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

One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 92 posts

Re: One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

#71

Post by Timwi »

selcuka wrote: post #34
jstanley wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is just a totally stupid question. The brain has inputs, internal processing, and outputs. The conscious experience happens within the internal processing. If you make a second copy, then that second copy will also have conscious experience, but it won't share any inputs or outputs or internal state with the first copy. If you were to duplicate your computer, would the second computer share a filesys…

When you replace "I" with "it" (as in your example with computers) the question becomes meaningless and stupid. As an outside observer both computers are the same, as they act exactly the same way, therefore there is no question. That is actually the "egalitarian" view in Benj Hellie's paper [1]: > The ‘god’s eye’ point of view taken in setting up the egalitarian metaphysics does not correspond to my ‘embedded’ point…

Personally, my answer to “why am I me” is similar to the anthropic principle. If you were anyone else, you would be asking the exact same question, and if you were nobody, you would not be able to ask the question. By asking the question, you must necessarily be somebody, and the question would be the same no matter which somebody.

Re: One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

#72

Post by Timwi »

maksimur wrote: post #37
polishdude20 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too don't get what's being missed.

I understand what the author means, though I struggle to express it as well. The best I can come up with is this: What defines I? Is it separated from "I" and if so how? Or does I merely appears that way because our perspective is informed by our limited being?

It seems to me that this ascribes an existence to “I” that is separate from the brain; with no evidence for this existence, that makes it mystical/magical thinking, a.k.a. superstition.

Re: One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

#73

Post by Timwi »

financetechbro wrote: post #46
Hacker_Yogi wrote: post #6

I disagree with Steven Pinker’s claim that consciousness arises from the brain. This perspective fails to establish that the brain produces consciousness, as it relies on the mistaken assumption that "mind" and "consciousness" are interchangeable. While brain activity may influence the mind, consciousness itself could be a more fundamental aspect of reality. Rather than generating consciousness, the brain might funct…

The idea that the brain functions as a sort of radio capturing a consciousness field makes the most sense to me and also feel comforting in some way

However, “makes sense to me” and “feels comforting” has no bearing on whether it's true.

Re: One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

#74

Post by titaniumtown »

GonzoBytes wrote: post #64

All of this is way above my paygrade, however.. There exists this work by Julian Jaynes called The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind: https://ia802907.us.archive.org/32/items/The_Origin_Of_Consc... Seems pertinent, and now I will try to read it again. Perhaps it will be useful for reference by others.

Its a very interesting theory, either he's a genius or the theory is completely insane. I cannot decide which one.

Re: One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

#75

Post by jmesmith »

encipriano wrote: post #62
jjtheblunt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

along those lines, maybe dreaming is piecing together new adventures imagined from snippets of reality.

Those videos about ai making up a game after having watched countless hours of streaming is fucked up. It looks completely how dreams do

Do you have a link?

Re: One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

#76

Post by yesco »

ggm wrote: post #55
codr7 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly looks like what LLMs are doing is one aspect of what a brain is doing.

Key point here is "looks like" I suggest if you want to argue this further to invest the time asking Brain Scientists what they think. Not AI scientists but people who actually work in cognition. (Not a brain scientist btw)

Only if you think computers need to copy the precise neurological "hardware" systems of the brain. However if you think of conciousness as software then I think overlap is highly likely considering both are emergent. That said, this topic is more philosophical than scientific at the end of the day.

Re: One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

#77

Post by captainmuon »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #40

The fact that the explaining part of the brain fills in any blanks in a creative manner (you need the shovel to clean the chicken shed), reminds me to some replies of LLMs. I once provided an LLM the riddle of the goat, cabbage and wolf, and changed the rules a bit. I prompted that the wolf was allergic to goats (and hence would not eat them). Still the llm insisted on not leaving them together on the same river bank…

I believe LLMs are entirely analogous to the speech areas of the brain. They have a certain capacity of speaking automatically, reflexively, without involving (other) memory for example. That is how you are able to deliver quippy answers, that is where idioms "live". You can see this in people with certain kinds of brain damage, if they are unable to recall certain memories (or sometimes if you press somebody to recall memories that they don't have) they will construct elaborate stories on the spot. They won't even notice that they are making it up. This is called confabulation, and I think it is a much better term than hallucination for what LLMs do when they make up facts.

