8 ms·

We've cut open brains and it's synapses all the way down. Of course we don't understand it but there's nothing else. A problem of kind is just a large enough pr

We've cut open brains and it's synapses all the way down. Of course we don't understand it but there's nothing else. A problem of kind is just a large enough problem of scale.

tuyiown 3y ago
You missed the crucial part, it's not about the synapses, but the organisation they have that brings out consciousness. At the moment we have absolutely no idea of what basic organisation (of synapses) it stems from, something we could build upon, nor any idea of the general organisation of the whole system that make the consciousness an emergent property
- Gare 3y ago
  Could we also not try to reach that organization via evolution (once we have enough compute)? Starting with a worm-like AI...
  - tempaway74641 3y ago
    I know a good Greg Egan story about that https://www.gregegan.net/MISC/CRYSTAL/Crystal.html https://www.gregegan.net/MISC/CRYSTAL/Crystal.html “What created the only example of consciousness we know of?” Daniel asked. “Evolution.” “Exactly. But I don’t want to wait three billion years, so I need to make the selection process a great deal more refined, and the sources of variation more targeted.” Julie digested this. “You want to try to evolve true AI? Conscious, human-level AI?” “Yes.” Daniel saw her mouth tightening, saw her struggling to measure her words before speaking. “With respect,” she said, “I don’t think you’ve thought that through.” “On the contrary,” Daniel assured her. “I’ve been planning this for twenty years.” “Evolution,” she said, “is about failure and death. Do you have any idea how many sentient creatures lived and died along the way to Homo sapiens? How much suffering was involved?” “Part of your job would be to minimise the suffering.” “Minimise it?” She seemed genuinely shocked, as if this proposal was even worse than blithely assuming that the process would raise no ethical concerns. “What right do we have to inflict it at all?” Daniel said, “You’re grateful to exist, aren’t you? Notwithstanding the tribulations of your ancestors.” “I’m grateful to exist,” she agreed, “but in the human case the suffering wasn’t deliberately inflicted by anyone, and nor was there any alternative way we could have come into existence. If there really had been a just creator, I don’t doubt that he would have followed Genesis literally; he sure as hell would not have used evolution.”
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  This actually creates a good argument for considering current LLMs and other generative AI as steps in the right direction. Specifically, while we have "no idea of what basic organisation (of synapses) it stems from", we do know a few things about this organization which creates consciousness - such as: - It is simple enough to be reachable by a dumb, brute-force, random-walking, incremental process of evolution; - It scales well, conferring survival benefits from the start, and at every point of the way, from the first neuron, up to the human brain; With those in mind, it absolutely makes sense for us to find a relatively simple compute/organizational system and scale it all the way to consciousness (or a set of those that scale together) - because that's exactly how evolution must have done it, since it's structurally the only thing it can do.
  - GTP 3y ago
    > It is simple enough to be reachable by a dumb, brute-force, random-walking, incremental process of evolution; I'm not an expert in this field, but from what I heard brute-force natural selection is the naive explanation we're given in school. There are many more factors at play other than random chance: e.g. there is also sexsual selection. Sexual selection selects some characteristic that isn't necessarily an advantage in the current environment, but it is somehow preferred by the opposed sex. According to some research, the reason why we lost the bone that other primates have in their penis is due to sexual selection.
    - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
      One intuition that helps is to see evolution as a random search through solution space. Another thing to realize is that -in evolutionary algorithms- the distribution of random trials will be strongly biased around existing solutions. It helps to understand that in some situations, a search algorithm with some level of randomness can arrive at a solution faster than a systematic/random approach, on average. In other situations, a search with added randomization might be slower, but its ability to escape local optimae (to some degree) means that it is much more likely to find the global optimum (or at least a better local optimum :-P ). Compare also: Monte-Carlo methods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm
- achileas 3y ago
  It’s also very much not just about the neuronal synapses.
Winsaucerer 3y ago
I agree with you that the brain is nothing else but its physical makeup (whether that's synapses or more). But that's not the point of contention -- the point of contention is whether those synapses are enough to explain (or explain away) consciousness. And to me it is plainly obvious that physical stuff (synapses or whatever) can never explain (or explain away) consciousness. (side note: there is absolutely, undeniably, a correlation between brain states and mental states -- but that does not entail that mental states reduce to or are explained entirely by brain states)
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > there is absolutely, undeniably, a correlation between brain states and mental states -- but that does not entail that mental states reduce to or are explained entirely by brain states It's not plain correlation. It's long been experimentally demonstrated that you can circuit-bend[0] an animal or a human live, by poking in their brain[1]. If in those cases, altering brain state creates/affects behavior and mental states, then there isn't really a place for a non-physical-stuff consciousness. If it existed, it's demonstrably overridable by purely physical interventions, which implies you could just make a physical-stuff consciousness, at which point why postulate a non-material one? -- [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_bending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_bending [1] - Then there's obviously alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, that have a slower onset.
  - vonjuice 3y ago
    You can give alcohol to a driver and it will affect their driving. However, if you're an alien and you don't know the exact workings, you might conclude that alcohol affects cars.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      Hence my point about circuit bending. We're at the stage equivalent to that alien a) being able to electroshock the driver, and b) observe them getting out of car and functioning independently, therefore c) conclude that the driver is the thing controlling the car.
achileas 3y ago
That’s not true at all. The most interesting research into components of consciousness involve astrocytes, glia, and formerly assumed “helper cells” throughout the brain. It isn’t “all synapses.” Source: neuroscience MS (dropped out after defending to become a software engineer)
ogurechny 3y ago
This is unacceptable level of reasoning about such a topic, almost comically illiterate. The moment you've used the term “brain”, you'd already detached that thing from the rest of the body (without which it can't function — just like a spherical cow can't really live in a vacuum), drawn its borders, set limits to its functions, and so on. The same with “synapses”. So by stating that those mental objects are “real”, you've simply found that X equals X, that those things are exactly the same as they are defined. Their evident presence here is no different from the evident presence of demons inside the possessed people in the past.
splitstud 3y ago
[dead]

