Funny that "computer" was originally a metaphor applied to the machine from the human occupation.
The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)
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Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
A "digital computer" is simply one in which information is represented in binary. The encoding of information does not alter the process of computation, so that's an irrelevant detail to compare to. We have plenty of Harvard architecture computers (eg. DSPs), and there are plenty of other computational architectures (DNA computing, optical computing, quantum computing).
Sure but my point is they aren't what people think about when you say "digital computer" or use that as an analogy. People think about what they are familiar with in their every day lives.
I don't see how that's relevant. The article is attacking the claim "the brain is a computer". That means all computers.
The fact that the article's example were of a specific type of computer architecture, and had nothing specific to do with digital computers per se despite the article claiming it does, just proves my point that the argument is flawed.
Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)
#43Models are not equivalent to the phenomena they describe.
Computational models are not an exception to this.
There is not even a single "part" or "function" of the brain that we fully, exhaustively understand through a computational explanation. All claims of certainty are premature.
What's really fascinating and really needs the attention of historians and anthropologists is why in this current historical moment so many STEM educated people who are otherwise very bright end up confused about this. Maybe the answer is obvious though.
Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure but my point is they aren't what people think about when you say "digital computer" or use that as an analogy. People think about what they are familiar with in their every day lives.
I don't see how that's relevant. The article is attacking the claim "the brain is a computer". That means all computers. The fact that the article's example were of a specific type of computer architecture, and had nothing specific to do with digital computers per se despite the article claiming it does, just proves my point that the argument is flawed.
Because it's about people's mental models. When you use an analogy ("like a digital computer") to examine another phenomena than of course people will interpret that in terms they are familiar with.
Otherwise what's the point in using an analogy?
Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)
#45“The brain has simply changed in an orderly way that now allows us to sing the song or recite the poem under certain conditions. When called on to perform, neither the song nor the poem is in any sense ‘retrieved’ from anywhere in the brain, any more than my finger movements are ‘retrieved’ when I tap my finger on my desk. We simply sing or recite – no retrieval necessary.” I actually like this as an idea that our to…
I’m struggling with the definition of “retrieve” used here. According to the meanings of “retrieve” that I’m familiar with, I can’t conceive of any sense in which songs or finger movements aren’t retrieved by the brain.
"I can’t conceive of any sense in which songs or finger movements aren’t retrieved by the brain."
And that's the issue, isn't it? I think he's using "retrieve" to mean something much closer to what a digital computer does. Ie, there's a single "place" in the brain where the song is compressed and stored. My definition of "retrieve" (and yours, I think) is implicitly more relaxed; I say that a rough distributed system that reacts to stimuli like songs by being able to approximately reproduce them later counts as "retrieval."
As other commenters have noted, the article uses a very restrictive definition of computation/retrieval. I mean, earlier in the article, he gives a definition of the same game that the "Lifelong Learning" and "Reinforcement Learning" people use.
I think he's actually on the same page as many learning theorists, and is just trying to make it clear to a general audience that a very "tight" match between the brain and Von Neumann machines isn't reasonable.
Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)
#46Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729499
Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)
#47The author mentions Beethoven. Consider what a virtuoso pianist must go through to create a performance of a 40-minute-long sonata. Yes, the performance includes her personal interpretation of what's written on a piece of paper. It is almost certainly influenced by performances others have created.
But when it comes to the individual notes, their sequence had damn well better be literally correct for the entire performance. If not, someone in the audience will certainly notice that one flubbed note.
So in learning the work, "she was changed in some way" all right. As some members of the audience had been ... identically. And that 'some way' certainly resembles pulling bytes out of 'storage'.
Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)
#48I think us commenters are all on the same page here :) The author is almost making it seem like models are reality and that people think that. They're not and I don't think anyone has ever thought they were... Further and like other comments already mentioned, the brain is thought of and treated as a turing machine, not a digital computer. It's done this way, because the brain can be mapped to the definition of a tur…
I think you're very wrong if you think all professional neuroscientists are disinterested witnesses or that they all give adequate philosophical distance to the IP metaphor. Its assumptions constrain or at least impact the landscape of valuation of all academic neuroscience research.
Academic science isn't an apolitical, free space. We are not all free to choose any model, and what it means for a model to "work better" comes down to evaluative criteria that are almost always baked into a particular set of theoretical assumptions.
Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure I understand the piece either, but I think it's trying to say that human memories are associative, sequential, and distributed rather than localised. So there isn't "a representation" in the discrete sense. It's more like the entire system changes, and it's impossible to physically scan specific elements of it to retrieve selected content. You can trigger selective recall, but you're triggering a complex…
I think researchers are working on this very thing, and it seems like the brain does store "visual representations" or at least it can't be ruled out at this point. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/20/mindreading_mri_spo... And of course, why wouldn't the brain store a visual representation of what you remembered. That would be the easiest way to store and retrieve it, which is why we do that on computers as wel…
> Why wouldn't the brain...
Because it isn't how brains work. Recollection is re-experience.
The article you link says researchers taught a model how to match patterns to letters, given the presumption that they are letters, for a single subject's MRIs taken while they were experiencing the sight of words and letters. Not at all the same as saying a brain stores data.
Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how that's relevant. The article is attacking the claim "the brain is a computer". That means all computers. The fact that the article's example were of a specific type of computer architecture, and had nothing specific to do with digital computers per se despite the article claiming it does, just proves my point that the argument is flawed.
Because it's about people's mental models. When you use an analogy ("like a digital computer") to examine another phenomena than of course people will interpret that in terms they are familiar with. Otherwise what's the point in using an analogy?
The point of an analogy is to make a phenomenon understandable by showing a formal correspondence to phenomenon that is already understood. I've just spent 3 posts explaining that this analogy fails on multiple levels, so the argument by analogy is invalid.