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You are your brain. Your mind is a part of your brain; a part that combines a spatial-temporal sense with a future-oriented simulating function. Your brain is

You are your brain. Your mind is a part of your brain; a part that combines a spatial-temporal sense with a future-oriented simulating function. Your brain is modelable – not only is it "a structure" in an abstract sense, it is an ordered physical structure made of molecules, and, both in whole and in part, it is reducible to a mathematical structure of highly limited complexity. "Qualia" consist of your mind's representations of external things, immediately derived from sensory input, wedded to that sense of being in space and time and the associations raised by that sense. As your brain exists within a logical system -- a structure with a mathematical model which includes an evolution function -- your brain is also a logical system which evolves through time. As for "nothing actually happens" -- the block universe hypothesis, which is strongly implied by relativity, fully accounts for this. As an aside: I think that Tegmark is basically correct, but his hypothesis is not well defined and could use further explanation.

mike_ivanov 3y ago
It must feel really, really good when everything is so perfectly crystal clear and easily explainable; when there are only answers, and no questions. How it is possible, is a mystery in itself.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Unfortunately these questions may not be answerable. For example, let's imagine a universe where all these questions are answerable,how it started and why it works can be explained. Then that universe has a vacuum meta instability and collapses into a new form. In the previous universe it was completely predictable that it would happen, but the singularity effect of the state change left a low entropy universe. Information was lost, and new physics takes over. An observer in the new universe would see a blank piece of paper and would have no idea why this paper existed and why it was blank. And could know how we got there. This universe would be a very unsatisfactory place for the inquisitive to exist.
  - mike_ivanov 3y ago
    That was irony.
akomtu 3y ago
Inability to model a basic worm with 100 neurons and fully mapped out connections defeats this simplistic worldview.
- A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
  I wouldn't go that far. I don't know if we can model any biological structure with complete fidelity. There's a lot that modern science doesn't know about the cell. The Golgi apparatus, for instance, is still a mystery; there are models, but nobody really knows how it works, and all of the models are apparently incomplete. You'll note that the Golgi apparatus is one of the very largest cell structures. Our cognitive processes rest upon an extremely complex biological substrate. That we're not able to simulate a nematode's brain, however, absolutely does not imply that it's not simulatable in principle. ...I'd say that it's made of fermions, which in a coordinate space approximate bits of information. Those fermions are mostly arranged into atoms, which are grouped together in molecules. As, contra Penrose, quantum effects don't seem important for cognition, if you have an absolutely complete molecular picture of the brain and an evolution function, you'll have a model of the brain. You need more than "mapped out connections," but it's eminently possible in principle, which is to say that it's not infinitely complex or somehow ineffable. It's just decades beyond us, by my estimate.
  - akomtu 3y ago
    Before we can rule out quantum effects, we need to understand that nematode at least. It's quite possible that the discrete computing model is completely unfit for simulating intelligence - a possibility that many scientists are afraid to consider.
    - A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
      As I say, we might not be able to "understand" the nematode's brain before we're able to understand its constituent parts. We don't really understand the neuron itself. Nor do we understand glial cells and their function. ...Nor, indeed, do we fully understand _any_ cell. Case in point: Both neurons and glial cells feature Golgi apparatuses, which remain mysterious... As we neither understand nor can simulate a brain made up of neurons and glia, what makes you think that our lack of a nematode simulation is a big deal? Seems to me that it is rather to be expected. But when our biological models improve, simulating a nematode brain -- or _any_ brain -- will not be beyond us.

mike_ivanov 3y ago

It must feel really, really good when everything is so perfectly crystal clear and easily explainable; when there are only answers, and no questions. How it is possible, is a mystery in itself.

pixl97 3y ago
Unfortunately these questions may not be answerable. For example, let's imagine a universe where all these questions are answerable,how it started and why it works can be explained. Then that universe has a vacuum meta instability and collapses into a new form. In the previous universe it was completely predictable that it would happen, but the singularity effect of the state change left a low entropy universe. Information was lost, and new physics takes over. An observer in the new universe would see a blank piece of paper and would have no idea why this paper existed and why it was blank. And could know how we got there. This universe would be a very unsatisfactory place for the inquisitive to exist.
- mike_ivanov 3y ago
  That was irony.

akomtu 3y ago

Inability to model a basic worm with 100 neurons and fully mapped out connections defeats this simplistic worldview.

A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
I wouldn't go that far. I don't know if we can model any biological structure with complete fidelity. There's a lot that modern science doesn't know about the cell. The Golgi apparatus, for instance, is still a mystery; there are models, but nobody really knows how it works, and all of the models are apparently incomplete. You'll note that the Golgi apparatus is one of the very largest cell structures. Our cognitive processes rest upon an extremely complex biological substrate. That we're not able to simulate a nematode's brain, however, absolutely does not imply that it's not simulatable in principle. ...I'd say that it's made of fermions, which in a coordinate space approximate bits of information. Those fermions are mostly arranged into atoms, which are grouped together in molecules. As, contra Penrose, quantum effects don't seem important for cognition, if you have an absolutely complete molecular picture of the brain and an evolution function, you'll have a model of the brain. You need more than "mapped out connections," but it's eminently possible in principle, which is to say that it's not infinitely complex or somehow ineffable. It's just decades beyond us, by my estimate.
- akomtu 3y ago
  Before we can rule out quantum effects, we need to understand that nematode at least. It's quite possible that the discrete computing model is completely unfit for simulating intelligence - a possibility that many scientists are afraid to consider.
  - A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
    As I say, we might not be able to "understand" the nematode's brain before we're able to understand its constituent parts. We don't really understand the neuron itself. Nor do we understand glial cells and their function. ...Nor, indeed, do we fully understand _any_ cell. Case in point: Both neurons and glial cells feature Golgi apparatuses, which remain mysterious... As we neither understand nor can simulate a brain made up of neurons and glia, what makes you think that our lack of a nematode simulation is a big deal? Seems to me that it is rather to be expected. But when our biological models improve, simulating a nematode brain -- or _any_ brain -- will not be beyond us.