5 ms·

Yes. A thermostat involves a change of state from A to B. A computer is the same: its state at t causes its state at t+1, which causes its state at t+2, and so

Yes. A thermostat involves a change of state from A to B. A computer is the same: its state at t causes its state at t+1, which causes its state at t+2, and so on. Nothing else is going on. An LLM is no different: an LLM is simply a computer that is going through particular states. Thought is not the same as a change of (brain) state. Thought is certainly associated with change of state, but can't be reduced to it. If thought could be reduced to change of state, then the validity/correctness/truth of a thought could be judged with reference to its associated brain state. Since this is impossible (you don't judge whether someone is right about a math problem or an empirical question by referring to the state of his neurology at a given point in time), it follows that an LLM can't think.

Workaccount2 2y ago
>Thought is certainly associated with change of state, but can't be reduced to it. You can effectively reduce continuously dynamic systems to discreet steps. Sure, you can always say that the "magic" exists between the arbitrarily small steps, but from a practical POV there is no difference. A transistor has a binary on or off. A neuron might have ~infinite~ levels of activation. But in reality the ~infinite~ activation level can be perfectly modeled (for all intents and purposes), and computers have been doing this for decades now (maybe not with neurons, but equivalent systems). It might seem like an obvious answer, that there is special magic in analog systems that binary machines cannot access, but that is wholly untrue. Science and engineering have been extremely successful interfacing with the analog reality we live in, precisely because the digital/analog barrier isn't too big of a deal. Digital systems can do math, and math is capable of modeling analog systems, no problem.
- geye1234 2y ago
  It's not a question of discrete vs continuous, or digital vs analog. Everything I've said could also apply if a transistor could have infinite states. Rather, the point is that the state of our brain is not the same as the content of our thoughts. They are associated with one another, but they're not the same. And the correctness of a thought can be judged only by reference to its content, not to its associated state. 2+2=4 is correct, and 2+2=5 is wrong; but we know this through looking at the content of these thoughts, not through looking at the neurological state. But the state of the transistors (and other components) is all a computer has. There are no thoughts, no content, associated with these states.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    It seems that the only barrier between brain state and thought contents is a proper measurement tool and decoder, no? We can already do this at an extremely basic level, mapping brain states to thoughts. The paraplegic patient using their thoughts to move the mouse cursor or the neuroscientist mapping stress to brain patterns. If I am understanding your position correctly, it seems that the differentiation between thoughts and brain states is a practical problem not a fundamental one. Ironically, LLMs have a very similar problem with it being very difficult to correlate model states with model outputs. [1] [1]https://www.anthropic.com/research/mapping-mind-language-model https://www.anthropic.com/research/mapping-mind-language-mod...
    - geye1234 2y ago
      There is undoubtedly correlation between neurological state and thought content. But they are not the same thing. Even if, theoretically, one could map them perfectly (which I doubt is possible but it doesn't affect my point), they would remain entirely different things. The thought that "2+2=4", or the thought "tiger", are not the same thing as the brain states that makes them up. A tiger, or the thought of a tiger, is different from the neurological state of a brain that is thinking about a tiger. And as stated before, we can't say that "2+2=4" is correct by referring to the brain state associated with it. We need to refer to the thought itself to do this. It is not a practical problem of mapping; it is that brain states and thoughts are two entirely different things, however much they may correlate, and whatever causal links may exist between them. This is not the case for LLMs. Whatever problems we may have in recording the state of the CPUs/GPUs are entirely practical. There is no 'thought' in an LLM, just a state (or plurality of states). An LLM can't think about a tiger. It can only switch on LEDs on a screen in such a way that we associate the image/word with a tiger.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        > The thought that "2+2=4", or the thought "tiger", are not the same thing as the brain states that makes them up. Asserted without evidence. Yes, this does represent a long and occasionally distinguished line of thinking in cognitive science/philosophy of mind, but it is certainly not the only one, and some of the others categorically refute this.

Workaccount2 2y ago

>Thought is certainly associated with change of state, but can't be reduced to it. You can effectively reduce continuously dynamic systems to discreet steps. Sure, you can always say that the "magic" exists between the arbitrarily small steps, but from a practical POV there is no difference. A transistor has a binary on or off. A neuron might have ~infinite~ levels of activation. But in reality the ~infinite~ activation level can be perfectly modeled (for all intents and purposes), and computers have been doing this for decades now (maybe not with neurons, but equivalent systems). It might seem like an obvious answer, that there is special magic in analog systems that binary machines cannot access, but that is wholly untrue. Science and engineering have been extremely successful interfacing with the analog reality we live in, precisely because the digital/analog barrier isn't too big of a deal. Digital systems can do math, and math is capable of modeling analog systems, no problem.

geye1234 2y ago
It's not a question of discrete vs continuous, or digital vs analog. Everything I've said could also apply if a transistor could have infinite states. Rather, the point is that the state of our brain is not the same as the content of our thoughts. They are associated with one another, but they're not the same. And the correctness of a thought can be judged only by reference to its content, not to its associated state. 2+2=4 is correct, and 2+2=5 is wrong; but we know this through looking at the content of these thoughts, not through looking at the neurological state. But the state of the transistors (and other components) is all a computer has. There are no thoughts, no content, associated with these states.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  It seems that the only barrier between brain state and thought contents is a proper measurement tool and decoder, no? We can already do this at an extremely basic level, mapping brain states to thoughts. The paraplegic patient using their thoughts to move the mouse cursor or the neuroscientist mapping stress to brain patterns. If I am understanding your position correctly, it seems that the differentiation between thoughts and brain states is a practical problem not a fundamental one. Ironically, LLMs have a very similar problem with it being very difficult to correlate model states with model outputs. [1] [1]https://www.anthropic.com/research/mapping-mind-language-model https://www.anthropic.com/research/mapping-mind-language-mod...
  - geye1234 2y ago
    There is undoubtedly correlation between neurological state and thought content. But they are not the same thing. Even if, theoretically, one could map them perfectly (which I doubt is possible but it doesn't affect my point), they would remain entirely different things. The thought that "2+2=4", or the thought "tiger", are not the same thing as the brain states that makes them up. A tiger, or the thought of a tiger, is different from the neurological state of a brain that is thinking about a tiger. And as stated before, we can't say that "2+2=4" is correct by referring to the brain state associated with it. We need to refer to the thought itself to do this. It is not a practical problem of mapping; it is that brain states and thoughts are two entirely different things, however much they may correlate, and whatever causal links may exist between them. This is not the case for LLMs. Whatever problems we may have in recording the state of the CPUs/GPUs are entirely practical. There is no 'thought' in an LLM, just a state (or plurality of states). An LLM can't think about a tiger. It can only switch on LEDs on a screen in such a way that we associate the image/word with a tiger.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
      > The thought that "2+2=4", or the thought "tiger", are not the same thing as the brain states that makes them up. Asserted without evidence. Yes, this does represent a long and occasionally distinguished line of thinking in cognitive science/philosophy of mind, but it is certainly not the only one, and some of the others categorically refute this.