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

81–90 of 92 posts

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

#81

Post by selcuka »

Timwi wrote: post #71
selcuka wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your answer works when you are observing the person(s) from outside, referring to a third person (A and B are both conscious, so it doesn't matter which one is which). However, it doesn't answer when one of the subjects is "I", because I and everyone else is clearly different (hence the title of Benj Hellie's paper I linked above: Against Egalitarianism):

> The ‘god’s eye’ point of view taken in setting up the egalitarian metaphysics does not correspond to my ‘embedded’ point of view ‘from here’, staring out at a certain computer screen. The god’s eye mode of presentation of the Hellie-subject and the embedded mode of presentation of myself are different: as different as the manifest and scientific modes of presentation of water—indeed, perhaps even more so: that is the core of the Humean worry. So it is not a priori that any of those subjects is exactly the same thing as me. And if not, if I am told that it is this one that is me, I want to know why that is.

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

#82

Post by selcuka »

Timwi wrote: post #72
maksimur wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not really. The "vertiginous question" is just that, a question. We can't call a question superstition because we don't have a good answer for it yet.

For example, we can't call the question "why does gravity exist" superstition either. It's a valid question. We can feel the gravity, measure it, and forecast it, therefore it exists, but we still don't have a concrete answer as to what causes it. We don't assume that there is a metaphysical explanation, but we don't know the actual answer either. Similarly, the vertiginous question is a meaningful question, even though we don't have an answer.

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

#83

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #79
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 c…

You’d like blindsight, if you haven’t read it

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

#84

Post by codr7 »

yesco wrote: post #76
ggm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It looks to me like the deeper you dig into any scientific subject, the more philosophical it gets.

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

#85

Post by jstanley »

selcuka wrote: post #81
Timwi wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your answer works when you are observing the person(s) from outside, referring to a third person (A and B are both conscious, so it doesn't matter which one is which). However, it doesn't answer when one of the subjects is "I", because I and everyone else is clearly different (hence the title of Benj Hellie's paper I linked above: Against Egalitarianism): > The ‘god’s eye’ point of view taken in setting up the egalit…

Each one refers to itself as "I", I still don't see what is difficult about this.

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

#86

Post by triMichael »

jmesmith wrote: post #75
encipriano wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Here's one: "AI Minecraft Is Beautifully Bizarre" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJ9jJh0udc

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

#87

Post by selcuka »

jodrellblank wrote: post #57
card_zero wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the two of you would see through two pairs of eyes, independently. Both of you would be you, and you two would function separately, occupy separate spaces, and diverge slightly in ways that would only rarely make a difference to your personality. But that's not the vertiginous question, which is "why am I me". I've wondered that before. However, it is nonsense. Naturally a person is that person, not some other p…

I wonder if the origin of the question is the religious idea of a separate immortal soul which popped into this body and not into some other body - but in some way could have . This concept is in popular discourse like “what if I had been born in Italy in 1420?!” as if that were a thing thats plausible - an “I” separate from this body/place/time/life experiences/memories/language/family/etc but somehow still ‘me’. Bo…

> I wonder if the origin of the question is the religious idea of a separate immortal soul

I don't think so. This is a profound question in philosophy, and it may even predate religions, even though it is hard to separate philosophy from theology. The answer (if there is one) doesn't have to be metaphysical.

Also the question is not about your genetics, your character, or "being someone like X" per se. Your twin brother could be genetically (let's say 100%) identical, but still you are you and he is he. There is only one "I" and everyone else is, well, other people. Being "I" has nothing to do with my experiences. No matter what I will experience in the future, I will still see the world through the same pair of eyes.

If you change the question from "I vs someone else" to "person 1 vs person 2" it stops making sense. From your point of view "p1" and "p2" are interchangeable and you wouldn't know which one is which. When one of the subjects is "I" then the symmetry disappears and the vertiginous question appears.

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

#88

Post by selcuka »

layer8 wrote: post #58
selcuka wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think consciousness arises from the brain. I tend to agree, but it doesn't fully explain Benj Hellie's vertiginous question [1]. Everyone seems to have brains, but for some reason only I am me. If we were able to make an atom-by-atom accurate replica of your brain (and optionally your body, too), with all the memories intact, would you suddenly start seeing the world from two different pair of eyes at the same ti…

> What would make you (the original) different from your replica? You’d be in two different locations, have independent experiences, and your world lines would quickly diverge. Both of you would remember a common past. How do you know when you wake up in the morning that you are the same “I” as you remember from the previous day? Who isn’t to say that the universe didn’t multiply while you were asleep, and now there…

> How do you know when you wake up in the morning that you are the same “I” as you remember from the previous day?

I don't know. That doesn't invalidate the questions, though:

- Why am I me at this instant and not someone else (Hellie's vertiginous question)

- Why should there be a first person perspective at all (Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness) [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertiginous_question

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

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

#89

Post by selcuka »

jstanley wrote: post #85
selcuka wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your answer works when you are observing the person(s) from outside, referring to a third person (A and B are both conscious, so it doesn't matter which one is which). However, it doesn't answer when one of the subjects is "I", because I and everyone else is clearly different (hence the title of Benj Hellie's paper I linked above: Against Egalitarianism): > The ‘god’s eye’ point of view taken in setting up the egalit…

Each one refers to itself as "I", I still don't see what is difficult about this.

No, only you will refer to yourself as "I". The other one will call themselves "I" but it's not the same "I" as you. For all we know you are not even sure that the other one is really a conscious being or a robot powered by an AI that could pass the Turing test [1].

> I still don't see what is difficult about this.

You have been dismissing two of the most profound questions of philosophy, and unfortunately I am not able to explain the questions (let alone attempt to answer them) any better. There is some serious philosophical and neurological research [2] related to this subject. Maybe you should spend some time yourself researching the literature.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228618472_The_Even_...

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

#90

Post by danielmarkbruce »

Lerc wrote: post #63
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

confident slop.

The confidence seems to be an artifact of fine tuning. The first instruction trained models were given data sets with answers to questions but generally omitted non answers to things the model didn't know. Later research showed that models know that they don't know certain pieces of information, but the fine tuning constraint of providing answers did not give them the ability to express that they didn't know. Asking…

My comment was snark and basically saying "humans are full of confident slop".
Post reply on HN