Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

directorsblog.nih.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 349 posts

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

#301

Post by bengale »

axg11 wrote: post #210
konschubert wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny how I can "see" a map of the world in front of me when I imagine it, but I totally cannot draw it. Clearly, much less information is stored than the whole image... yet my mind DALL-E style fills in the gaps and "sees" a map.

Already plugged this book elsewhere in the thread, you might be interested in "The Mind is Flat". One chapter of the book explores the concept you're describing. Our brain creates the illusion of a "full picture" when often our imagination and internal representation is quite sparse. I think that's one of the key impressive qualities of our brains and general intelligence. We only do the minimum necessary imagination…

A thousand brains is another really interesting book I read recently.

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

#302

Post by agumonkey »

dannyw wrote: post #288
agumonkey wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I forgot who said that in your best moments you don't have time for anything else. Indeed if you don't take pics it might just be because it was deeply interesting and not worth taking your smartphone out of your pocket.

I like to take 1 photo a day no matter what, and put it in my digital journal (Day One). It is really nice to have a ritual where you review your day before bed; and after doing this for 5 years, I have an awesome photo journal.

Is this a 'be grateful' kind of thing ?

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

#303

Post by fasteo »

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…

>>> Intelligence requires the ability to generalize

Counterexample: I saw a TED talk video [1] by Dr. Grandin (autistic) telling that she is unable to generalize a "church" (starting at 02:50). I would say that she is extremely intelligent though

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/temple_grandin_the_world_needs_all...

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

#304

Post by raxxorraxor »

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…

I think compression is a bad word or description. Another definition of intelligence is sometimes to differentiate essential from superficial information. Of course that often aligns with the application of compression of information.

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

#305

Post by ascar »

vikingerik wrote: post #283
dcposch wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW this is the same argument once made against human flight. In the late 19th century, there were a lot of debates in the form > Clearly flight is possible, birds do it > Sure but how/why is one of the many mysteries of the universe, one we will likely never solve. "Man won't fly for a million years – to build a flying machine would require the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanics for 1-1…

The real answer to how birds fly is that they're extremely light weight so that wing muscles can lift them. Common pigeons or seagulls only weigh about 2 or 3 pounds. The largest birds of prey top out around 18. Anything heavier is flightless. A 150-pound human isn't getting anywhere on wing muscle power.

The largest Pterosaur are estimated to have had wingspans of more than 9m and weigh up to 250kg (550 pounds) and we believe they were able to fly. [1]

But that's not the most relevant point here. The fact that humans did achieve to fly, but through a different method than birds is exactly a supporting argument that we might achieve AGI with a different approach than how our brains do it.

There are countless similar examples. We see a natural phenomenon, we know it's possible and we find a way to replicate the desired effect (not the whole phenomenon) artificially. I haven't heard anything here that it will be any different for intelligence, except that we don't know how yet.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur_size

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

#306

Post by tcangussu »

ThalesX wrote: post #8

As someone suffering from Aphantasia [0] (I don't have mental imagery at all) and I've been telling people for the longest time that this is how I relate to the world. I summarize things. Even my mother's face. A post by a Facebook engineer [1] felt like a good way to understand it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia [1] https://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/medic...

Never heard about this before and it seems I'm on the 0 side of the spectrum!

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

#307

Post by alliao »

amelius wrote: post #228
konschubert wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny how I can "see" a map of the world in front of me when I imagine it, but I totally cannot draw it. Clearly, much less information is stored than the whole image... yet my mind DALL-E style fills in the gaps and "sees" a map.

Keep drawing until what is on paper equals what is in your imagination. Seriously, try it.

I found out the separation when I can read Chinese perfectly fine but can't write it. When I'm writing, or trying to write it, I employ the technique you described. Though more often than not, I'd have tiny parts missing here and there.

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

#308

Post by imtringued »

8note wrote: post #94
rektide wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of reasoned & formula based models, now we have purely empirical models. See Wolfram's New Kind Of Science.

Isn't wolfram's new kind of science purely rational? No observations of the universe needed

That's actually one of the flaws of Austrian economics. Mises just postulates that certain of his personality traits apply to all humans and ignores the personality traits of other humans. He is also confusing the informational theoretical world inside his mind with the harsh reality of the real world.

The word "capital depreciation" kind of summarizes all sorts of flaws. Gold is considered an ideal currency yet it suffers from no capital depreciation at all, while all other forms of physical capital depreciate. Once you have built all the houses, roads and schools, etc there is nothing left to build. If you happen to have built too many schools, then you are a fool and should convert the school back to gold by demolishing it and selling the scrap or in other words, idle capital, that is left to depreciate, must be eliminated.

When you think about this, this is secretly rewarding monopolies and all sorts of other nonsense that capitalism suffers from. For 10 people there are exactly 10 jobs. If a workaholic hoards a job by working 80 hours per week to retire early, then somehow there won't be enough "jobs" for everyone. This gives employers the upper hand during negotiations as employees start competing with each other instead of employers competing over employees. The current system is also dumb because it tries to represent capital depreciation through an increase in the price level i.e. 2% inflation targeting.

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

#309

Post by bsenftner »

mherrmann wrote: post #44
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…

A nice definition of intelligence I've heard is exactly the ability to form models of the world with predictive power. And a model is essentially a compression of real-world data. Physical laws are a great example of this.

I like to define intelligence as knowing data, but knowing data only creates idiot savants. What is lacking in AI today is artificial comprehension. What we're calling "artificial intelligence" lacks comprehension. Until the concepts handled by AI are composable, forming virtual operating logical mechanisms, and an AI comprehends by trial combinations of concepts (virtual operating logical mechanisms) we are only creating idiot savants incapable of comprehending what they do.

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

#310

Post by freediver »

ascar wrote: post #305
vikingerik wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real answer to how birds fly is that they're extremely light weight so that wing muscles can lift them. Common pigeons or seagulls only weigh about 2 or 3 pounds. The largest birds of prey top out around 18. Anything heavier is flightless. A 150-pound human isn't getting anywhere on wing muscle power.

The largest Pterosaur are estimated to have had wingspans of more than 9m and weigh up to 250kg (550 pounds) and we believe they were able to fly. [1] But that's not the most relevant point here. The fact that humans did achieve to fly, but through a different method than birds is exactly a supporting argument that we might achieve AGI with a different approach than how our brains do it. There are countless similar e…

The chain of reasoning that everything observable in nature is replicable by humans would also imply us being able to replicate creation of a living cell from non living material and then endow that organism with consciousness.

Further more it would also imply us being able to replicate birth of stars, black holes, and "the big bang" itself.

I am not qualified enough to speak if there is anything fundamentally impossible with all of these, but that would basically make human race "God".

Post reply on HN