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Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

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Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#311

Post by mannykannot »

adrianN wrote: post #264
jstanley wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But conscious experience does produce observable effects. For that not to be the case, you'd have to take the position that humans experience consciousness and they talk about consciousness but that there is no causal link between the two! It's just a coincidence that the things you find yourself saying about consciousness line up with your internal experience? https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fdEWWr8St59bXLbQr/zombie…

That philosophers talk about p-zombies seems like evidence to me that at least some of them don't believe that consciousness needs to have observable effects that can't be explained without consciousness. I don't say that I believe that too. I don't believe that there is anything particularly special about brains.

The p-zombie argument is the best-known of a group of conceivability arguments, which ultimately depend on the notion that if a proposition is conceivably true, then there is a metaphysically possible world in which it is true. Skeptics suppose that this is just a complicated way of equivocating over what 'conceivable' means, and even David Chalmers, the philosopher who has done the most to bring the p-zombie argument to wide attention, acknowledges that it depends on the assumption of what he calls 'perfect conceivability', which is tantamount to irrefutable knowledge.

To deal with the awkwardly apparent fact that consciousness certainly seems to have physical effects, zombiephiles challenge the notion that physics is causally closed, so that it is conceivable that something non-physical can cause physical effects. Their approach is to say that the causal closure of physics is not provable, but at this point, the argument has become a lexicographical one, about the definition of the words 'physics' and 'physical' (if one insists that 'physical' does not refer to a causally-closed concept, then we still need a word for the causal closure within which the physical is embedded - but that's just what a lot of people take 'physical' to mean in the first place.) None of the anti-physicalists have been able, so far, to shed any light on how the mind is causally effective in the physical world.

You might be interested in the late Daniel Dennett's "The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies": https://dl.tufts.edu/concern/pdfs/6m312182x

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#312

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #308
BoingBoomTschak wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would he not "assume" that when humans have shaped their world so far beyond what it was, creating intricate layers of art, culture and science; even going into space or in the air? Man collectively tamed nature and the rest of the animal kingdom in a way that no beast ever has. Anyway, this is just like solipsism, you won't find a sincere one outside the asylum. Every Reddit intellectual writing such tired drive…

> Why would he not "assume" that when humans have shaped their world so far beyond what it was, creating intricate layers of art, culture and science; even going into space or in the air? Man collectively tamed nature and the rest of the animal kingdom in a way that no beast ever has. Because whales or dolphins didn’t evolve hands. Hands are a foundational prerequisite for building technology. So if whales or dolphin…

It is very naïve to think that the availability of such tools isn't partly responsible for that intelligence; “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us”. And it seems too man-centric of an excuse: you can see all our civilization being built on hands so you state that there can't be a way without.

The "they MIGHT be as intelligent, just lacking hands" theory can't have the same weight as "nah" in an honest mind seeing the overwhelming clues (yes, not proof, if that's what you want) against it. Again, same way that you can't disprove solipsism.

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#313

Post by upghost »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #139

>> They’re basically the first model organism for researchers studying the neuroscience of language. They are not a biological organism, but until these models came about, we just didn’t have anything other than the human brain that does language. I think this is completely wrong-headed. It's like saying that until cars came about we just didn't have anything other than animals that could move around under its own po…

I've been trying to figure out to respond to this for a while. I appreciate the fact that you are pretty much the lone voice on this thread voicing this opinion, which I also share but tend to keep my mouth shut since it seems to be unpopular.

It's hard for me to understand where my peers are coming from on the other side of this argument and respond without being dismissive, so I'll do my best to steelman the argument later.

Machine learning models are function approximators and by definition do not have an internal experience distinct from the training data any more than the plus operator does. I agree with the sentiment that even putting it in writing gives more weight to the position than it should, bordering on absurdity.

I suppose this is like the ELIZA phenomena on steroids, is the only thing I can think of for why such notions are being entertained.

However, to be generous, lets do some vigorous hand waving and say we could find a way to have an embodied learning agent gather sublinguistic perceptual data in an online reinforcement learning process, and furthermore that the (by definition) non-quantifiable subjective experience data could somehow be extracted, made into a training set, and fit to a nicely parametric loss function.

