The Brain is Not Computable
technologyreview.com
The Brain is Not Computable
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Re: The Brain is Not Computable
#2Surely if you created a physics virtual machine and loaded an image with all of the atoms and electrons in place.. you'd simulate the brain. I imagine it would take a lot of computational power, but it's not 'never'
Unless we're talking about souls here or something
Re: The Brain is Not Computable
#3Not with our current technology, I agree
But saying the problem can't be solved ever seems dead wrong to me.
We humans excel at understanding and replicating what nature did - then at improving it.
Once we clearly understand how memories are stored, if they can be read and written that'll be half of the problem : accessing the data.
If the theory about memory being encoded in the microtubules is right, imagine some nanomachines that could read it from a "live" human - by broadcasting radio waves, or emitting photons (we started doing that for proteins with antibodies glued to radioactive markets, then we improved and glued them luciferase, now we do multiple colors and IIRC it's being experimented for DNA), whatever.
Now imagine other nanomachines that could rearrange the microtubules to match that - voila, you've got Matrix-style "uploading" of knowledge once we understand how the memory bits interact with eachother, how they can be accessed by the subject. Maybe it's like a SQL database fk/pk - we don't know. But something must exist to allow it. When we figure it out, there is no reason why it couldn't be done too.
My own predictions : after we confirm how memories are stored, if we have nanotechnologies to create nanomachines, we will start reading memories just like we did with DNA and proteins.
It will take a while, we will only have a read-only access at first- and with many bugs just like how introns and TATA boxes could be mysterious initially - but we will understand in the end, and that will be half of the problem solved.
Downloading will require additional advances in computer technology (at least faster cpus, in 3d instead of 2d to get more interconnections and raw computing power, and maybe some integration of processing and memory to match how neurons work), but it does not seem far-fetched to me.
Re: The Brain is Not Computable
#4Surely if you created a physics virtual machine and loaded an image with all of the atoms and electrons in place.. you'd simulate the brain. I imagine it would take a lot of computational power, but it's not 'never' Unless we're talking about souls here or something
We could simulate but we'd still have problems with understanding it. Even understanding neural networks we train ourselves is very hard to impossible at our current level of enlightenment.
Re: The Brain is Not Computable
#5Surely if you created a physics virtual machine and loaded an image with all of the atoms and electrons in place.. you'd simulate the brain. I imagine it would take a lot of computational power, but it's not 'never' Unless we're talking about souls here or something
We could simulate but we'd still have problems with understanding it. Even understanding neural networks we train ourselves is very hard to impossible at our current level of enlightenment.
Maybe, but that's not the point. The article is bizarrely arguing that the brain is not computable, somehow can never be simulated with any amount of computing power, despite existing in a universe mostly described by simple mathematical laws. Ridiculous.
Re: The Brain is Not Computable
#6>But Nicolelis is in a camp that thinks that human consciousness (and if you believe in it, the soul) simply can’t be replicated in silicon. That’s because its most important features are the result of unpredictable, non-linear interactions amongst billions of cells, Nicolelis says.
This is a fringe opinion, and I really wish the title reflected that. Ignoring the absurd 'linear' part of the article, I don't believe predictability is important to the brain. While it's possible quantum effects could explain unpredictability in the physical universe, there is no scientific evidence this is relevant to the brain; the brain operates at a much higher, more macro level than quantum mechanics. Besides, randomness can be introduced into silicon if it's that important. I hope the article is misrepresenting his opinion, but they seem dangerously close to 'the brain is more complex than I can comprehend, so it must be magic'.
I and many cognitive and neuroscientists I've spoken to consider this whole line of reasoning to be anti-scientific philosophy (although I may be biased because I studied AI, which rests on the idea that silicon can recreate intelligence).
Re: The Brain is Not Computable
#7Is anyone familiar enough with this argument that they can lay down the premises? It is not clear what makes him think that the brain and, by extension, physics are not computable.
Re: The Brain is Not Computable
#8I don't think the non-linearity argument is too convincing. Certainly, I accept that you cannot simulate a specific brain/mind - that is, if you somehow knew the exact structure and inner workings of a specific mind that you could then run a simulation of that mind which returns the same outputs as the original mind. I can buy that our simulations of non-linear problems will not fully match 'reality' and cause divergence.
However, that doesn't mean we cannot run a model. Exactly what the model's output 'means'... well, that's a different question. To use his examples, our simulations of weather or the stock market do not produce the same output as the future. But their outputs (hopefully) represent actually realizable states of the world.
In other words, as long as our model gives us 'human enough' output, then I guess it's sufficient? I mean, it really comes down to 'why do you want to simulate the human brain'. If you want to be able to upload your brain, then that probably isn't good enough. But I can imagine for various other uses, it could be enough.
I do think Kurzweil is at best... wildly optimistic though.
Re: The Brain is Not Computable
#9Surely if you created a physics virtual machine and loaded an image with all of the atoms and electrons in place.. you'd simulate the brain. I imagine it would take a lot of computational power, but it's not 'never' Unless we're talking about souls here or something
If we really need to simulate interactions at molecular level we're fracked. That kind of computational power is unimaginable.
Re: The Brain is Not Computable
#10>That’s because its most important features are the result of unpredictable, non-linear interactions amongst billions of cells, Nicolelis says.
Replace "cells" with "molecules" and "consciousness" with "fluid dynamics", and you can see what a vague, hand-waving argument this is.
>“You can’t predict whether the stock market will go up or down because you can’t compute it,” he says. “You could have all the computer chips ever in the world and you won’t create a consciousness.”
You can't predict the precise behavior of an analog amplifier, either, but you can still model it and produce a digital equivalent.