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Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

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Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#71

Post by Florin_Andrei »

rpm4321 wrote: post #61
Osmium wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't put Elon Musk in that list. I think you're mixing up two distinct types of people there. There's a difference between a person having an unconventional idea, e.g. for a business, and an unconventional theory, which they claim has a sound scientific basis. These unconventional theories are often stated with an unjustifiable certainty by people like Kurzweil and I think that's what irritates people.

I don't think that's a very fair assessment of Kurzweil's role in technology. He was on the ground getting his hands dirty with the first commercial applications of AI. He made quite a bit of money selling his various companies and technologies, and was awarded the presidential Medal of Technology from Clinton. As I was growing up, there was a series of "Oh wow!" moments I had, associated with computers and what they…

The Kurzweil brand was, for a good long time, a very big name in the synthesizer industry.

I had the synth music bug for a while, and the K2xxx series was something that definitely made me drool. Couldn't afford it, though.

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#72

Post by skyhook_mockups »

andolanra wrote: post #69
skyhook_mockups wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your answer, its given me something to think about. A few things immediately come to mind though: A sentence is just letters, but that doesn't mean that thorough examination of each letter provides you with the knowledge necessary to understand the sentence I see what you're saying here, but consider this example: Give someone a box of clock components and a clock from which to draw inspiration, and withou…

I was primarily making an argument the other way around: I said that understanding the subcomponents (i.e. the letters) did not guarantee understanding of the whole (i.e. the sentence), while you're giving an example in which someone builds a whole, presumably by understanding and replicating the connections of major components, but does not understand the parts. More analogous to my point would be attempting to unde…

That's not really the point I was making. My point is that you don't have to understand the workings of a clock (or its subcomponents) to be able to build one given the subcomponents and an example from which to work. Simply mimicking exactly what you observe will produce the desired outcome.

There are lots of examples where the underlying workings are not understood, and yet useful work is done. Look at medicine for example. For thousands of years people knew that if you mix herb A and B and boil them for time X you get something that fights infection or helps with headache. The underlying biochemistry doesn't need to be known or understood to be able to follow the steps to get the desired outcome.

The same might hold true for the brain. If we can catalogue all the connections and information pathways (chemical, electrical), we may not need to be able to explain how every combination of subcomponents interact, but, we may know that a particular arrangement gives the outcome we're after.

PS: "the search space of ideas is vast, and one can't reasonably be expected to exhaust them all even with help."

That's true but in this example we're not searching for anything. Over millions of years one solution to intelligence, from an infinity of other possibilities has already evolved. Each of us already has a working version of what we want to replicate in our own skull. Now we need to tease out all of the cogs and springs and how they are arranged, arrange them in the same ways, and unless there truly is a metaphysical component we will have something indistinguishable from human intelligence/consciousness.

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#73

Post by skyhook_mockups »

RivieraKid wrote: post #64
skyhook_mockups wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feeling pain can't be explained as an interaction of physical particles Do you mean physical or emotional pain? I imagine that physical pain is very well understood and can be explained in (maybe) all of its entirety as a purely material (as in atoms) phenomenon. I personally don't see any reason why emotional pain can't be explained in the same way i.e. without requiring a metaphysical component.

Both, it doesn't really matter, basically any state of consciousness. Physical processes in brain accompanying physical pain may be understood very well. But we don't understand the mechanism that translates the physical state of brain matter to the hurting feeling. Why does it hurt, when we arrange brain's atoms in a specific way?

Your explanation doesn't make sense. We know that there are people who

a) don't exhibit emotional pain or very little compared to "normal" (sociopaths/psychopaths)

b) are autistic and have "...difficulty with “subtle emotions like shame, pride, things that are much more socially oriented” [1]

c) people with Congenital insensitivity to (physical) pain, some of whom experience the condition due to excess production of endorphins in the brain

You seem to suggest that the question "but why does it hurt" is somehow mystical or metaphysical. I don't think it is. It hurts because your brain is wired so that it does. If it is wired otherwise (as in some people it is) then it doesn't hurt.

[1] http://bigthink.com/ideas/do-people-with-autism-experience-e...

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#74

Post by RivieraKid »

skyhook_mockups wrote: post #73
RivieraKid wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both, it doesn't really matter, basically any state of consciousness. Physical processes in brain accompanying physical pain may be understood very well. But we don't understand the mechanism that translates the physical state of brain matter to the hurting feeling. Why does it hurt, when we arrange brain's atoms in a specific way?