The idea then is that could find some architecture that would allow you to fit a model to the data.

And voila, machine consciousness, right? A perfect model for sentience.

Except for the fact that you would need to ignore that in the RL model gathering the data and the NN distilled from it, even with all of our vigorous hand waving, you are once again developing function approximators that have no subjective internal experience distinct from the training data.

Let's take it one step further. The absolute simplest form of learning comes in the form of habituation and sensitization to stimuli. Even microbes have the ability to do this.

LLMs and other static networks do not. You can attempt to attack this point by fiatting online reinforcement learning or dismissing it as unnecessary, but I should again point out that you would be attacking or dismissing the bare minimum requirement for learning, let alone a higher order subjective internal experience.

So then the argument, proceeding from false premises, would claim that the compressed experience in the NN could contain mechanical equivalents of higher order internal subjective experiences.

So even with all the might vigorous hand waving we have allowed, you have at best found a way to convert internal subjective processes to external mechanical processes fit to a dataset.

The argument would then follow, well, what's the difference? And I could point back to the microbe, but if the argument hasn't connected by this point, we will be chasing our tails forever.

A good book on the topic that examines this in much greater depth is "The Self Assembling Brain".

https://a.co/d/1FwYxaJ

That being said, I am hella jealous of the VC money that the grifters will get for advancing the other side of this argument.

For enough money I'd probably change my tune too. I can't by a loaf of bread with a good argument lol

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#314

Post by bbor »

shkkmo wrote: post #228
bbor wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll pop in with a friendly “that research is definitely wrong”. If they want to prove that LLMs can’t reason, shouldn’t they stringently define that word somewhere in their paper? As it stands, they’re proving something small (some of today’s LLMs have XYZ weaknesses) and claiming something big (humans have an ineffable calculator-soul). LLMs absolutely 100% can reason, if we take the dictionary definition; it’s tri…

> LLMs absolutely 100% can reason, if we take the dictionary definition; it’s trivial to show their ability to answer non-memorized questions, and the only way to do that is some sort of reasoning. Um... What? That is a huge leap to make. 'Reasoning' is a specific type of thought process and humans regularly make complicated decisions without doing it. We uses hunches and intuition and gut feelings. We make all kinds…

All well said, and I agree on many of your final points! But you beautifully highlighted my issue at the top:

  'Reasoning' is a specific type of thought process
If so, what exactly is it? I don’t need a universally justified definition, I’m just looking for an objective, scientific one. A definition that would help us say for sure that a particular cognition is or isn’t a product of reason.

I personally have lots of thoughts on the topic and look to Kant and Hegel for their definitions of reason as the final faculty of human cognition (after sensibility, understanding, and judgement), and I even think there’s good reason (heh) to think that LLMs are not a great tool for that on their own. But my point is that none of the LLM critics have a definition anywhere close to that level of specificity.

Usually, “reason” is used to mean “good cognition”, so “LLMs can’t reason” is just a variety of cope/setting up new goalposts. We all know LLMs aren’t flawless or infinite in their capabilities, but I just don’t find this kind of critique specific enough to have any sort of scientific validity. IMHO

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#315

Post by ryandv »

zeroxfe wrote: post #306
smallerfish wrote: post #301

A little late to the thread, but this is obvious if you've done any reasonably serious mindfulness practice. When you are meditating, you can get to the point where the internal monolog (the yabbering of the "crazy monkey mind") is completely silenced. "You" are still present, and can direct your attention, and can observe all of the perceptions with full comprehension, without the verbal layer interpreting for you.

Came here to say something similar. You also notice that before any verbal thoughts arise, there are "primordial" thoughts, which are "felt" (sometimes as emotions.) These can instigate huge chains of verbal, visual, auditory thought, in turn generating more emotions, causing a (occasionally vicious) feedback loop.

This sounds similar to a fairly early realization in the practice of meditation. Daniel M Ingram refers to it as "Cause and Effect" in Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: [0]

> In the stage of Cause and Effect, the relationships between mental and physical phenomena become very clear and sometimes ratchet-like. There is a cause, such as intention, and then an effect, such as movement. There is a cause, such as a sensation, and there is an effect, namely a mental impression.

