5 ms·

I find something lacking from many AI discussions because my experience with having a brain is radically different from average. Mine is damaged by a childhood

I find something lacking from many AI discussions because my experience with having a brain is radically different from average. Mine is damaged by a childhood brain injury, which wasn't diagnosed until I was 30. Another thing about the injury is that my lower order thinking skills seem to be damaged, such as sequencing or anything based on working memory. However, my higher order thinking skills are intact - I think they've been compensating for the broken skills this whole time, albeit with much difficulty. My thoughts on LLMs from a previous comment: > I think in pictures; I remember information with emotions, music, movement, and basically anywhere my brain could stuff information. Words are ephemeral, I often forget the beginning of a sentence by the time I reach the end. > The human brain is so much more than language. Also: > There are many specialists and not many generalists. Generalists are needed to tie together the multiple domains required to emulate the human brain.

Terretta 3y ago
By contrast, particularly observing a range of adults from colleagues to seniors with early onset dementia, I'm increasingly sure a large portion of discourse is of the "LLM continuation" variety. Everyone knows that colleague (I am one myself) where a particular topic will kick off a continuation that follows a well worn path albeit with a bit higher temperature than zero. With early onset dementia where working memory and self-suppression are removed, you can unspool the same commentary as often as you like by teeing up the same context to trigger it. See also these layers, nothing to do with LLM -- Attention, Language, Memory, Executive Function: https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/198261184/awz311f1.png https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/198261184/awz311f... Or maybe quite a lot to do with it.
- growingkittens 3y ago
  > With early onset dementia where working memory and self-suppression are removed, you can unspool the same commentary as often as you like by teeing up the same context to trigger it. My working memory is pretty much shot, between inherited ADHD and a brain injury. Whatever is in my field of vision makes up the majority of my reality - associations with things I see, and the trains of thought that expand from those associations. The rest of my reality comes from whatever memories my brain conjures up when it has nothing to focus on. I use what I call "external prompts" to function on a daily basis, or 'teeing up the same context' to trigger a memory to trigger an action. Something that concealed my brain injury as a child was how well I did for most parts of school. I did well because tests are a series of external prompts, and my long term memory is fairly accurate. My math memory is terrible, though, as I can only hold 1-2 numbers in my mind at a time. For instance, to remember the time, I always round to the nearest 5 or 0. 2:43 becomes 2:45. It takes less number memory when the last option is only a 5 or 0. I also use picture memory to temporarily store the exact time (as a snapshot from when I looked at the clock), although the numbers start mixing with previous snapshots.
layer8 3y ago
Your quote doesn’t sound very different from what undamaged brains do (based on my personal n = 1 experience).
- growingkittens 3y ago
  I have met people who think in pictures without a history of head injury. However, I take note when someone has a similar experience to mine (brain damage is not my only issue). If we were having a verbal conversation, I would start to ask questions about your experiences based on what I know about you. Basically to find out how far the rabbit hole goes in terms of similarities. Even if someone is high-achieving, they can be totally unaware of the connection between (issue x) and a (known or unknown) head injury - they've found ways to compensate that aren't maladaptive, although not necessarily the best because they don't know the cause. Even so, if there is no head injury at all - thinking in pictures is fairly unique to hear about, and people who think in pictures usually have different ways of dealing with information than word-thinkers.
  - layer8 3y ago
    What I wonder is how you are able to formulate all that, quite eloquently, without thinking with words. It seems that words come into play at some level, and then it’s unclear to me what the qualitative difference is to how I internally experience my thinking.
    - growingkittens 3y ago
      The words come, but only momentarily. Once I have the words typed out, I can think about their meaning and arrangement. I reread what I type and let the words build a picture in my mind. If the picture is missing something, I add it. It has taken a long time to develop my skills. My early internet comments are a confusing mess. In verbal conversation, I have a lot of shortcuts. I'm often described as "very quiet." I can only speak... probably 5 percent of what I'm trying to say, mostly.
nicklecompte 3y ago
David Lynch has some insights on this[1]: > There is a theory that Lynch himself doesn’t always know what is going on in his stories. He shoots this down. “I need to know for myself what things mean and what’s going on. Sometimes I get ideas, and I don’t know exactly what they mean. So I think about it, and try to figure it out, so I have an answer for myself.” > Audiences, however, must do their own figuring out. “I don’t ever explain it. Because it’s not a word thing. It would reduce it, make it smaller.” These days he rarely gives interviews, not even during the hugely hyped return of Twin Peaks last year – a show that is still debated as either the best or worst TV of 2017. “When you finish anything, people want you to then talk about it. And I think it’s almost like a crime,” he explains. “A film or a painting – each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words. The words are not there. The language of film, cinema, is the language it was put into, and the English language – it’s not going to translate. It’s going to lose.” [1] https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/23/david-lynch-gotta-be-selfish-twin-peaks https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/23/david-lynch-got...