Your explanation doesn't make sense. We know that there are people who a) don't exhibit emotional pain or very little compared to "normal" (sociopaths/psychopaths) b) are autistic and have "...difficulty with “subtle emotions like shame, pride, things that are much more socially oriented” [1] c) people with Congenital insensitivity to (physical) pain, some of whom experience the condition due to excess production of…

Yes but the question is, why does it hurt when the brain is wired in a specific way. What makes some positions of brain's atoms painful? Physics doesn't even have a way to scientifically define what "feeling pain" is. Physics can only define physical processes accompanying feeling pain.

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#75

Post by skyhook_mockups »

andreasvc wrote: post #66
skyhook_mockups wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a great argument, and I agree with you that it is very unlikely that a model which can only ever be an approximation of a human brain will ever exhibit intelligence. My gut tells me that we'll have more success building an exact 1:1 copy of a brain, but from digital components rather than wetware. The discovery of memristors[1], and other yet to be discovered building blocks, may lead to just these types of…

Making a 1:1 copy of the brain without understanding its mechanisms is pointless, because there's no way to bracket the problem. You don't know how low-level you have to go: if there's only a single crucial quantum interaction, you have to model that level as well, increasing the complexity many orders of magnitude (if you have to model quantums or atoms, the simulation wouldn't even fit on earth I'm afraid). Similar…

I agree with you that an more abstract understanding would be more useful than a naive copy, however I think calling it "pointless" is a bit of an exaggeration. Imagine being able to make an indistinguishable 1:1 copy of your own brain at the exact moment at which you die, voilà immortality. Tad Williams wrote an interesting bit of fiction about exactly this called the Otherland series - well worth a read.

Not to mention that simply building such a copy would yield its own set of insights.

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#76

Post by skyhook_mockups »

RivieraKid wrote: post #74
skyhook_mockups wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your explanation doesn't make sense. We know that there are people who a) don't exhibit emotional pain or very little compared to "normal" (sociopaths/psychopaths) b) are autistic and have "...difficulty with “subtle emotions like shame, pride, things that are much more socially oriented” [1] c) people with Congenital insensitivity to (physical) pain, some of whom experience the condition due to excess production of…

Yes but the question is, why does it hurt when the brain is wired in a specific way. What makes some positions of brain's atoms painful? Physics doesn't even have a way to scientifically define what "feeling pain" is. Physics can only define physical processes accompanying feeling pain.

"why does it hurt when the brain is wired in a specific way?"

Because organisms that evolved to avoid that thing we call pain survived long enough to pass on their genes, whereas those that didn't got burned up, crushed or in other ways extinguished?

In other words an aversion to that thing called pain gave an evolutionary leg up. And it seems that this aversion is fundamental to life since every creature has a tendency toward self preservation.

There are many examples of people who enjoy physical pain and perform cutting even down to bone, and sometimes including amputation. Clearly this is an example of brain wiring which is not beneficial to the individual and, in extreme cases will self-filter out of the gene pool.

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#77

Post by andreasvc »

skyhook_mockups wrote: post #75
andreasvc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making a 1:1 copy of the brain without understanding its mechanisms is pointless, because there's no way to bracket the problem. You don't know how low-level you have to go: if there's only a single crucial quantum interaction, you have to model that level as well, increasing the complexity many orders of magnitude (if you have to model quantums or atoms, the simulation wouldn't even fit on earth I'm afraid). Similar…

I agree with you that an more abstract understanding would be more useful than a naive copy, however I think calling it "pointless" is a bit of an exaggeration. Imagine being able to make an indistinguishable 1:1 copy of your own brain at the exact moment at which you die, voilà immortality. Tad Williams wrote an interesting bit of fiction about exactly this called the Otherland series - well worth a read. Not to men…

I'm afraid 1:1 brain copies will stay in the realm of science fiction, so it's not an exaggeration. This paper provides some more food for thought on my position: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/coli.2009.35...

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#78

Post by [deleted] »

skyhook_mockups wrote: post #75
andreasvc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making a 1:1 copy of the brain without understanding its mechanisms is pointless, because there's no way to bracket the problem. You don't know how low-level you have to go: if there's only a single crucial quantum interaction, you have to model that level as well, increasing the complexity many orders of magnitude (if you have to model quantums or atoms, the simulation wouldn't even fit on earth I'm afraid). Similar…

I agree with you that an more abstract understanding would be more useful than a naive copy, however I think calling it "pointless" is a bit of an exaggeration. Imagine being able to make an indistinguishable 1:1 copy of your own brain at the exact moment at which you die, voilà immortality. Tad Williams wrote an interesting bit of fiction about exactly this called the Otherland series - well worth a read. Not to men…

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