Trying to increase the frequency at which you oscillate between physical sensations and mental sensations is a fascinating exercise.

[0] https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight...

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#316

Post by torginus »

tines wrote: post #146
fjfaase wrote: post #90

As some who has a dis-harmonic intelligence profile, this has been obvious for a very long time. In the family of my mother there are several individuals struggling with language while excelling in the field of exact sciences. I very strongly suspect that my non-verbal (performal) IQ is much higher (around 130) than my verbal IQ (around 100). I have struggled my whole life to express my ideas with language. I conside…

> As some who has a dis-harmonic intelligence profile, this has been obvious for a very long time. In the family of my mother there are several individuals struggling with language while excelling in the field of exact sciences. I very strongly suspect that my non-verbal (performal) IQ is much higher (around 130) than my verbal IQ (around 100) I used to rationalize to myself along similar lines for a long time, then…

if you're not a native english speaker, it's normal to score lower on the (English) verbal tests

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#317

Post by torginus »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #295
midtake wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta: I have noticed many comments written in this style lately. Long-winded with out-of-place internet shorthand. It is as if someone is deliberately trying to sound youthful while not really knowing how. It is the "how do you do, fellow kids" of writing styles. I am not sure what sort of LLM-powered bot is behind them, or whether it's one person with some sort of schizophrenia, but once you notice it you will see a…

I have noticed the style, hadn't thought to attribute it to "sounding youthful". To me it just sounds genuinely from a younger person. Fixations around "intelligence"/IQ is huge these days, I have found, among young men, not just because of the AI stuff. And humans in general can still, for now, write and be passionate and maybe have some misplaced enthusiasm on internet forums!

these days

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#318

Post by bbor »

slibhb wrote: post #107
bbor wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said! This is a great restatement of the core setup of the Chomskian “Generative Grammar” school, and I think it’s an undeniably productive one. I haven’t read this researchers full paper, but I would be sad (tho not shocked…) if it didn’t cite Chomsky up front. Beyond your specific point re:interfaces—which I recommend the OG Syntactic Structures for more commentary on—he’s been saying what she’s saying here fo…

Chomsky is shockingly un humble. I admire him but he's a jerk who treats people who disagree with him with contempt. It's fun to read him doing this but it's uncollegiate (to say the least). Also, calling "generative grammar" productive seems wrong to me. It's been around for half a century -- what tools has it produced? At some point theory needs to come into contact with empirical reality. As far as I know, generat…

Well, it’s the basis of programming languages. That seems pretty helpful :) Otherwise it’s hard to measure what exactly “real world utility” looks like. What have the other branches of linguistics brought us? What has any human science brought us, really? Even the most empirical one, behavioral psychology, seems hard to correlate with concrete benefits. I guess the best case would be “helps us analyze psychiatric drug efficacy”?

Generally, I absolutely agree that he is not humble in the sense of expressing doubt about his strongly held beliefs. He’s been saying pretty much the same things for decades, and does not give much room for disagreement (and ofc this is all ratcheted up in intensity in his political stances). I’m using humble in a slightly different way, tho: he insists on qualifying basically all of his statements about archaeological anthropology with “we don’t have proof yet” and “this seems likely”, because of his fundamental belief that we’re in a “pre-Galilean” (read: shitty) era of cognitive science.

In other words: he’s absolutely arrogant about his core structural findings and the utility of his program, but he’s humble about the final application of those findings to humanity.

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#319

Post by dadarecit »

NemoNobody wrote: post #233
tines wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As some who has a dis-harmonic intelligence profile, this has been obvious for a very long time. In the family of my mother there are several individuals struggling with language while excelling in the field of exact sciences. I very strongly suspect that my non-verbal (performal) IQ is much higher (around 130) than my verbal IQ (around 100) I used to rationalize to myself along similar lines for a long time, then…

I'm a brilliant genius according to IQ tests. Think me arrogant or conceited or whatever - that is literally the truth, fact - proven many times in the educational system (I was homeschooled and didn't follow any sort of curriculum and was allowed to do whatever I wanted bc I kept testing higher than almost everyone) and just for kicks also - the last time I took an IQ test I was in my late 20s and a friend and I had…

one of the better memes on hn well played
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