The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)

#51

Post by marcosdumay » Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #19

baddox wrote: post #3

Oh dear. This isn’t my field at all, and maybe I’m just doing a bad job of understanding their point, but this sounds completely bogus. Really...the brain doesn’t create representations of visual stimuli or store memories? Under what possible definitions of those words can this statement be sensical? Surely the author believes that visual stimuli cause measurable changes in brain state, and that people can indeed rem…

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…

So, the brain has a distributed and complex architecture. Well, did anybody not know that already? Evolution has no love for engineering beauty.

If recall is possible, then there is a representation there. It's obvious that there is a representation of Beethoven's 5th Symphony on the brain of somebody that can play it. It's just a convoluted, distributed and encoded in some completely crazy signal space. Yet, if it wasn't there, the person wouldn't be able to play it.

Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)

#52

Post by boazbarak » Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

Might be an interesting experiment to train a neural network to distinguish between different currencies, and then visualize the features that correspond to the “one dollar neuron”. It might turn out not that far from the drawings of the author’s students.

Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)

#53

Post by marcosdumay » Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

sykic wrote: post #39

charleshmorse wrote: post #38

I 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…

How can the brain be mapped to the definition of a Turning machine? It doesn’t have an equivalent to an infinite tape and it doens’t work accoriding to anything like the table of rules for a Turning machine. Can you point me to a reference for this claim? Most of the comments I’ve read don’t like the article but almost all of the commenters I’ve read don’t seem to have studied this issue. It gives me the impression t…

> If true this seems to me (very much a non-expert) to give serious doubt to the notion that the brain is a computer.

Yeah. It also puts Quantum Mechanics into serious doubt...

So, I'll wait for better evidence than some random person on the internet thinking it feels right.

Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)

#54

Post by ilaksh » Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

This article would have been more relevant several decades ago when AI research started. But now I think it's mainly a strawman argument because the models are more realistic and different from what he is talking about.

Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)

#55

Post by barberousse » Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #3

Oh dear. This isn’t my field at all, and maybe I’m just doing a bad job of understanding their point, but this sounds completely bogus. Really...the brain doesn’t create representations of visual stimuli or store memories? Under what possible definitions of those words can this statement be sensical? Surely the author believes that visual stimuli cause measurable changes in brain state, and that people can indeed rem…

>Surely the author believes that visual stimuli cause measurable changes in brain state

They repeat throughout that it does

> and that people can indeed remember past visual stimuli.

They agree also

>Then how is it true that brains don’t create representations of visual stimuli and store and retrieve them?

>Perhaps the author means that the brain doesn’t do these things in the same way as digital electronic computers we’re familiar

The author is definitely in agreement with the second statement from what I understand. However, I think where people are getting lost is that they expect the author to resolve definitions for "cognitive"/information processing terms (because in our day and age, they are identical) when actually the author is rhetorically refusing them validity, and on purpose. Hence why in those places where the author is expected to supply an equivalently robust counter-definition they instead pose a far more general definition, such as, with respect to learning, "the brain changes". The name for this rhetorical strategy is "refusing the blackmail of the Enlightenment".

Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)

#56

Post by barberousse » Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

charleshmorse wrote: post #38

I 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…

>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...

The author is arguing that when there is a "monopoly" of models with respect to a given domain, like the brain, that inexorably tends to make the conceptual distinction between model/reality irrelevant. The author then goes on to cite examples of this, not only with respect to our current age's infatuation with the IP model, but _previous_ ages own repetition of this with respect to their own guiding technological framework (hydraulic engineering and the humors, etc)

Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)

#57

Post by sykic » Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #53

sykic wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can the brain be mapped to the definition of a Turning machine? It doesn’t have an equivalent to an infinite tape and it doens’t work accoriding to anything like the table of rules for a Turning machine. Can you point me to a reference for this claim? Most of the comments I’ve read don’t like the article but almost all of the commenters I’ve read don’t seem to have studied this issue. It gives me the impression t…

> If true this seems to me (very much a non-expert) to give serious doubt to the notion that the brain is a computer. Yeah. It also puts Quantum Mechanics into serious doubt... So, I'll wait for better evidence than some random person on the internet thinking it feels right.

If I’m the random person you are referring to then you should not rely on evidence from me. My conclusion was based on what was written by the author of the article. I quoted from the article. You may want to rely on what the author says or on another expert. I did state that my opinion was a non expert one. The quote I made said that even if one had a snapshot of the current state of a person’s brain that would be meaningless without the full history of that brain’s owner. That’s a pretty damning fact if one wants to think of a brain as a computer.

I see from another comment that you disagree with the author. I’m guessing you aren’t an expert in this area either. Do you have more than visceral reasons to doubt the author’s conclusion? The author’s credentials seem to imply that he has thought about these issues far more that you or I. He presumably knows much more about how the brain works than you do. Why do you think your few minutes of thought on this article are enough to discount what he says and his conclusions? Isn’t that a bit arrogant?

Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)

#58

Post by marcosdumay » Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 10:18 PM UTC

sykic wrote: post #57

marcosdumay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If true this seems to me (very much a non-expert) to give serious doubt to the notion that the brain is a computer. Yeah. It also puts Quantum Mechanics into serious doubt... So, I'll wait for better evidence than some random person on the internet thinking it feels right.

If I’m the random person you are referring to then you should not rely on evidence from me. My conclusion was based on what was written by the author of the article. I quoted from the article. You may want to rely on what the author says or on another expert. I did state that my opinion was a non expert one. The quote I made said that even if one had a snapshot of the current state of a person’s brain that would be m…

Well, your comments are both much more reasonable and deserve much more confidence than the article. But no, not your comments, not the article, and not the quoted neurologist even assuming the article's author understood him correctly (what would be an exception) are enough.

That kind of claim requires a clear and reproducible effect, and confirmation of many people that they looked and found the it. That's the kind of claim that if I did an experiment and got the result myself, I wouldn't still trust it.

Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)

#59

Post by sykic » Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #58

sykic wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I’m the random person you are referring to then you should not rely on evidence from me. My conclusion was based on what was written by the author of the article. I quoted from the article. You may want to rely on what the author says or on another expert. I did state that my opinion was a non expert one. The quote I made said that even if one had a snapshot of the current state of a person’s brain that would be m…

Well, your comments are both much more reasonable and deserve much more confidence than the article. But no, not your comments, not the article, and not the quoted neurologist even assuming the article's author understood him correctly (what would be an exception) are enough. That kind of claim requires a clear and reproducible effect, and confirmation of many people that they looked and found the it. That's the kind…

I understand your position better now. Thank you.

The quote I made certainly goes against my intuition. But I’ve not studied the issue and don’t know enough about it to trust my intuition. Apparently though there are people who have studied this at the level of an expert and they believe it. At the very least this indicates that possibly my intuition is wrong and that I shouldn’t be so ready to discount the article.

Re: The Brain Is Not a Computer (2016)

#60

Post by baddox » Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 11:05 PM UTC

through_17 wrote: post #45

baddox wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Perhaps that’s what he meant, but does anyone even claim that that is the case?