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Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

nautil.us

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Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#111

Post by ColanR »

jjoonathan wrote: post #105
dtnewman wrote: post #98

I imagine a group of dogs sitting around and asking "How are we so good at thinking about fun ways to play with squeeky toys?". The truth is, that our ability to reason about ourselves is limited by our ability to reason. Perhaps there are aliens out there who would laugh our cognitive abilities--their's being so much better than ours.

Less complicated systems successfully reason about more complicated systems all the time. Ditto for self-reasoning. See: bootloaders, update systems, and package managers. In order to prove that some kind of meta-cognition is inherently beyond our grasp, you don't just have to prove that the system we are attempting to reason about is more complex than ourselves, you also have to prove that the problem isn't meaningf…

I think you're describing an analogue of turing-completeness. It's not (to me) a question of whether we can reason about something: it's a question of how long it takes, and how much knowledge is involved with the process.

What you're describing sounds like asking a PDP-11 to run GPT-3. Technically possible, in the broadest sense of the word. But a computer that can run GPT-3 successfully will look at that PDP-11 in much the same way that we look at a dog playing with a chew toy.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#112

Post by joesb »

canjobear wrote: post #81
kristopolous wrote: post #69

They aren't the same thing. They are different classes of objects, different tasks. This comparison is kind of silly. I'd hate my computer to have the memory accuracy or the computational accuracy of my brain. I'd hate to have the creativity and inspiration of a computer. Delete being such a nontrivial operation is probably a good thing for humans. Copy being imperfect probably has something to do with the phenomenon…

When we say the brain has poor computational accuracy, we’re usually talking about the conscious brain we’re aware of. But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation. These low-level brain computations are the thing to compare to AI, not our conscious thinking. Our conscious mind is more like low-precision software running on top of an enormously powerf…

> But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation.

But we don't actually do that precise computation though. try repeating any action exactly and you will see some inaccuracy.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#113

Post by ryukafalz »

technovader wrote: post #107
kristopolous wrote: post #69

They aren't the same thing. They are different classes of objects, different tasks. This comparison is kind of silly. I'd hate my computer to have the memory accuracy or the computational accuracy of my brain. I'd hate to have the creativity and inspiration of a computer. Delete being such a nontrivial operation is probably a good thing for humans. Copy being imperfect probably has something to do with the phenomenon…

Exactly. We shouldn't be so arrogant in thinking the modern computer is the same thing as a human brain. This comparison is pointless. The human brain is beyond comprehension. Computers are just logic calculators.

>The human brain is beyond comprehension.

Many things in the world were beyond our comprehension, until they weren't. I see no reason why the human brain's inner workings should evade our understanding indefinitely.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#114

Post by rantwasp »

stared wrote: post #103
rantwasp wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but can it do math? can it paint? drink wine and muse on its own brain efficiency?

Fruit flies can drink wine. Doing maths - well, it is a common trope that we extrapolate skills of a fraction of humans on the entire population. For an average human 1/3 + 1/2 can be problematic. Abstract counting up 5 or so - well, many birds can do that, including pigeons.

the wine part was a joke. especially because fruit flies definitely appear to be attracted to fruit, wine, etc

i believe you are underestimating how capable humans really are. all of us can learn to do math and i’m talking serious math not basic math.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#115

Post by Stratoscope »

derefr wrote: post #80
kristopolous wrote: post #69

They aren't the same thing. They are different classes of objects, different tasks. This comparison is kind of silly. I'd hate my computer to have the memory accuracy or the computational accuracy of my brain. I'd hate to have the creativity and inspiration of a computer. Delete being such a nontrivial operation is probably a good thing for humans. Copy being imperfect probably has something to do with the phenomenon…

> memory accuracy There are individuals with very good memories for all sorts of things, who seem to manage to reconsolidate their memories near-losslessly (at least within the confines of the mental schema they organize said memories into.) Surgeons with anatomy, lawyers and judges with case-law, etc. At this point I’m convinced that the lossy method humans intuitively reconsolidate memories with, isn’t so much a fe…

A similar example I heard was that a chess grandmaster may be able to take a look at a chessboard with a game in play and memorize the entire board immediately. But only if the board "makes sense" - all the pieces are in positions that could actually be reached in a real game.

