21–30 of 166 posts
My brain is not a silicon-based processing unit with a von Neumann architecture. My brain, however, calculates, computes, stores, retrieves... It's a computer more advanced by evolution than we've built through our understanding of science.
That's his whole point. It doesn't store or retrieve.
> The faulty logic of the IP metaphor is easy enough to state. It is based on a faulty syllogism – one with two reasonable premises and a faulty conclusion. Reasonable premise #1: all computers are capable of behaving intelligently. Reasonable premise #2: all computers are information processors. Faulty conclusion: all entities that are capable of behaving intelligently are information processors.
Premise 1, in my reading, is not reasonable. It would be fallacious to assert that all computers are capable of "behaving intelligently", because we don't have a definition for intelligence, let alone a "universal" intelligence that would be consistent between things, or in any case how an individual thing's intelligence would be tested.
The syllogism is the core of the author's contrarian argument. If we can't prove Premise #1 from the preceding syllogism, then the core argument of this essay does seem to lose its legs.
Really, a single viewpoint/facet/argument about the brain-as-a-computer metaphor should undoubtedly be insufficient.
More useful would be a set of arguments that compare or contrast how a computer and a human brain work. We can use these to coalesce an understanding of how close the metaphor is to reality.
How do the two receive information? How do the two store information, recall information, delete information, update stored processes, etc? All of these perspectives begin to build a whole-picture of the relationship, which would seem more useful that trying to boil it down to a single statement.
I think the author needs to revisit his basic assumptions and walk through the argument again, because I don't think what's laid out in the essay actually supports his conclusions, so confidently espoused in the introduction.
My brain is not a silicon-based processing unit with a von Neumann architecture. My brain, however, calculates, computes, stores, retrieves... It's a computer more advanced by evolution than we've built through our understanding of science.
That's his whole point. It doesn't store or retrieve.
I don't see it. - The brain is more fuzzy, but it still stores the link between the smell of roses and the look of roses. Just as a probability, like a Bayes network. And you will fall for Illusions, just like a Bayes network can be wrong ("for a second I thought this was..." and than more information from the senses falsifies/corrects the probabilities). - The brain is imperfect in reading from memory, but it still…
Right, I don't see the point of this article. At first I thought it's the yearly "humans have a soul and are better than AI algorithms" story we get. Of course a mere year ago the fact that computers can't get good moves in Go was an argument. And all the arguments that came before that, voice recognition, reading, chess, games, even counting itself at one point. Of all those things that computers/"information proces…
Provocatively naive - does anyone nowadays really think the brain Works like a computer? A much more interesting focus is on non-representationalistic understandings of the world seen in the discussion.
It's just not computer in the way you think a computer works.
He has a very limited definition of a "computer". His description is how modern computers work. But that's not strictly what a computer could be. When people compare a computer to a brain. They are not saying it's like a modern pc. They are saying it like a computer in a loose sense. A lot of people don't get that, they think were comparing to the thing on desk. A computer can mean lots of things with many different…
He has a very limited definition of a "computer". His description is how modern computers work. But that's not strictly what a computer could be. When people compare a computer to a brain. They are not saying it's like a modern pc. They are saying it like a computer in a loose sense. A lot of people don't get that, they think were comparing to the thing on desk. A computer can mean lots of things with many different…
Conceptual metaphors lead you astray when you take them too far. You can note some similarities these have, but the author cites lots of examples of people assuming that human brains store, retrieve, and process information just in the way that PCs do.
My brain is not a silicon-based processing unit with a von Neumann architecture. My brain, however, calculates, computes, stores, retrieves... It's a computer more advanced by evolution than we've built through our understanding of science.
That's his whole point. It doesn't store or retrieve.
He has a very limited definition of a "computer". His description is how modern computers work. But that's not strictly what a computer could be. When people compare a computer to a brain. They are not saying it's like a modern pc. They are saying it like a computer in a loose sense. A lot of people don't get that, they think were comparing to the thing on desk. A computer can mean lots of things with many different…
I don't see it. - The brain is more fuzzy, but it still stores the link between the smell of roses and the look of roses. Just as a probability, like a Bayes network. And you will fall for Illusions, just like a Bayes network can be wrong ("for a second I thought this was..." and than more information from the senses falsifies/corrects the probabilities). - The brain is imperfect in reading from memory, but it still…
Given the author's background, I'd put money on the idea that this is the result of years of frustration at having his life's work dismissively reduced by casual observers to something like "yeah, it's basically a computer" and thinking they therefore understand all the intricacies of the human brain. I can see how that might grate on a person in his field and trigger a response like this.