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Building a fly brain in a computer

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11–20 of 32 posts

Re: Building a fly brain in a computer

#11
post #5

Can it feel pain? I know pain is kind of tricky to evaluate in biological insects as well but that's a discussion we will have to have at some point.

As you alluded, mostly likely insects don't have what we'd consider to be an emotional response to pain. Hence, likely not.

Re: Building a fly brain in a computer

#13
post #5

Can it feel pain? I know pain is kind of tricky to evaluate in biological insects as well but that's a discussion we will have to have at some point.

I don't think simulated brains can feel pain any more than a float variable "current_pain_level" set to 100 can "feel pain".

> I don't think simulated brains can feel pain

I'm not sure why you say that. Does pain have some property that makes it impossible to simulate?

If an organic animal can feel pain and it is possible to create a 100% accurate computational simulation of that animal, then the simulated animal must also experience pain. To me the interesting questions are at what level of simulation fidelity This whole issue of simulated pain is part of the premise for Roko's Basilisk [0].

[0] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk

Re: Building a fly brain in a computer

#14
post #5

Can it feel pain? I know pain is kind of tricky to evaluate in biological insects as well but that's a discussion we will have to have at some point.

I don't think simulated brains can feel pain any more than a float variable "current_pain_level" set to 100 can "feel pain".

What’s the difference between that and your own pain neurons triggering?

Re: Building a fly brain in a computer

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think simulated brains can feel pain any more than a float variable "current_pain_level" set to 100 can "feel pain".

> I don't think simulated brains can feel pain I'm not sure why you say that. Does pain have some property that makes it impossible to simulate? If an organic animal can feel pain and it is possible to create a 100% accurate computational simulation of that animal, then the simulated animal must also experience pain. To me the interesting questions are at what level of simulation fidelity This whole issue of simulate…

> If an organic animal can feel pain and it it possible to create a 100% accurate computational simulation of that animal, then the simulated animal must also experience pain.

I believe that from the simulated animal we can only learn that the real animal experiences pain. I believe anything else leads to too many paradoxes and questions like "when you stop the simulation, does it stop existing or continues to experience the pain forever?"

It basically comes down to beliefs and I'm strongly in the "100% simulated organisms don't have real pain / emotion / soul" camp. (And the Chinese Room doesn't know Chinese. :-) )

Re: Building a fly brain in a computer

#16
post #5

Can it feel pain? I know pain is kind of tricky to evaluate in biological insects as well but that's a discussion we will have to have at some point.

"Sometimes, if you were going to have any hope of getting useful answers, there really was no alternative modelling the individuals themselves, at the sort of scale and level of complexity that mean they each had to exhibit some kind of discrete personality, and that was where the Problem kicked in.

Once you’d created your population of realistically reacting and – in a necessary sense – cogitating individuals, you had – also in a sense – created life. The particular parts of whatever computational substrate you’d devoted to the problem now held beings; virtual beings capable of reacting so much like the back-in-reality beings they were modelling – because how else were they to do so convincingly without also hoping, suffering, rejoicing, caring, living and dreaming?

By this reasoning, then, you couldn’t just turn off your virtual environment and the living, thinking creatures it contained at the completion of a run or when a simulation had reached the end of its useful life; that amounted to genocide.” - Iain M Banks "Hydrogen sonata"

I love to watch Star Trek with its upbeat "always do good" general vibe when contrasted with completely oblivious cruelty they show towards simulated life.

Re: Building a fly brain in a computer

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think simulated brains can feel pain any more than a float variable "current_pain_level" set to 100 can "feel pain".

> I don't think simulated brains can feel pain I'm not sure why you say that. Does pain have some property that makes it impossible to simulate? If an organic animal can feel pain and it is possible to create a 100% accurate computational simulation of that animal, then the simulated animal must also experience pain. To me the interesting questions are at what level of simulation fidelity This whole issue of simulate…

I agree, these are the relevant questions. In order to assert that a simulated brain cannot feel pain, you'd have to define simulation to mean... somehow something that excludes certain phenomena, like subjective experience, which is at odds with a basically materialist worldview. If subjective experience arises solely from physical systems like a brain, then you'd have to somehow prove that a fully simulated brain differs from a natural brain in some fundamental way, which seems hard.

If things like pain can't be simulated, if subjective experience can't be simulated, you then have to have some alternative explanation for its source in natural animals, which is wandering into metaphysical territory I think most of HN would be uncomfortable with.

I'm on the far end of this spectrum. I intend to say please and thank you to AI sooner or later. :P

Re: Building a fly brain in a computer

#18
I couldn't see whether they have ruled out that ML is clustering based on the image noise and lighting.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same clustering is achieved after masking big/essential chunks of the fly from all the images (for training and testing sets). If indeed the 'imaging features' are the driving weights in clustering, that means the flies should be able to recognize that they are in a different room.

Re: Building a fly brain in a computer

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think simulated brains can feel pain any more than a float variable "current_pain_level" set to 100 can "feel pain".

> I don't think simulated brains can feel pain I'm not sure why you say that. Does pain have some property that makes it impossible to simulate? If an organic animal can feel pain and it is possible to create a 100% accurate computational simulation of that animal, then the simulated animal must also experience pain. To me the interesting questions are at what level of simulation fidelity This whole issue of simulate…

>If an organic animal can feel pain and it is possible to create a 100% accurate computational simulation of that animal, then the simulated animal must also experience pain

You can simulate a hurricane with a high degree of accuracy, but it doesn't make the wind blow.

Simulating a thing does not manifest the physical properties of the thing. That's not what a simulation is.

Re: Building a fly brain in a computer

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think simulated brains can feel pain I'm not sure why you say that. Does pain have some property that makes it impossible to simulate? If an organic animal can feel pain and it is possible to create a 100% accurate computational simulation of that animal, then the simulated animal must also experience pain. To me the interesting questions are at what level of simulation fidelity This whole issue of simulate…

>If an organic animal can feel pain and it is possible to create a 100% accurate computational simulation of that animal, then the simulated animal must also experience pain You can simulate a hurricane with a high degree of accuracy, but it doesn't make the wind blow. Simulating a thing does not manifest the physical properties of the thing. That's not what a simulation is.

It makes the wind blow _in_the_simulation_.

Pain felt in the simulation would still be a phenomenon worth moral consideration, particularly if you haven't got proof that we aren't all living in a simulation ourselves.

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