If you take those same pieces and rearrange them willy-nilly, then this ability to instantly memorize its layout goes away.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#116

Post by Digit-Al »

aeternum wrote: post #100
dtnewman wrote: post #98

I imagine a group of dogs sitting around and asking "How are we so good at thinking about fun ways to play with squeeky toys?". The truth is, that our ability to reason about ourselves is limited by our ability to reason. Perhaps there are aliens out there who would laugh our cognitive abilities--their's being so much better than ours.

Most dogs seem to acknowledge that humans are better when it comes to playing with toys, otherwise why would they bring them over for humans to throw?

Ah, now. See. You're mistake is thinking you can reason better than a dog. The reason a dog brings the toy to the human is because they know that the human is better at throwing and the dog is better at fetching. Teamwork, y'see.

Now go forth and learn, and one day you too may be as smart as a dog ;-)

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#117

Post by hinkley »

dtnewman wrote: post #98

I imagine a group of dogs sitting around and asking "How are we so good at thinking about fun ways to play with squeeky toys?". The truth is, that our ability to reason about ourselves is limited by our ability to reason. Perhaps there are aliens out there who would laugh our cognitive abilities--their's being so much better than ours.

They're Made Out of Meat, as a short film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#118

Post by derefr »

Stratoscope wrote: post #115
derefr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> memory accuracy There are individuals with very good memories for all sorts of things, who seem to manage to reconsolidate their memories near-losslessly (at least within the confines of the mental schema they organize said memories into.) Surgeons with anatomy, lawyers and judges with case-law, etc. At this point I’m convinced that the lossy method humans intuitively reconsolidate memories with, isn’t so much a fe…

A similar example I heard was that a chess grandmaster may be able to take a look at a chessboard with a game in play and memorize the entire board immediately. But only if the board "makes sense" - all the pieces are in positions that could actually be reached in a real game. If you take those same pieces and rearrange them willy-nilly, then this ability to instantly memorize its layout goes away.

I recall that Jeff Hawkins, when talking about his Hierarchical Temporal Memory ML model (which is supposed to be brain-like), said something like "Nature has spatial and temporal locality. Brains evolved to best store information that also has spatial and temporal locality—in other words, to recapitulate and model the natural world. To the degree that some pattern is akin to one that arises in nature, the brain can store and compute upon it easily. To the degree that a pattern is 'arbitrary'—something that cannot arise in nature—the brain finds it hard to hold into."

The moment-in-time arrangement of chess pieces on a board does not exactly have spatial or temporal locality; but if one has learned a set of mental transformation rules that let that board be translated into a narrative for how it got to be that way—then that narrative is itself something quite natural for the brain's architecture to represent.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#119

Post by p1esk »

jbay808 wrote: post #110
coreyp_1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And indeed CPUs as turing complete, programmable machine are a strict superset of what brains can do." This is a fundamental assertion that I do not believe you can make. The brain cannot simulate a turing machine. It does not have infinite memory, which is a requirement for a turing machine. It can, however, stimulate a linearly bounded automata. It is also not implicitly obvious that a turing machine can simulate…

> The brain has no such constraint. It is analog, and therefore infinite in State representation. This is a common misconception. I'm sure you are aware that analog signals can be approximated by digital values -- a 10 bit ADC will read a channel to one part in 1024, etc. You might say that even a 64 bit representation is a poor approximation of a real life signal, which is a real number with infinite precision... Bu…

Given how robust a brain is against noise, I'd be surprised if any brain signals are more precise than an equivalent of 3-4 bits.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#120

Post by hanniabu »

Digit-Al wrote: post #116
aeternum wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most dogs seem to acknowledge that humans are better when it comes to playing with toys, otherwise why would they bring them over for humans to throw?

Ah, now. See. You're mistake is thinking you can reason better than a dog. The reason a dog brings the toy to the human is because they know that the human is better at throwing and the dog is better at fetching. Teamwork, y'see. Now go forth and learn, and one day you too may be as smart as a dog ;-)

Maybe also dogs can do everything humans can but they decide not to because they see the stressful lives we live and want no part of that. I welcome our dog overlords.
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