The brain is not a computer • Hacker News Board

Re: The brain is not a computer

#161

Post by karmajunkie » Fri, May 20, 2016, 9:54 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #157

karmajunkie wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah, no, its not just twiddling bits. You can make analogies to that if it makes it easier to describe a process, but all analogies break down. One may create a mathematical model of the processes but unless that model mimics and predicts the biology so closely as to be indistinguishable from the reality, its still just a model. Your second assertion is simply wrong. Asserting that what the brain does isn't the same a…

> twiddling bits This kind of phrasing implies that you aren't hearing what I'm saying. You're still picturing physical bits that can be twiddled. I'm not making an analogy to any physical bits at all, I'm not even making an analogy. I'm talking about bits in the information-theoretic sense. If I can send a signal to a person and as a result that person can do better than random at picking an intended symbol out of a…

I'm hearing what you're saying, and if you want to take the broadest possible definition of a computer, then sure, the human brain is a computer. So is a protractor. Shadows on the ground could be used to "compute" the integration of a curve. But its pretty clear that this isn't the issue at hand in the OP.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#162

Post by hackney » Sat, May 21, 2016, 5:43 AM UTC

radarsat1 wrote: post #42

alexwebb2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This article struck me as exceedingly pedantic. Given the author's background, I'd put money on the idea that this is the result of years of frustration at having his life's work dismissively reduced by casual observers to something like "yeah, it's basically a computer" and thinking they therefore understand all the intricacies of the human brain. I can see how that might grate on a person in his field and t…

It's not even pedantic, it's just wrong. He's ignoring years of neuroscience. We know that the brain uses signals, and that these signals are composed of codes. We know that to interpret the world, certain information processing must take place. We are learning more about the exact nature of this processing, more about how neurons and even other fundamentals of the body code information and contribute to processing (…

A human being is not a machine just as "a brain" is not a computer. To say that the sum is greater than the individual parts is truly an understatement. I find it sad that scientists are so naive. The brain exists to tell the body what not to do. No machine will ever be able to replace it no matter how much you think you know about it.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#163

Post by mannykannot » Sun, May 22, 2016, 3:57 AM UTC

panglott wrote: post #10

zby wrote: post #8

Electronic computers as we have them now are different in many aspects from our brains - right. But they are also similar in many ways and surely we can have some metaphor that would fit both. What he forgets is that information processor is a metaphor also in respect to the machines we have on our desks. They don't really process information - they just route some electrons around. But metaphors are useful.

Metaphors are useful, but taking them too literally is like overfitting your model.

So true - and your reply applies to about 90% of the posts here.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#164

Post by mannykannot » Sun, May 22, 2016, 4:14 AM UTC

jackson1372 wrote: post #56

panglott wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact several people in this thread have explicitly compared human visual memory to lossy compression of images in a computer system. That's his main point, about the metaphor leading people astray.

Understood in the right way, there's nothing wring with that comparison. Certainly, people misuse/misunderstand the information-processing metaphor/claim. (Though the people who do this tend not to be cognitjve scientists.) But that's not to say that the metaphor is complete garbage.

The vast majority of the posts here are having trouble loking beyond it. That suggests to me that the metaphor is becoming more problematic than useful, at least among people who understand digital technology but who are not cognitive scientists.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#165

Post by mannykannot » Sun, May 22, 2016, 4:25 AM UTC

pttrsmrt wrote: post #3

Provocatively naive - does anyone nowadays really think the brain Works like a computer? A much more interesting focus is on non-representationalistic understandings of the world seen in the discussion.

A majority of the posters here seem to think the author is wrong to suggest a brain does not work like a computer.

Re: The brain is not a computer

#166

Post by mannykannot » Sun, May 22, 2016, 5:01 AM UTC

jbandela1 wrote: post #53

Google cache for those who can't connect to the paper https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:... TLDR Response: After taking a look at the paper, take a look at this post by the Google deep learning team. Take a look especially at the images. http://googleresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/inceptionism-go... I think most if not all of the author's arguments that the brain is not a computer, can also…

I do not think that is his conclusion, though he is certainly at fault for giving that impression. I think he is actually saying that it is a misleading to compare a brain too closely to a digital computer.

It is trivially true that the brain processes information - that is not much of a conclusion, it is a starting point, and it certainly does not mean that it is like a digital computer.