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What the brain's wiring looks like

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Re: What the brain's wiring looks like

#111

Post by IanCal »

wildmusings wrote: post #107
tux1968 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the same conversation could be had with a synthetic brain. It's no more important than any other feature of brain functionality. What I don't understand is how this concern about subjectivity limits us in understanding consciousness and brain functionality. It doesn't mean we can experience the subjective states of a synthetic brain or another human, but we can definitely replicate the physical aspects of the bra…

I think it's likely that the brain violates the Church-Turing thesis. It doesn't seem possible that a Turing machine can produce subjective/conscious experience. This strongly limits our ability to make a synthetic brain via solely computation. Update: I'm not sure I'd say supernatural. I think consciousness is different in kind from the rest of how we understand the universe to work. It seems likely that it's a fund…

> t doesn't seem possible that a Turing machine can produce subjective/conscious experience.

Why?

Re: What the brain's wiring looks like

#112

Post by wildmusings »

tux1968 wrote: post #108
wildmusings wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's likely that the brain violates the Church-Turing thesis. It doesn't seem possible that a Turing machine can produce subjective/conscious experience. This strongly limits our ability to make a synthetic brain via solely computation. Update: I'm not sure I'd say supernatural. I think consciousness is different in kind from the rest of how we understand the universe to work. It seems likely that it's a fund…

So you believe that consciousness is supernatural and not the product of a physical brain. I don't see any reason to believe that, but it definitely makes it clear why we hold differing opinions. Edit: I think all that philosophy is going to have to be updated when we eventually start having conversations with synthetic brains that can tell us about their sense of consciousness ;-) Edit 2: If we had a device that cou…

That's not what I mean actually. If we could make a carbon copy of a person, it would be presumably be conscious too. But I do think that an attempt to model the brain mathematically and run a computer simulation of it would fail to create consciousness.

Re: What the brain's wiring looks like

#113

Post by wildmusings »

IanCal wrote: post #111
wildmusings wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's likely that the brain violates the Church-Turing thesis. It doesn't seem possible that a Turing machine can produce subjective/conscious experience. This strongly limits our ability to make a synthetic brain via solely computation. Update: I'm not sure I'd say supernatural. I think consciousness is different in kind from the rest of how we understand the universe to work. It seems likely that it's a fund…

> t doesn't seem possible that a Turing machine can produce subjective/conscious experience. Why?

I think it's easier to see why if we use a non-conventional Turing Machine, like thousands of monks using abacuses and integrating their results by spoken word. Do remember that all Turing machines are equivalent. How in the world would the act of moving beads around create consciousness?

Re: What the brain's wiring looks like

#114

Post by tux1968 »

wildmusings wrote: post #112
tux1968 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you believe that consciousness is supernatural and not the product of a physical brain. I don't see any reason to believe that, but it definitely makes it clear why we hold differing opinions. Edit: I think all that philosophy is going to have to be updated when we eventually start having conversations with synthetic brains that can tell us about their sense of consciousness ;-) Edit 2: If we had a device that cou…

That's not what I mean actually. If we could make a carbon copy of a person, it would be presumably be conscious too. But I do think that an attempt to model the brain mathematically and run a computer simulation of it would fail to create consciousness.

Ah, then we're much closer together than I thought.

However, there is no reason future computers will be limited to current (Turing) technology instead of being a collection of many co-processors with differing capabilities.

The main point though, is that since consciousness is housed in the physical brain, we can dissect, understand, and recreate fully-functional synthetic versions. While each person is in their own subjective world, the brain which is responsible for it is an objective object that is open to study.

Re: What the brain's wiring looks like

#115

Post by [deleted] »

tux1968 wrote: post #114
wildmusings wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I mean actually. If we could make a carbon copy of a person, it would be presumably be conscious too. But I do think that an attempt to model the brain mathematically and run a computer simulation of it would fail to create consciousness.

Ah, then we're much closer together than I thought. However, there is no reason future computers will be limited to current (Turing) technology instead of being a collection of many co-processors with differing capabilities. The main point though, is that since consciousness is housed in the physical brain, we can dissect, understand, and recreate fully-functional synthetic versions. While each person is in their own…

[deleted]

Re: What the brain's wiring looks like

#117

Post by aswanson »

jnicholasp wrote: post #92
Alain-lf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, as far as we can tell, everything that is part of our universe is governed by physics. Our brains are part of this universe, and conciousness is dependent on our brains.

> Because, as far as we can tell [...] conciousness is dependent on our brains. This is neither a logical/mathematical proof, nor an empirically established fact. So how do you know ? Why are you making statements of faith in what seems to be the scientific worldview, when the actual scientific worldview is that we should never make statements of faith?

It's as established empirically as we can observe. Shut off oxygen to your brain for ten minutes or put a bullet through it and determine its responsiveness thereafter.

Re: What the brain's wiring looks like

#118

Post by GolDDranks »

babyrainbow wrote: post #109
GolDDranks wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is. It's called quantum field theory. QFT has the peculiar property that the interactions between elementary particles in it are symmetric in space and time. What that means, is that if an exotic particle is capable of interacting with some of the commonly known everyday particles, which we know the brain is made of, we are also capable of producing that exotic particle using our common, everyday particles. Tha…

Sorry. Couldn't make sense of most of your comment. Can you explain how these exotic particles is relevant at all?

They are an example or P that doesn't belong to P', using your terms. Check this talk of the cosmologist Sean Carroll's, he adressess this problem and claims that the underlying physics of our everyday reality are completely known: https://youtu.be/xv0mKsO2goA

Re: What the brain's wiring looks like

#119

Post by wildmusings »

tux1968 wrote: post #114
wildmusings wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I mean actually. If we could make a carbon copy of a person, it would be presumably be conscious too. But I do think that an attempt to model the brain mathematically and run a computer simulation of it would fail to create consciousness.

Ah, then we're much closer together than I thought. However, there is no reason future computers will be limited to current (Turing) technology instead of being a collection of many co-processors with differing capabilities. The main point though, is that since consciousness is housed in the physical brain, we can dissect, understand, and recreate fully-functional synthetic versions. While each person is in their own…

>However, there is no reason future computers will be limited to current (Turing) technology instead of being a collection of many co-processors with differing capabilities.

That would violate the Church-Turing thesis, which is pretty widely accepted, unless the universe itself is a hypercomputer that we can leverage to perform computation.

Re: What the brain's wiring looks like

#120

Post by tux1968 »

wildmusings wrote: post #119
tux1968 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, then we're much closer together than I thought. However, there is no reason future computers will be limited to current (Turing) technology instead of being a collection of many co-processors with differing capabilities. The main point though, is that since consciousness is housed in the physical brain, we can dissect, understand, and recreate fully-functional synthetic versions. While each person is in their own…

> However, there is no reason future computers will be limited to current (Turing) technology instead of being a collection of many co-processors with differing capabilities. That would violate the Church-Turing thesis, which is pretty widely accepted, unless the universe itself is a hypercomputer that we can leverage to perform computation.

You're essentially saying that our brains can't exist.

But they do, and we can copy them, what is the problem with making a synthetic brain? Why is the natural brain an allowed exception, but the one we make is not allowed?

Edit:

On the one hand you want to use Church-Turing to invalidate the possibility of us creating non-Turing based technology, and yet in a previous post you claimed the human brain likely violates Church-Turing. So which is it? Is reality allowed to violate Church-Turing or is it not?

If you honestly believe that the human brain violates Church-Turing, then you have to explain why you also believe that we can not copy the brain and achieve the same result ourselves.

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