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I feel like these kinds of things are misguided. Our “minds” are not, for lack of a better term, Chinese rooms operating on external stimulus. Our minds aren’t

I feel like these kinds of things are misguided. Our “minds” are not, for lack of a better term, Chinese rooms operating on external stimulus. Our minds aren’t just brains, they’re deeply tied to our bodily state and influenced by hormonal mechanics that many different organs besides the brain control. It’s kind of romantic to say we could digitally replicate a brain in isolation, but our minds are messy and tangled. We might tend to think of these modifiers, like being hangry or horny, as deviations from a “normal”, but frankly I doubt it. I would wager these dynamics actually control the majority of our “minds” and the brain is just encoding/decoding hardware.

fallingknife 2y ago
If you can digitally replicate a brain, you can also digitally replicate all those input signals.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  In the sense that you can write any writeable program, sure. But that doesn’t mean there’s an obvious path to do so. The brain is a part of a much larger system. We don’t really have a clue how to model these things, even theoretically. It’s vastly more complex than neurons.
- robwwilliams 2y ago
  Not yet. It is a serious error to think of action potentials as the relevant variable of cognition. The real action is subthreshold ionic currents, neuromodulatory tone, and even the big mess of cytosilic, mitochondrial, and nuclear metabolism. The CNS is a hugely complex analog computation matrix that only uses action potentials for INTRAcellulat communication. Everything between cells is comparatively subtle ionic and chemical flux. Modeling at this level may be practical in retina at some point but modeling the entire CNS for pragmatic gains for Alzheimer’s disease research is not going to work. And embodiment is critical. The brain is not a Cartesian input-to-output machine. It is almost the opposite. See the “enactivist” philosophy of cognition (Noe, Velera, Maturana). (I also worked on the EU Human Brain Project with Markram and others; also on several similar NIH programs. )
Out_of_Characte 2y ago
I would agree if their goal indeed is to put a mind in a jar but, I've not read anything in the article that could indicate that. So may I suggest my own interpretation: Accurate understanding of 'normal' brain behaviour might lead to increased understanding of brain diseases. Thats why alzheimers was mentioned. But more importantly, if our understanding of the brain becomes good enough, we might be able to make a neural net understand our thoughts if we can adapt to it.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  And I fairly strongly suggest that these models will not work for brain diseases either. These problems are not merely neuron issues. It’s like modeling veins without modeling the heart. You can maybe do it, although it’ll probably have a lot of issues; but it will certainly not be sufficient to model emergent diseases from heart problems.
lucasoshiro 2y ago
From a computer science perspective, the stimuli from the other organs, the hormones, oxygen levels and so on would be the inputs, while the actions and thoughts would be the outputs. It's like saying that we can't simulate a computer in a Turing machine because a Turing machine doesn't have a USB port to connect a mouse. Change the perspetive considering that the mouse movements are inputs and everything works. Same idea
- someothherguyy 2y ago
  > It's like saying that we can't simulate a computer in a Turing machine because a Turing machine doesn't have a USB port to connect a mouse. I don't follow the analogy.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  They could be a set of inputs, but there is currently nothing being done to consider these inputs. For all practical purposes these inputs is being ignored; and I’m claiming this is problematic because the system generating those inputs is actually the majority of what mechanics comprise a mind. Simulating a brain with its neurons cannot achieve the desired outcome. A perfect digital brain won’t do anything.

fallingknife 2y ago

If you can digitally replicate a brain, you can also digitally replicate all those input signals.

jncfhnb 2y ago
In the sense that you can write any writeable program, sure. But that doesn’t mean there’s an obvious path to do so. The brain is a part of a much larger system. We don’t really have a clue how to model these things, even theoretically. It’s vastly more complex than neurons.
robwwilliams 2y ago
Not yet. It is a serious error to think of action potentials as the relevant variable of cognition. The real action is subthreshold ionic currents, neuromodulatory tone, and even the big mess of cytosilic, mitochondrial, and nuclear metabolism. The CNS is a hugely complex analog computation matrix that only uses action potentials for INTRAcellulat communication. Everything between cells is comparatively subtle ionic and chemical flux. Modeling at this level may be practical in retina at some point but modeling the entire CNS for pragmatic gains for Alzheimer’s disease research is not going to work. And embodiment is critical. The brain is not a Cartesian input-to-output machine. It is almost the opposite. See the “enactivist” philosophy of cognition (Noe, Velera, Maturana). (I also worked on the EU Human Brain Project with Markram and others; also on several similar NIH programs. )

Out_of_Characte 2y ago

I would agree if their goal indeed is to put a mind in a jar but, I've not read anything in the article that could indicate that. So may I suggest my own interpretation: Accurate understanding of 'normal' brain behaviour might lead to increased understanding of brain diseases. Thats why alzheimers was mentioned. But more importantly, if our understanding of the brain becomes good enough, we might be able to make a neural net understand our thoughts if we can adapt to it.

jncfhnb 2y ago
And I fairly strongly suggest that these models will not work for brain diseases either. These problems are not merely neuron issues. It’s like modeling veins without modeling the heart. You can maybe do it, although it’ll probably have a lot of issues; but it will certainly not be sufficient to model emergent diseases from heart problems.

lucasoshiro 2y ago

From a computer science perspective, the stimuli from the other organs, the hormones, oxygen levels and so on would be the inputs, while the actions and thoughts would be the outputs. It's like saying that we can't simulate a computer in a Turing machine because a Turing machine doesn't have a USB port to connect a mouse. Change the perspetive considering that the mouse movements are inputs and everything works. Same idea

someothherguyy 2y ago
> It's like saying that we can't simulate a computer in a Turing machine because a Turing machine doesn't have a USB port to connect a mouse. I don't follow the analogy.
jncfhnb 2y ago
They could be a set of inputs, but there is currently nothing being done to consider these inputs. For all practical purposes these inputs is being ignored; and I’m claiming this is problematic because the system generating those inputs is actually the majority of what mechanics comprise a mind. Simulating a brain with its neurons cannot achieve the desired outcome. A perfect digital brain won’t do anything.