5 ms·

Meh. If we want immorality we'll probably end up converting a brain scan to an LLM. Medically this could be great for preventing brain damage.

Waterluvian 2y ago
At this point it feels like we’d required the resources of an entire planet to run a single full-fidelity virtual brain. Which leads to interesting science fiction premises.
- hateful 2y ago
  Or one entire actual brain - if it can be done once by natural selection, it can be done more efficiently again by a designer. Time exists because the universe doesn't do calculations - the only way to see the outcome is to do the thing. See: The Three Body Problem
  - hateful 2y ago
    See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40508705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40508705
- ben_w 2y ago
  Last I heard (I am not a brain scientist) we don't really know what fidelity we would need. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading#/media/File:Whole_brain_emulation.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading#/media/File:Who...
wonderwonder 2y ago
I think OP means how do we know that the brain tissue that is being used in the experiment is not conscious. Here is a man that lived a normal life with 90% of his brain damaged, a large portion of that just completely missing. https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who-lives-without-90-of-his-brain-is-challenging-our-understanding-of-consciousness https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who-lives-without-90-of-h...
- scarmig 2y ago
  Network pruning. In ANNs, pruning 90% of the weights without substantial loss isn't unheard of. I guess this may be analogous: continuous pruning and fine tuning over a lifetime. Though, is removing 90% of the brain more analogous to 90% of weights, or 90% of the rank?
- ben_w 2y ago
  Sneaky paragraph at the bottom: > Update 3 Jan 2017: This man has a specific type of hydrocephalus known as chronic non-communicating hydrocephalus, which is where fluid slowly builds up in the brain. Rather than 90 percent of this man's brain being missing, it's more likely that it's simply been compressed into the thin layer you can see in the images above. We've corrected the story to reflect this.
  - wonderwonder 2y ago
    I did not see that actually, thank you. The fact our brain can be compressed to that level is pretty crazy too, although not as impressive as the original missing 90% :)
    - ben_w 2y ago
      You're welcome :) I very nearly missed it on that page, despite already being aware of the detail from other sources.
Culonavirus 2y ago
[flagged]
zamalek 2y ago
ANNs can't represent everything involved with a functioning brain, never mind a highly specific ANN architecture. Any consciousness or similar would need to arise via an independent mechanism.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > Any consciousness or similar would need to arise via an independent mechanism. Probably, but even then only due to there being a lot mechanisms and we don't know which of them is related to the subjective experience of existing that is the meaning of conscious I assume you're using here (there's something like 40 definitions of "consciousness"). But because we don't really know where the capacity for an inner experience even is, it's not impossible that even an LLM, which totally isn't designed with the goal of having it, might nevertheless have it. (I really hope they don't, I statistically suspect they don't, I just can't rule it out).
  - DennisP 2y ago
    It's not impossible that rocks have consciousness. Some modern philosophers advocating pantheism think they just might. Meanwhile, according to Sabine Hossenfelder, a recent paper shows evidence that Penrose was right about quantum effects happening in the brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6G1D2UQ3gg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6G1D2UQ3gg
    - Nevermark 2y ago
      > Some modern philosophers advocating pantheism think they just might. This is a terribly low bar. The map of “ Some modern philosophers” “think [something] just might” [something] is an incoherent patchwork. I think that theorizing about things without hard evidence has value. What-if’s teach us a lot, by raising important questions, and keep our ideas flexible, preparing us for the next crazy insight that nature reveals. But that isn’t the same as attributing any reliability to the as yet unproven enthusiasms of philosophers. There is a clear case for a survival benefit for creatures whose awareness and control extends into their own thinking. Thus a reason consciousness would be one of many strategies evolution may produce. What natural phenomena is explained by a conscious rock hypothesis? What would cause a rock to organize in such a way? Where is this information about itself encoded and experienced in a rock? It’s not a coherent conjecture.

Waterluvian 2y ago

At this point it feels like we’d required the resources of an entire planet to run a single full-fidelity virtual brain. Which leads to interesting science fiction premises.

hateful 2y ago
Or one entire actual brain - if it can be done once by natural selection, it can be done more efficiently again by a designer. Time exists because the universe doesn't do calculations - the only way to see the outcome is to do the thing. See: The Three Body Problem
- hateful 2y ago
  See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40508705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40508705
ben_w 2y ago
Last I heard (I am not a brain scientist) we don't really know what fidelity we would need. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading#/media/File:Whole_brain_emulation.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading#/media/File:Who...

wonderwonder 2y ago

I think OP means how do we know that the brain tissue that is being used in the experiment is not conscious. Here is a man that lived a normal life with 90% of his brain damaged, a large portion of that just completely missing. https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who-lives-without-90-of-his-brain-is-challenging-our-understanding-of-consciousness https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who-lives-without-90-of-h...

scarmig 2y ago
Network pruning. In ANNs, pruning 90% of the weights without substantial loss isn't unheard of. I guess this may be analogous: continuous pruning and fine tuning over a lifetime. Though, is removing 90% of the brain more analogous to 90% of weights, or 90% of the rank?
ben_w 2y ago
Sneaky paragraph at the bottom: > Update 3 Jan 2017: This man has a specific type of hydrocephalus known as chronic non-communicating hydrocephalus, which is where fluid slowly builds up in the brain. Rather than 90 percent of this man's brain being missing, it's more likely that it's simply been compressed into the thin layer you can see in the images above. We've corrected the story to reflect this.
- wonderwonder 2y ago
  I did not see that actually, thank you. The fact our brain can be compressed to that level is pretty crazy too, although not as impressive as the original missing 90% :)
  - ben_w 2y ago
    You're welcome :) I very nearly missed it on that page, despite already being aware of the detail from other sources.

Culonavirus 2y ago

[flagged]

zamalek 2y ago

ANNs can't represent everything involved with a functioning brain, never mind a highly specific ANN architecture. Any consciousness or similar would need to arise via an independent mechanism.

ben_w 2y ago
> Any consciousness or similar would need to arise via an independent mechanism. Probably, but even then only due to there being a lot mechanisms and we don't know which of them is related to the subjective experience of existing that is the meaning of conscious I assume you're using here (there's something like 40 definitions of "consciousness"). But because we don't really know where the capacity for an inner experience even is, it's not impossible that even an LLM, which totally isn't designed with the goal of having it, might nevertheless have it. (I really hope they don't, I statistically suspect they don't, I just can't rule it out).
- DennisP 2y ago
  It's not impossible that rocks have consciousness. Some modern philosophers advocating pantheism think they just might. Meanwhile, according to Sabine Hossenfelder, a recent paper shows evidence that Penrose was right about quantum effects happening in the brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6G1D2UQ3gg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6G1D2UQ3gg
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    > Some modern philosophers advocating pantheism think they just might. This is a terribly low bar. The map of “ Some modern philosophers” “think [something] just might” [something] is an incoherent patchwork. I think that theorizing about things without hard evidence has value. What-if’s teach us a lot, by raising important questions, and keep our ideas flexible, preparing us for the next crazy insight that nature reveals. But that isn’t the same as attributing any reliability to the as yet unproven enthusiasms of philosophers. There is a clear case for a survival benefit for creatures whose awareness and control extends into their own thinking. Thus a reason consciousness would be one of many strategies evolution may produce. What natural phenomena is explained by a conscious rock hypothesis? What would cause a rock to organize in such a way? Where is this information about itself encoded and experienced in a rock? It’s not a coherent conjecture.