Terretta 3y ago

By contrast, particularly observing a range of adults from colleagues to seniors with early onset dementia, I'm increasingly sure a large portion of discourse is of the "LLM continuation" variety. Everyone knows that colleague (I am one myself) where a particular topic will kick off a continuation that follows a well worn path albeit with a bit higher temperature than zero. With early onset dementia where working memory and self-suppression are removed, you can unspool the same commentary as often as you like by teeing up the same context to trigger it. See also these layers, nothing to do with LLM -- Attention, Language, Memory, Executive Function: https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/198261184/awz311f1.png https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/198261184/awz311f... Or maybe quite a lot to do with it.

growingkittens 3y ago
> With early onset dementia where working memory and self-suppression are removed, you can unspool the same commentary as often as you like by teeing up the same context to trigger it. My working memory is pretty much shot, between inherited ADHD and a brain injury. Whatever is in my field of vision makes up the majority of my reality - associations with things I see, and the trains of thought that expand from those associations. The rest of my reality comes from whatever memories my brain conjures up when it has nothing to focus on. I use what I call "external prompts" to function on a daily basis, or 'teeing up the same context' to trigger a memory to trigger an action. Something that concealed my brain injury as a child was how well I did for most parts of school. I did well because tests are a series of external prompts, and my long term memory is fairly accurate. My math memory is terrible, though, as I can only hold 1-2 numbers in my mind at a time. For instance, to remember the time, I always round to the nearest 5 or 0. 2:43 becomes 2:45. It takes less number memory when the last option is only a 5 or 0. I also use picture memory to temporarily store the exact time (as a snapshot from when I looked at the clock), although the numbers start mixing with previous snapshots.

layer8 3y ago

Your quote doesn’t sound very different from what undamaged brains do (based on my personal n = 1 experience).

growingkittens 3y ago
I have met people who think in pictures without a history of head injury. However, I take note when someone has a similar experience to mine (brain damage is not my only issue). If we were having a verbal conversation, I would start to ask questions about your experiences based on what I know about you. Basically to find out how far the rabbit hole goes in terms of similarities. Even if someone is high-achieving, they can be totally unaware of the connection between (issue x) and a (known or unknown) head injury - they've found ways to compensate that aren't maladaptive, although not necessarily the best because they don't know the cause. Even so, if there is no head injury at all - thinking in pictures is fairly unique to hear about, and people who think in pictures usually have different ways of dealing with information than word-thinkers.
- layer8 3y ago
  What I wonder is how you are able to formulate all that, quite eloquently, without thinking with words. It seems that words come into play at some level, and then it’s unclear to me what the qualitative difference is to how I internally experience my thinking.
  - growingkittens 3y ago
    The words come, but only momentarily. Once I have the words typed out, I can think about their meaning and arrangement. I reread what I type and let the words build a picture in my mind. If the picture is missing something, I add it. It has taken a long time to develop my skills. My early internet comments are a confusing mess. In verbal conversation, I have a lot of shortcuts. I'm often described as "very quiet." I can only speak... probably 5 percent of what I'm trying to say, mostly.

nicklecompte 3y ago

David Lynch has some insights on this[1]: > There is a theory that Lynch himself doesn’t always know what is going on in his stories. He shoots this down. “I need to know for myself what things mean and what’s going on. Sometimes I get ideas, and I don’t know exactly what they mean. So I think about it, and try to figure it out, so I have an answer for myself.” > Audiences, however, must do their own figuring out. “I don’t ever explain it. Because it’s not a word thing. It would reduce it, make it smaller.” These days he rarely gives interviews, not even during the hugely hyped return of Twin Peaks last year – a show that is still debated as either the best or worst TV of 2017. “When you finish anything, people want you to then talk about it. And I think it’s almost like a crime,” he explains. “A film or a painting – each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words. The words are not there. The language of film, cinema, is the language it was put into, and the English language – it’s not going to translate. It’s going to lose.” [1] https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/23/david-lynch-gotta-be-selfish-twin-peaks https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/23/david-lynch-got...