We've cut open brains and it's synapses all the way down. Of course we don't understand it but there's nothing else. A problem of kind is just a large enough problem of scale.

tuyiown 3y ago

You missed the crucial part, it's not about the synapses, but the organisation they have that brings out consciousness. At the moment we have absolutely no idea of what basic organisation (of synapses) it stems from, something we could build upon, nor any idea of the general organisation of the whole system that make the consciousness an emergent property

Gare 3y ago
Could we also not try to reach that organization via evolution (once we have enough compute)? Starting with a worm-like AI...
- tempaway74641 3y ago
  I know a good Greg Egan story about that https://www.gregegan.net/MISC/CRYSTAL/Crystal.html https://www.gregegan.net/MISC/CRYSTAL/Crystal.html “What created the only example of consciousness we know of?” Daniel asked. “Evolution.” “Exactly. But I don’t want to wait three billion years, so I need to make the selection process a great deal more refined, and the sources of variation more targeted.” Julie digested this. “You want to try to evolve true AI? Conscious, human-level AI?” “Yes.” Daniel saw her mouth tightening, saw her struggling to measure her words before speaking. “With respect,” she said, “I don’t think you’ve thought that through.” “On the contrary,” Daniel assured her. “I’ve been planning this for twenty years.” “Evolution,” she said, “is about failure and death. Do you have any idea how many sentient creatures lived and died along the way to Homo sapiens? How much suffering was involved?” “Part of your job would be to minimise the suffering.” “Minimise it?” She seemed genuinely shocked, as if this proposal was even worse than blithely assuming that the process would raise no ethical concerns. “What right do we have to inflict it at all?” Daniel said, “You’re grateful to exist, aren’t you? Notwithstanding the tribulations of your ancestors.” “I’m grateful to exist,” she agreed, “but in the human case the suffering wasn’t deliberately inflicted by anyone, and nor was there any alternative way we could have come into existence. If there really had been a just creator, I don’t doubt that he would have followed Genesis literally; he sure as hell would not have used evolution.”
TeMPOraL 3y ago
This actually creates a good argument for considering current LLMs and other generative AI as steps in the right direction. Specifically, while we have "no idea of what basic organisation (of synapses) it stems from", we do know a few things about this organization which creates consciousness - such as: - It is simple enough to be reachable by a dumb, brute-force, random-walking, incremental process of evolution; - It scales well, conferring survival benefits from the start, and at every point of the way, from the first neuron, up to the human brain; With those in mind, it absolutely makes sense for us to find a relatively simple compute/organizational system and scale it all the way to consciousness (or a set of those that scale together) - because that's exactly how evolution must have done it, since it's structurally the only thing it can do.
- GTP 3y ago
  > It is simple enough to be reachable by a dumb, brute-force, random-walking, incremental process of evolution; I'm not an expert in this field, but from what I heard brute-force natural selection is the naive explanation we're given in school. There are many more factors at play other than random chance: e.g. there is also sexsual selection. Sexual selection selects some characteristic that isn't necessarily an advantage in the current environment, but it is somehow preferred by the opposed sex. According to some research, the reason why we lost the bone that other primates have in their penis is due to sexual selection.
  - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
    One intuition that helps is to see evolution as a random search through solution space. Another thing to realize is that -in evolutionary algorithms- the distribution of random trials will be strongly biased around existing solutions. It helps to understand that in some situations, a search algorithm with some level of randomness can arrive at a solution faster than a systematic/random approach, on average. In other situations, a search with added randomization might be slower, but its ability to escape local optimae (to some degree) means that it is much more likely to find the global optimum (or at least a better local optimum :-P ). Compare also: Monte-Carlo methods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm
achileas 3y ago
It’s also very much not just about the neuronal synapses.

Winsaucerer 3y ago

I agree with you that the brain is nothing else but its physical makeup (whether that's synapses or more). But that's not the point of contention -- the point of contention is whether those synapses are enough to explain (or explain away) consciousness. And to me it is plainly obvious that physical stuff (synapses or whatever) can never explain (or explain away) consciousness. (side note: there is absolutely, undeniably, a correlation between brain states and mental states -- but that does not entail that mental states reduce to or are explained entirely by brain states)

TeMPOraL 3y ago
> there is absolutely, undeniably, a correlation between brain states and mental states -- but that does not entail that mental states reduce to or are explained entirely by brain states It's not plain correlation. It's long been experimentally demonstrated that you can circuit-bend[0] an animal or a human live, by poking in their brain[1]. If in those cases, altering brain state creates/affects behavior and mental states, then there isn't really a place for a non-physical-stuff consciousness. If it existed, it's demonstrably overridable by purely physical interventions, which implies you could just make a physical-stuff consciousness, at which point why postulate a non-material one? -- [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_bending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_bending [1] - Then there's obviously alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, that have a slower onset.
- vonjuice 3y ago
  You can give alcohol to a driver and it will affect their driving. However, if you're an alien and you don't know the exact workings, you might conclude that alcohol affects cars.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Hence my point about circuit bending. We're at the stage equivalent to that alien a) being able to electroshock the driver, and b) observe them getting out of car and functioning independently, therefore c) conclude that the driver is the thing controlling the car.

achileas 3y ago

That’s not true at all. The most interesting research into components of consciousness involve astrocytes, glia, and formerly assumed “helper cells” throughout the brain. It isn’t “all synapses.” Source: neuroscience MS (dropped out after defending to become a software engineer)

ogurechny 3y ago

This is unacceptable level of reasoning about such a topic, almost comically illiterate. The moment you've used the term “brain”, you'd already detached that thing from the rest of the body (without which it can't function — just like a spherical cow can't really live in a vacuum), drawn its borders, set limits to its functions, and so on. The same with “synapses”. So by stating that those mental objects are “real”, you've simply found that X equals X, that those things are exactly the same as they are defined. Their evident presence here is no different from the evident presence of demons inside the possessed people in the past.

splitstud 3y ago

[dead]