

I see nothing in those particular excerpts that speaks to the issue, friend Wolfgang.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 08:08 AM

A easy to read report about a facinating research project:

Growing a brain in Switzerland

A network of artificial nerves is growing in a Swiss supercomputer -- meant to simulate a natural brain, cell-for-cell....
The newborn "Blue Brain" surprised the designers with its willfulness from the very first day. It had hardly been fed electrical impulses before strange patterns began to appear on the screen with the lightning-like flashes produced by cells that scientists recognize from actual thought processes. Groups of neurons started becoming attuned to one another until they were firing in rhythm. "It happened entirely on its own," says Markram. "Spontaneously."

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 09:29 AM

To expand on my holographic brain post, I have a friend who had some brain tissue removed about the size of a large navel orange because the feedback loops of information would sometimes cause a short circuit leading to seizures.
The brain tissue removal did not seem to have any effect on memory or all the intricacies and nuances of her solo violinist abilities.
The information of her brain was stored virtually uniformally everywhere in her neural network.

You can contrast this to removing a portion of a computer's hard drive.

The signals of living brains are not merely electrical but chemical, earth attuned as well as cosmic. It has a foot in the quantum level as well as mega systems that we do not yet understand or even recognize.

I suspect that the limbic system, the fluid filled "empty areas" of the brain, is one of the least understood structures of the mind.
It has been called the shock absorber of the brain.
I see it as a super chemical highway, antenna, and one of the more cosmicly attuned areas of the brain.

Typically my contributions here have little detailed scientific empirical data on the mechanical electric functions of a single tree because I am attuned to seeing the forest. Seeing the forest is a valuable contribution too.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 10:48 AM

No reason one thing can't perform several functions, Donuel.

Too often we think of the brain as a set of areas that perform single functions. It is, instead, a giantic network with tremendous redundancy. Watch any stroke victim as they recover -- slowly! -- speech and movement. Or some of the victims of Iraq who have suffered brain trauma by injury and contre-coup injury.

Nor do I think that the brain is a digital computer, especially if you mean that as a computer which only functions in a binary environment. Tertiary, quaternary, perhaps, but much more than a simple on-off setup.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 11:02 AM

I still don't understand. If the brain is composed solely of binary switches, how can that differ in nature from a very lrge digital computer? Certainly, the brain's organization of switches is vastly more complex than any man-made computer has been, and certainly the brain's "output" appears to be analog rather than diguital, but ultimately isn't the difference between "analog" and "digital" one of resolution?

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 02:10 PM

Call for 'neuroethics' as science races ahead

Neuroscientists say opportunities to misuse brain science abound
By Tom Heneghan, Reuters, Updated: 3:20 p.m. CT Feb 14, 2007

PARIS - Neuroscientists are making such rapid progress in unlocking the brain's secrets that some are urging colleagues to debate the ethics of their work before it can be misused by governments, lawyers or advertisers.

The news that brain scanners can now read a person's intentions before they are expressed or acted upon has given a new boost to the fledgling field of neuroethics that hopes to help researchers separate good uses of their work from bad.

The same discoveries that could help the paralysed use brain signals to steer a wheelchair or write on a computer might also be used to detect possible criminal intent, religious beliefs or other hidden thoughts, these neuroethicists say.

"The potential for misuse of this technology is profound," said Judy Illes, director of the Stanford University neuroethics programme in California. "This is a truly urgent situation."

The new boost came from a research paper published last week that showed neuroscientists can now not only locate the brain area where a certain thought occurs but probe into that area to read out some kinds of thought occurring there.

... ... ... ... ...

[The page where the article is shown did have a link to some information (Interactive: The Brain) on brain function, at a much more elementary level that needed to understand the implications of this "movement," but perhaps helpful to some if it's still there.]

John

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 03:27 PM

Haynes and his research team used a brain scanning technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging to detect a volunteer's unspoken decision to add or subtract two numbers flashed on a screen. They got it right 70 percent of the time. (from John's link)

They are somewhat better than chance (50 %) in deciding which one of two options the participant chooses when they know what the two options are and they have the participant keeping motionless in a scanner. No big deal so far.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 04:15 PM

Has any computer yet passed a Turing Test?

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: DMcG
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 05:33 PM

Good question, Rapaire. Officially, the answer is no. But quite a lot of companies provide support for installed computer bits and pieces that to me look like chatbots trained with the known problems of that component. If anyone has ever been fooled by these to think they are dealing with a real person, I suppose you could say the Turing test had been passed. Since the test is about human and computer interactions being indistinguishable, I suppose its also been passed if I was convinced I was talking to a chatbot when I was not - but the way telesales et al are programmed scripts these days, it can be hard to tell!

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Grab
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 06:13 AM

You can contrast this to removing a portion of a computer's hard drive.

Contrast it to removing a hard drive from a RAID-equipped machine. End result - some warnings pop up to let you know something's gone wrong, and the machine carries on its merry way...

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 10:20 AM

A computer imitating a human successfully is difficult enough in some specialized application. The Turing test set no constraints, though, on what the two participants could talk about, so a true Turing test robot would have to be able to deal with any conversational gambit convincingly.

There's a world of difference between a computer passing this standard by persuading a human it was another human, and a human imitating a robot, though. It's not an equivalent proposition at all.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 07:01 PM

Lots of them on the net, Amos... just look in the BS section here on any political thread...

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: Grab
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 05:10 AM

Interestingly, humans sometimes fail the Turing test because the other person thinks they know an unreasonable level of detail about the subject they're discussing. :-)

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Brain = Digital Computer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 06:49 PM

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt to prove it...