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The brain is not a computer

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Re: The brain is not a computer

#121

Post by wickedgain »

Udo wrote: post #7

This article falls somewhere between a strawman argument and a deliberate misrepresentation of scientific understanding. > " But here is what we are not born with: information, data, rules, software, knowledge, lexicons, representations, algorithms, programs, models, memories, images, processors, subroutines, encoders, decoders, symbols, or buffers " We are born with most (if not) all of these things, and we develop…

> "Forgive me for this introduction to computing, but I need to be clear: computers really do operate on symbolic representations of the world. They really store and retrieve. They really process. They really have physical memories. They really are guided in everything they do, without exception, by algorithms.

Humans, on the other hand, do not – never did, never will."

In addition to neuroscience, going deeper to the atomic level and beyond, humans really do operate on symbolic representations of the world: representations that are stored as states of physical elements. And the algorithm that guides everything we do, would be the laws of physics.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#123

Post by criddell »

chongli wrote: post #110
UK-AL wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is fire able to follow an algorithm? I mean some creative person could probably make a computer out of using fire.

Well, what is an algorithm? Anyway, before we stray too far from the point I was hoping to make, I'll claim that when most people use the word "compute" they mean a particular task performed at the behest of a human being. This sort of definition is problematic if we're ever to attempt to build an artificial brain or to encounter intelligent alien life radically different from our own. It all falls back to the proble…

I think that's a way too restrictive definition of computation.

I'd argue genetic code (messenger RNA) is a program and inputting genes and outputting proteins is a form of computation.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#124

Post by bambax »

> to catch the ball, the player simply needs to keep moving in a way that keeps the ball in a constant visual relationship with respect to home plate and the surrounding scenery

In the book "The Inner Game of Tennis" (fantastic read, more about the brain than tennis), the author explains how, during service, the other player has to respond before the first player has hit the ball, because of simple physics -- if the 2nd player waits for the ball to be hit then he absolutely doesn't have the time to do anything before the ball is on him. (That's probably also true of baseball, although I don't know anything about that).

And so, how does he do it? Nobody really knows, but the current thinking is that, through practice, the player that receives the ball interprets the movements of the hitter and induces where the ball will likely be (with great precision), without actually using much information from the ball itself.

It's possible that, just as elite chess players can play without a board, elite tennis players could play without balls.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#126

Post by nickpsecurity »

bambax wrote: post #124

> to catch the ball, the player simply needs to keep moving in a way that keeps the ball in a constant visual relationship with respect to home plate and the surrounding scenery In the book "The Inner Game of Tennis" (fantastic read, more about the brain than tennis), the author explains how, during service, the other player has to respond before the first player has hit the ball, because of simple physics -- if the…

Years of research in intuition shows exactly what's happening. That part of the brain builds models between senses and actions. Spots patterns. Turns them into reflexes and instincts. It's not always accurate or rational but operates continuously, instantly, and usually effectively.

In your example, like in my martial arts training, certain body patterns repeat before an action is going to happen. Intuition models likely consequence (eg trajectory). Another pattern says what response to take go that trajectory to get desirable result. Whole set of patterns nick-named muscle memory executes that thought into muscle impulses and controls them. The strike results.

Intuition 101. Marine Corp been using it for decades in realistic drills. Martial arts and other sports too. More realistic the prep, the more accurate and effective the mental model in intuitive brain.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#127

Post by ayylmao9077 »

cristianpascu wrote: post #71
Freaky wrote: post #68

> Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. Next up, an ornithologist tries to argue that birds don't fly, because they have muscles instead of engines and nobody can pinpoint the ailerons or control stick. What else could a brain possibly be doing? What do you think a brain responding to stimulus and changing as a result of it is , if not a form of information processing and stor…

The day before this article appeared, I participated to a talk about consciousness, and the presented dismissed the functional approaches to explaining consciousness. That is, if consciousness processes information, it is not a information processor LIKE the computer is. You can not define a thing by what it does, but only what it is. The electron is not something that moves through space, but something that has mass…

"You can not define a thing by what it does, but only what it is. The electron is not something that moves through space, but something that has mass, charge, and so on." Actually you know, mass and charge only signify that an electron does certain things in certain circumstances and are thus very much statements about what an electron does. I've thought in the past that what an object does is frankly the only informative description of what said object is, quite in disagreement with the sentiment you've expressed.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#128

Post by panglott »

projectramo wrote: post #120
panglott wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I posted a link and very brief summary elsewhere here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11730489 He discusses Fodor on p. 26 as part of a critique of conceptual/a priori (Hegelian) arguments.

This caused me some indigestion. I don't consider myself either for or against Fodor's argument but I think the summary does great injustice to his arguments. Fodor does claim that, for what he describes as language, systematicity and compositionality are essential features. However, the "evidence" he cites isn't from a study. It is primarily from facts about language. To use one of his favorite examples, take these…

> He takes those facts to be uncontroversial, and he says that that is what he means by systematicity and compositionality.

Right, but Chemero's point is that that premise is not so empirically grounded; it is an a priori assumption.

I am not familiar with this literature, but it's ultimately the same point that he makes against Chomsky's poverty of the stimulus argument (the literature on which I know much better): that it's not an empirically grounded premise, and the evidence for such an a priori argument is weak.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#129

Post by chongli »

criddell wrote: post #123
chongli wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what is an algorithm? Anyway, before we stray too far from the point I was hoping to make, I'll claim that when most people use the word "compute" they mean a particular task performed at the behest of a human being. This sort of definition is problematic if we're ever to attempt to build an artificial brain or to encounter intelligent alien life radically different from our own. It all falls back to the proble…

I think that's a way too restrictive definition of computation. I'd argue genetic code (messenger RNA) is a program and inputting genes and outputting proteins is a form of computation.

So with that definition, how is fire not computation?

Re: The brain is not a computer

#130

Post by nickpsecurity »

karmajunkie wrote: post #104
delinka wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed it does. If not, how then can you, "recall" the names of your family upon seeing their faces? You've stored a representation of each face, you've stored their names, and you retrieve that information to maintain the relationship.

pattern recognition. you see a face, and the visual stimulus refires the same set of neurons, which then fire additional neurons, creating a chain that eventually fires off the set that is connected with the sound of that face. This is a pattern of neuron activity, and its not the same as retrieval.

You've just described a way go store, process, and/or retrieve information. A lossy and generative one. We've modelled similar ones on both digital and analog machines.

It not being a conventional implementation doesn't mean what it's doing isn't computation.

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