3 ms·

> Do you have any evidence that contradicts that claim? Empirical evidence? Yes I do. The brain commands an entity that has to exist and function in the conte

> Do you have any evidence that contradicts that claim? Empirical evidence? Yes I do. The brain commands an entity that has to exist and function in the context of objective reality. Being unable to verify it's internal state against that, would have been negatively selected some time ago, because stating: "I'm sure that rumbling cave bear with those big sharp teeth is a peaceful herbivore" won't change the objective reality that the caveman is about to become dinner. How that works in detail is, to the best of my knowledge, still the subject of research in the realm of neurobiology.

p-e-w 3y ago
That's speculation, not evidence. The traits you describe aren't demonstrably incompatible with the mechanism I proposed.
- usrbinbash 3y ago
  It's empirical evidence, since we exist and are very much capable of selecting the correct statement from a bunch of stochstically likely, but untruthful statements about objective reality.
zztop44 3y ago
I think this is incomplete on a number of levels. For a start, to be interesting, “truth” has to be something than just whatever your eyes can see. There have been wars (culture, economic, kinetic, etc) fought to define something as a truth. The concept of truth is notoriously hard for humans to grapple with. How do we know something is true isn’t just a neurobiological question, it’s been grappled with throughout the history of philosophy — including major revisions of our understanding in the past 80 years. And for the record, rumbling cave bears are mostly peaceful herbivores.
- usrbinbash 3y ago
  > And for the record, rumbling cave bears are mostly peaceful herbivores. For the record, all members of the Genus Ursus belong to the Order Carnivora, which literally translates to "Meat Eaters". And that includes Ursus spelaeus, aka. the Cave Bear. And while it most likely, like many modern bears, was an Omnivore, that "Omni" very much included small, hairless monkey-esque creatures with no natural defenses other than ridiculously small teeth and pathetic excuses for claws, if they happened to stumble into their cave. > The concept of truth is notoriously hard for humans to grapple with. I am not talking about the philosophical questions of what truth is as a concept, nor am I talking about the many capabilities of humans to purposefully reshape others perceptions of truth for their own ends. I am talking about truth as the observable state of the objective reality, aka. the Universe we exist in and interact with. A meter is longer than a centimeter, and boiling water is warmer than frozen water at the same pressure, whether any given philosophy or fabrication agrees with that or not, is irrelevant.
lsaferite 3y ago
Wouldn't that type of response fit in with how LMs work though? That caveman likely learned a lot of things over time, like: large animals can end life more likely than small ones, animals making loud noises are likely more dangerous, sharp teeth/claws are dangerous, or I saw one of those kill another caveman. All of those things tilt the probability of associating that loud cave bear with a high risk of death. That doesn't mean there's some inherit 'truth' that the caveman brain 'knows', it's just a high probability that it's a correct assessment of the input. Every true thing is really just an evaluation of probability in the end.

p-e-w 3y ago

That's speculation, not evidence. The traits you describe aren't demonstrably incompatible with the mechanism I proposed.

usrbinbash 3y ago
It's empirical evidence, since we exist and are very much capable of selecting the correct statement from a bunch of stochstically likely, but untruthful statements about objective reality.

zztop44 3y ago

I think this is incomplete on a number of levels. For a start, to be interesting, “truth” has to be something than just whatever your eyes can see. There have been wars (culture, economic, kinetic, etc) fought to define something as a truth. The concept of truth is notoriously hard for humans to grapple with. How do we know something is true isn’t just a neurobiological question, it’s been grappled with throughout the history of philosophy — including major revisions of our understanding in the past 80 years. And for the record, rumbling cave bears are mostly peaceful herbivores.

usrbinbash 3y ago
> And for the record, rumbling cave bears are mostly peaceful herbivores. For the record, all members of the Genus Ursus belong to the Order Carnivora, which literally translates to "Meat Eaters". And that includes Ursus spelaeus, aka. the Cave Bear. And while it most likely, like many modern bears, was an Omnivore, that "Omni" very much included small, hairless monkey-esque creatures with no natural defenses other than ridiculously small teeth and pathetic excuses for claws, if they happened to stumble into their cave. > The concept of truth is notoriously hard for humans to grapple with. I am not talking about the philosophical questions of what truth is as a concept, nor am I talking about the many capabilities of humans to purposefully reshape others perceptions of truth for their own ends. I am talking about truth as the observable state of the objective reality, aka. the Universe we exist in and interact with. A meter is longer than a centimeter, and boiling water is warmer than frozen water at the same pressure, whether any given philosophy or fabrication agrees with that or not, is irrelevant.

lsaferite 3y ago

Wouldn't that type of response fit in with how LMs work though? That caveman likely learned a lot of things over time, like: large animals can end life more likely than small ones, animals making loud noises are likely more dangerous, sharp teeth/claws are dangerous, or I saw one of those kill another caveman. All of those things tilt the probability of associating that loud cave bear with a high risk of death. That doesn't mean there's some inherit 'truth' that the caveman brain 'knows', it's just a high probability that it's a correct assessment of the input. Every true thing is really just an evaluation of probability in the end.