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I mean, from a biochem perspective, it's flabbergasting that intelligence exists at all. The brain is so noisy. To me, it's not far fetched to say that you can

I mean, from a biochem perspective, it's flabbergasting that intelligence exists at all. The brain is so noisy. To me, it's not far fetched to say that you can't make it happen again. Though I think it's technically possible. We're missing something big with intelligence. We know neurons and synapses a little bit. We know a few dozen neurons a little, though it's complexity is crazy big. But that gap between a normal brain down to a few dozen neurons is just boggling right now. There are just so many questions that need to be studied ethically. It may not be possible to answer them all in a reasonable time window.

chess_buster 6y ago
Counter perspective: The process by which the brain produces intelligence might not be complex at all. Maybe it is just a simple algorithm which, when applied en masse, produces it. See for example the neocortex is made up of billions of cortical columns which are all basically the same architecture.
- Balgair 6y ago
  A few generations of biologists have tried to reason it out. I think it's safe to say that whatever is going on is either very complex or we just do not have the right tool to study it right now. Something really new, like radios were to communication, or steel hulls to shipping, is needed in bio to get things moving apace. The tools we have are really great, but they are a bit slow it seems. Also, the neocortex is somewhat stereotypical, but those long range projections that come in/out at every layer are the things that make the brain so hard to understand. Everything is flying everywhere all at once.
vidarh 6y ago
We know it happens again millions of times a year just for human brains. As such the complexity of the brain is irrelevant - what is relevant is the complexity and reliability of the machinery that constructs it. We know the volume of the machinery that constructs it, which allows us to compute an upper bound on the informational complexity of a system capable of constructing human brains. To me it is totally unreasonable to suggest we will never be able to at the bare minimum mimic that process and grow whole brains. To me most of the opposition to the idea of artificial intelligence seems to come down to people assuming we're bound to only try to do this with software on a digital computer. But if that proves fruitless, there's no reason to assume we won't try analog systems, or if all else fails try biochemical systems, all the way down to genetic manipulation and tricking cells into growing into brains for us to hook up to computers.

chess_buster 6y ago

Counter perspective: The process by which the brain produces intelligence might not be complex at all. Maybe it is just a simple algorithm which, when applied en masse, produces it. See for example the neocortex is made up of billions of cortical columns which are all basically the same architecture.

Balgair 6y ago
A few generations of biologists have tried to reason it out. I think it's safe to say that whatever is going on is either very complex or we just do not have the right tool to study it right now. Something really new, like radios were to communication, or steel hulls to shipping, is needed in bio to get things moving apace. The tools we have are really great, but they are a bit slow it seems. Also, the neocortex is somewhat stereotypical, but those long range projections that come in/out at every layer are the things that make the brain so hard to understand. Everything is flying everywhere all at once.

vidarh 6y ago

We know it happens again millions of times a year just for human brains. As such the complexity of the brain is irrelevant - what is relevant is the complexity and reliability of the machinery that constructs it. We know the volume of the machinery that constructs it, which allows us to compute an upper bound on the informational complexity of a system capable of constructing human brains. To me it is totally unreasonable to suggest we will never be able to at the bare minimum mimic that process and grow whole brains. To me most of the opposition to the idea of artificial intelligence seems to come down to people assuming we're bound to only try to do this with software on a digital computer. But if that proves fruitless, there's no reason to assume we won't try analog systems, or if all else fails try biochemical systems, all the way down to genetic manipulation and tricking cells into growing into brains for us to hook up to computers.