Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’

#121

Post by uoaei » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

goaaron wrote: post #51

axg11 wrote: post #35

Compression is a component of general intelligence. A few years ago I was very sceptical of machine learning ever leading to general intelligence. I've since changed my mind. There are a lot of parallels to this work and the concept of "embeddings" in machine learning. Intelligence requires the ability to generalize. A prerequisite for generalization is the ability to take something high-dimensional and reduce it to…

The human brain also forgets, something that may be a feature instead of a bug. Also, beyond compression––brains are simulation machines: imagining new scenarios. Curios to understand if ML provides anything analogous to simulation that isn't rote interpolation.

Absolutely. Generative methods are all the rage now. Those methods work on learning information-rich representation spaces. You could argue it's still "interpolation" but instead of interpolating in data-space per se you are interpolating in representation-space.

Re: Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’

#122

Post by hintymad » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

This reminds me of this recent book on high-dimensional analysis with low dimensional models: https://book-wright-ma.github.io/. It looks our brain is great at finding sparsity of information and compress it accordingly.

Re: Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’

#123

Post by Sparkyte » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

Is this entirely true? I remember a lot of my work and stuff. If the work is a few months old it definitely is compressed but two weeks work is still fresh. I also remember every bit of my effort.

Re: Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’

#124

Post by kaba0 » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

ThalesX wrote: post #63

Borrible wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am aphantast, but I do not suffer from it. When I am fully conscious, I have no inner vision, but I have vivd and colorfull dreams. If I remember them, outside that twilight zone shortly before full awakening. So I have an idea what it probably is like to have inner vision when fully awake. Allthough there are some disadvantages, of course. I admire people that are able to draw and paint based on their inner vision…

> Much more important for me was the realization that I can evoke images, scenes, etc. in other people that trigger feelings in them. Which in turn can trigger actions or omissions. Fear, joy, hate, love, disgust, lust. Which they can't do to me, at least not just by invoking visual images in my mind through words. Manipulative, but not manipulatable in this regard. With time, that came in handy. I've also discovered…

You can also reverse it and perhaps claim that doctors can benefit from less visceral reaction to seeing blood/internals. Though of course it is a learned behavior anyone can get better at.

Re: Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’

#125

Post by whatshisface » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

alanh wrote: post #109

whatshisface wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bread is defined as anything I think bread is, and the same goes for any other word. To hold another position would be in some way dishonest.

That’s not a definition :) And, by the way, a definition is not defined as whatever one thinks a definition is.

It offers a one-to-one correspondence between stimuli and classifications, what else could a definition be?

Re: Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’

#126

Post by kaba0 » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

karmakaze wrote: post #47

ansible wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's something that can be practiced and improved upon.

I've been wondering the same ever since I read that Nikola Tesla invented/designed the AC motor in his mind's eye. Seems to be along the lines of lucid dreaming, with a vast difference in degree. Sometimes as I'm falling asleep I can see vivid scenes or objects that I can--to minor degrees--play with for a short time before I either fall asleep or wake up, then it's gone.

I would take something written about Tesla on such an intimate level with a grain of salt though. He is very very hyped and often elevated to a God-like level.

Re: Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’

#127

Post by whatshisface » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

alanh wrote: post #117

qq66 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to make this clear to yourself is to observe how much more difficult it is to "define bread" than it is to answer "is this bread?"

There can be surprising insights yielded from such an exercise. For example, if I think about what separates breads from cakes and muffins, I am forced to deal with the way that a typical "banana bread" (baked with lots of sugar and without yeast) is really a bread-shaped muffin more than a banana-flavored bread. This might seem overly semantic, but it does reflect differences in how it is baked and what it means nut…

The examples that you're structuring your attempted definitions around (banana bread) come from your intuition. In the ultimate limit your definition would be a complete list of your intuitions.

Re: Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’

#128

Post by Pr0ject217 » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #96

I think this is why it's hard sometimes to argue in support of something you believe, even if you're right. At one point, all of the relevant facts and figures were loaded into your working memory, and with that information you arrived at a conclusion. Your brain, however, no longer needs those facts and figures; you've gotten what you needed from them, and they can be kicked out of working memory. What you store the…

Insightful. Thanks.

Re: Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’

#129

Post by randomdata » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #96

I think this is why it's hard sometimes to argue in support of something you believe, even if you're right. At one point, all of the relevant facts and figures were loaded into your working memory, and with that information you arrived at a conclusion. Your brain, however, no longer needs those facts and figures; you've gotten what you needed from them, and they can be kicked out of working memory. What you store the…

> It also suggests a possible solution

Is there a problem? The so-called global conversation concern seems to be simply that some people have differing feelings and their feelings push them to want others to share in the same feelings. To 'solve' for those feelings of some implies that their feelings are of greater importance than the feelings or others, but that seems pretty wishy-washy.

Re: Human brain compresses working memories into low-res ‘summaries’

#130

Post by hungryforcodes » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #96

I think this is why it's hard sometimes to argue in support of something you believe, even if you're right. At one point, all of the relevant facts and figures were loaded into your working memory, and with that information you arrived at a conclusion. Your brain, however, no longer needs those facts and figures; you've gotten what you needed from them, and they can be kicked out of working memory. What you store the…

This justifies all the hours I spend on HN. :)