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The brain is a biological system of interconnected neurons. Neuroscience has shown neurons operate digitally - on and off. The brain is a biological computer. T

The brain is a biological system of interconnected neurons. Neuroscience has shown neurons operate digitally - on and off. The brain is a biological computer. There is no magic, no mystical quantum "thing" enabling human intelligence. We're not picking up some metaspectral soul transmission from an alternate universe. We're advanced binary pattern processors, and we're only a handful of orders of magnitude more powerful than consumer level hardware. The algorithm we run on is special, but it's physically encoded and self generating, based in our DNA and physical development. We're vastly complex but entirely built of relatively simple fundamental building blocks. We are computers, in the abstract sense of Turing machines and such concepts.

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
>Neuroscience has shown neurons operate digitally - on and off. [citation needed]
- porkbrain 5y ago
  Parent refers to the behaviour of generating action potentials which travel to synapses connecting (mostly) axons with dendrites. The continuous (analogue) signal processing pre- and post- synapse seems to be a massive part of how neurons achieve the computation they do. A hypothesis I subscribe to claims that it is cheaper to compute locally with molecule gradients and protein folding than with spikes. Brains leverage that. The specific statement you quoted is to the best of my knowledge inaccurate. I am not an expert, my understanding of neurons is largely is based on [0], [1], [2]. [0]: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/principles-neural-design https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/principles-neural-design [1]: http://www.sci.utah.edu/~macleod/bioen/be6003/notes/W08-spruston_nature_2008.pdf http://www.sci.utah.edu/~macleod/bioen/be6003/notes/W08-spru... [2]: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/functional-connections-cortical-areas https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/functional-connections-cortic...
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  A neuron fires, or it doesn't. The patterns received by neurons via synapses are binary. The synapses themselves are analog, and the activation can trigger in several ways, leading to complex behavior, but the signal each individual neuron receives from any and every other neuron in the brain is digital. Where an impulse comes from, when it is sent, the current charge state of the receiving neuron, the specific neurotransmitters released by the axons, and the efficiency of signal transmission at a given point in time all play a part in the signal sent along dendritic, but at any given point in time a neuron is firing or isn't, and that's the only state that matters to the other neurons it's connected to. The biggest difference between biological brains and artificial neural networks is the analog nature of biological timing compared to the arbitrary cycles of software. Spike timing dependent plasticity networks address some of the problem of variable timing and its impact on signaling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike-timing-dependent_plasticity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike-timing-dependent_plastic... At any given moment, you could capture the state of a biological brain as a binary number. The model would need to account for all sorts of analog mechanisms and a huge, biologically messy graph of connections with dozens of variations across a handful of neuron types, and the length of a synapse and where it physically connects or touches other synapses without connecting directly and... lots of stuff that's hard to model and even hard to see. I'm not arguing that every part is digital or even equivalent to computers on silicon, simply that the basic mechanism of computation is itself digital pattern processing. It literally cannot be anything else. There is no evidence or theory to indicate any other plausible method of operation. All the analog stuff can be swapped out with an arbitrary bit length representation and the functionality is retained. Remove the digital assumption and everything breaks. You need magic or spirit to make it work, which is ridiculous because silicon computers proved that binary computation is a perfectly fine way to represent and process data. Quantum processing in biological brains is magical thinking performed in a desperate attempt to ascribe eminence to human cognition, because for some reason people don't like the idea that brains do digital processing. We are messy and vastly complex and sophisticated digital pattern processors. Which makes evolutionary sense, because that's how our predecessors work, all the way back to single cell organisms and self replicating DNA chemistry. Signals and patterns in the real world can be represented as binary to an arbitrary precision. The Planck length dictates the maximum level of precision relevant to our universe. https://www.researchgate.net/post/How-many-bits-of-information-can-be-contained-by-the-whole-universe https://www.researchgate.net/post/How-many-bits-of-informati... Human brains achieved a special state of depth and breadth of processing, concurrent with physically encoded, evolved algorithms in our neural architecture. The arrival of biology at human cognition affords us the privilege of deep reflection, the apparent subjective reality we experience, and the thus far unlimited scope of conception such that we can make approximations about the size of the universe or the mass of a photon. Or the operations of the minds we possess. We operate in binary - the explanation is sufficient, simple, and corresponds to all known evidence. There aren't any outstanding questions requiring that premise to be questioned.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
enchiridion 5y ago
And we were clocks a few centuries ago. I wonder if there is a name for the bias of thinking our modern abstractions are the right ones.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  I don't understand the distinction you're making in this particular case. Clockwork and circuits have very similar abilities.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Some of the literature in neuroscience and ai perpetuate this meme, going something like "medieval people thought their minds worked like catapults, Renaissance people thought of clockwork, early industrial age people thought it was like steam engines, and now in the digital age we think it's like computers, oh aren't purple so silly." It's a superficial and unfounded observation that tries to frame neural computation as a bias or conceit of modern culture. Not how science works, and the argument is condescending as hell.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      It can be an interesting thing to look at, much like the idea of remote harassment with an air loom. But I agree that it's a really shallow way to dismiss arguments. In this case, it's basically just saying that a brain is deterministic and made out of parts. Clockwork and steam engines and circuits all work fine. I can't comment on the catapult without more elaboration.
      - robbedpeter 5y ago
        As far as catapults go, or really the whole premise, I don't think it was ever considered in a serious way, except to propagate through various papers and books because it sounds clever. It's a bad meme.
      - enchiridion 5y ago
u10242 5y ago
Bye bye free will! From now on, nothing is my fault any more.