I feel this analogy confirmed by the fact that chain of thought works so well. That is what (most?) people do when they actively "think" about a problem. They have a kind of inner monologue.

Now, we have already reached the point that LLMs are much smarter than the language areas of humans - but not always smarter than the whole human. I think the next step towards AGI would be to add other "brain areas". A limbic system that remembers the current emotion and feeds it as an input into the other parts. We already have dedicated vision and audio AIs. Maybe we also need a system for logical reasoning.

Re: One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

#78

Post by seanwilson »

selcuka wrote: post #34
jstanley wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is just a totally stupid question. The brain has inputs, internal processing, and outputs. The conscious experience happens within the internal processing. If you make a second copy, then that second copy will also have conscious experience, but it won't share any inputs or outputs or internal state with the first copy. If you were to duplicate your computer, would the second computer share a filesys…

When you replace "I" with "it" (as in your example with computers) the question becomes meaningless and stupid. As an outside observer both computers are the same, as they act exactly the same way, therefore there is no question. That is actually the "egalitarian" view in Benj Hellie's paper [1]: > The ‘god’s eye’ point of view taken in setting up the egalitarian metaphysics does not correspond to my ‘embedded’ point…

> if I could make a perfect copy of me, why would I still see the world from the first copy's eyes and not the second, if the physical structure of the brain defines "me"? What stops my consciousness from migrating from the first body to the second, or both bodies from having the same consciousness?

If you define consciousness as the stream of perceived experiences coming from the physical body (sights, sounds, touch, and even thoughts, including even the thought that you're in control), it's expected each body would have its own consciousness? The OP article about split-brain experiments also (very counterintuitively) indicates that at least some thoughts are perceived rather than something you're actively doing?

Re: One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

#79

Post by HeatrayEnjoyer »

zonkerdonker wrote: post #3

The confabulation to justify picking out related images that the left brain never observed (chicken and snow shovel in the article) reminds me profoundly of the confident slop produced by LLMs. Make you wonder if llms might be one half of the "brain" of a true AGI

More then half! Human experience is more confabulation than not. The optic nerve's digital-equivalent bandwidth is an estimated 10Mbps, predominantly dedicated to a narrow radius around the center of vision. Everything around the outside of your vision is a few fuzzy pixels that are in-filled with plausible data. Same goes for the blind spot created by the optic disc, which is actually fully fabricated as it has no cones or rods at all!

Re: One Head, Two Brains: The origins of split-brain research (2015)

#80

Post by ninetyninenine »

jstanley wrote: post #12
Hacker_Yogi wrote: post #6

I disagree with Steven Pinker’s claim that consciousness arises from the brain. This perspective fails to establish that the brain produces consciousness, as it relies on the mistaken assumption that "mind" and "consciousness" are interchangeable. While brain activity may influence the mind, consciousness itself could be a more fundamental aspect of reality. Rather than generating consciousness, the brain might funct…

If consciousness doesn't arise from the brain, it seems to be suspiciously well correlated with the brain. I think consciousness arises from the brain.

It's quite obvious given all available information consciousness arises from the brain. When someone talks as if it doesn't arise from the brain they are not choosing the most rational and obvious hypothesis. They are most likely trying to scaffold an explanation to fit a more biased spiritual world view where consciousness comes from this made up thing called spirit. Usually these people believe in something called religion which is an old world view of made up stories created in a time where humanity didn't understand things as much.

Don't push the argument. It's not coming from a place of rationality even though he's deliberately not using the word "spirit".

Post reply on HN