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago

>Neuroscience has shown neurons operate digitally - on and off. [citation needed]

porkbrain 5y ago
Parent refers to the behaviour of generating action potentials which travel to synapses connecting (mostly) axons with dendrites. The continuous (analogue) signal processing pre- and post- synapse seems to be a massive part of how neurons achieve the computation they do. A hypothesis I subscribe to claims that it is cheaper to compute locally with molecule gradients and protein folding than with spikes. Brains leverage that. The specific statement you quoted is to the best of my knowledge inaccurate. I am not an expert, my understanding of neurons is largely is based on [0], [1], [2]. [0]: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/principles-neural-design https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/principles-neural-design [1]: http://www.sci.utah.edu/~macleod/bioen/be6003/notes/W08-spruston_nature_2008.pdf http://www.sci.utah.edu/~macleod/bioen/be6003/notes/W08-spru... [2]: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/functional-connections-cortical-areas https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/functional-connections-cortic...
robbedpeter 5y ago
A neuron fires, or it doesn't. The patterns received by neurons via synapses are binary. The synapses themselves are analog, and the activation can trigger in several ways, leading to complex behavior, but the signal each individual neuron receives from any and every other neuron in the brain is digital. Where an impulse comes from, when it is sent, the current charge state of the receiving neuron, the specific neurotransmitters released by the axons, and the efficiency of signal transmission at a given point in time all play a part in the signal sent along dendritic, but at any given point in time a neuron is firing or isn't, and that's the only state that matters to the other neurons it's connected to. The biggest difference between biological brains and artificial neural networks is the analog nature of biological timing compared to the arbitrary cycles of software. Spike timing dependent plasticity networks address some of the problem of variable timing and its impact on signaling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike-timing-dependent_plasticity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike-timing-dependent_plastic... At any given moment, you could capture the state of a biological brain as a binary number. The model would need to account for all sorts of analog mechanisms and a huge, biologically messy graph of connections with dozens of variations across a handful of neuron types, and the length of a synapse and where it physically connects or touches other synapses without connecting directly and... lots of stuff that's hard to model and even hard to see. I'm not arguing that every part is digital or even equivalent to computers on silicon, simply that the basic mechanism of computation is itself digital pattern processing. It literally cannot be anything else. There is no evidence or theory to indicate any other plausible method of operation. All the analog stuff can be swapped out with an arbitrary bit length representation and the functionality is retained. Remove the digital assumption and everything breaks. You need magic or spirit to make it work, which is ridiculous because silicon computers proved that binary computation is a perfectly fine way to represent and process data. Quantum processing in biological brains is magical thinking performed in a desperate attempt to ascribe eminence to human cognition, because for some reason people don't like the idea that brains do digital processing. We are messy and vastly complex and sophisticated digital pattern processors. Which makes evolutionary sense, because that's how our predecessors work, all the way back to single cell organisms and self replicating DNA chemistry. Signals and patterns in the real world can be represented as binary to an arbitrary precision. The Planck length dictates the maximum level of precision relevant to our universe. https://www.researchgate.net/post/How-many-bits-of-information-can-be-contained-by-the-whole-universe https://www.researchgate.net/post/How-many-bits-of-informati... Human brains achieved a special state of depth and breadth of processing, concurrent with physically encoded, evolved algorithms in our neural architecture. The arrival of biology at human cognition affords us the privilege of deep reflection, the apparent subjective reality we experience, and the thus far unlimited scope of conception such that we can make approximations about the size of the universe or the mass of a photon. Or the operations of the minds we possess. We operate in binary - the explanation is sufficient, simple, and corresponds to all known evidence. There aren't any outstanding questions requiring that premise to be questioned.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

enchiridion 5y ago

And we were clocks a few centuries ago. I wonder if there is a name for the bias of thinking our modern abstractions are the right ones.

Dylan16807 5y ago
I don't understand the distinction you're making in this particular case. Clockwork and circuits have very similar abilities.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Some of the literature in neuroscience and ai perpetuate this meme, going something like "medieval people thought their minds worked like catapults, Renaissance people thought of clockwork, early industrial age people thought it was like steam engines, and now in the digital age we think it's like computers, oh aren't purple so silly." It's a superficial and unfounded observation that tries to frame neural computation as a bias or conceit of modern culture. Not how science works, and the argument is condescending as hell.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    It can be an interesting thing to look at, much like the idea of remote harassment with an air loom. But I agree that it's a really shallow way to dismiss arguments. In this case, it's basically just saying that a brain is deterministic and made out of parts. Clockwork and steam engines and circuits all work fine. I can't comment on the catapult without more elaboration.
    - robbedpeter 5y ago
      As far as catapults go, or really the whole premise, I don't think it was ever considered in a serious way, except to propagate through various papers and books because it sounds clever. It's a bad meme.
    - enchiridion 5y ago

u10242 5y ago

Bye bye free will! From now on, nothing is my fault any more.