5 ms·

"In my view the conscious brain does not act according to classical physics. It doesn’t even act according to conventional quantum mechanics. It acts according

by BRadmin 17y ago

"In my view the conscious brain does not act according to classical physics. It doesn’t even act according to conventional quantum mechanics. It acts according to a theory we don’t yet have." Do most modern AI researchers disagree with this?

daeken 17y ago
I don't think we have enough information to say one way or another. We've gained a lot of knowledge about the brain, but it's still very much a black box. I think it's worth holding off on making any assumptions until we understand a whole lot more about it.
rw 17y ago
The sensible response is: "show me ". Quantum effects are not known to be significant. I believe that our mind is an emergent property: lots of neurons and chemicals interacting. Sure, there are a lot of variables, we need the dynamical systems perspective to even begin to understand the whole process... but a new kind of physics? Don't be so anthropic! AFAICT cognition happens at the multicellular level--huge, from a QM perspective. This reminds me of that old anti-strong-AI bugaboo, "intelligence in the gaps": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps
lkozma 17y ago
Yes, most modern AI researchers believe that the functioning of the brain can be explained by electromagnetic and chemical phenomena, accurately described by 1900s theories. The fact that we don't fully understand its workings is due to its organizational complexity. Penrose's arguments are discussed for example here: http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec10.5.html http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec10.5.html
- 10ren 17y ago
  It's funny, but to be certain that consciousness can be explained by known laws - we just don't know exactly how - itself requires faith and is quite unscientific. Although I too believe it.
  - lkozma 17y ago
    I see this just as an application of Occam's razor. What Penrose does has been called the "law of minimization of mystery": consciousness is misterious, quantum mechanics is misterious, so why not try to explain one with the other.
  - randallsquared 17y ago
    Few such are certain, in the religious sense. They're certain until new evidence shows otherwise.
kevinpet 17y ago
If I said that recovering from cancer does not act according to classical physics, or even according to conventional quantum mechanics, you would consider me a delusional wacko with nothing useful to contribute to the conversation. Given the weight of evidence showing that anything we can measure about the brain can be explained by physical processes, the onus is on the person claiming that's not how it works to point to some phenomenon that isn't well explained by classical physics.
- frig 17y ago
  Generally overconfidence in our present abilities isn't conducive to stimulating new research. I mean: I give you as much workup on the brain of an unknown individual as you care to have (fMRI, scans, dissection, whatever you want). Can you detect which languages, if any, the person speaks (or spoke), with any robustness? Can you detect if the person ever saw an ocelot in person? Can you detect which sports team, if any, they like or liked to root for, or which instruments, if any, they played? For most sections of the brain the level-of-detail at which functionality is decoded is still very primitive and coarse-grained. The reason god-of-the-gaps arguments have so much traction is b/c the gaps are still so very large.
pronoiac 17y ago
Penrose is the odd one out. IEEE spectrum surveilled the field of cognitive science a few years ago, for their Singularity issue - http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/singularity http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/singularity - & he was the only one that felt like that. I was annoyed with him because it seemed he wanted to shoot down the field without even trying, because clearly it would never work. Max Tegmark looked into the timing required for quantum effects to be significant in synapses - http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/brain.html http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/brain.html - & showed it was just not required to build an effective model. The rebuttals, such as they are, strike me as tenuous & argued from faith & dogma rather than evidence. You can see a bit of this back-and-forth at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind#Ongoing_Debate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind#Ongoing_Debate Edit: Links, & fixing word wrap.

by BRadmin 17y ago

daeken 17y ago

I don't think we have enough information to say one way or another. We've gained a lot of knowledge about the brain, but it's still very much a black box. I think it's worth holding off on making any assumptions until we understand a whole lot more about it.

rw 17y ago

The sensible response is: "show me ". Quantum effects are not known to be significant. I believe that our mind is an emergent property: lots of neurons and chemicals interacting. Sure, there are a lot of variables, we need the dynamical systems perspective to even begin to understand the whole process... but a new kind of physics? Don't be so anthropic! AFAICT cognition happens at the multicellular level--huge, from a QM perspective. This reminds me of that old anti-strong-AI bugaboo, "intelligence in the gaps": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

lkozma 17y ago

Yes, most modern AI researchers believe that the functioning of the brain can be explained by electromagnetic and chemical phenomena, accurately described by 1900s theories. The fact that we don't fully understand its workings is due to its organizational complexity. Penrose's arguments are discussed for example here: http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec10.5.html http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec10.5.html

10ren 17y ago
It's funny, but to be certain that consciousness can be explained by known laws - we just don't know exactly how - itself requires faith and is quite unscientific. Although I too believe it.
- lkozma 17y ago
  I see this just as an application of Occam's razor. What Penrose does has been called the "law of minimization of mystery": consciousness is misterious, quantum mechanics is misterious, so why not try to explain one with the other.
- randallsquared 17y ago
  Few such are certain, in the religious sense. They're certain until new evidence shows otherwise.

kevinpet 17y ago

If I said that recovering from cancer does not act according to classical physics, or even according to conventional quantum mechanics, you would consider me a delusional wacko with nothing useful to contribute to the conversation. Given the weight of evidence showing that anything we can measure about the brain can be explained by physical processes, the onus is on the person claiming that's not how it works to point to some phenomenon that isn't well explained by classical physics.

frig 17y ago
Generally overconfidence in our present abilities isn't conducive to stimulating new research. I mean: I give you as much workup on the brain of an unknown individual as you care to have (fMRI, scans, dissection, whatever you want). Can you detect which languages, if any, the person speaks (or spoke), with any robustness? Can you detect if the person ever saw an ocelot in person? Can you detect which sports team, if any, they like or liked to root for, or which instruments, if any, they played? For most sections of the brain the level-of-detail at which functionality is decoded is still very primitive and coarse-grained. The reason god-of-the-gaps arguments have so much traction is b/c the gaps are still so very large.

pronoiac 17y ago

Penrose is the odd one out. IEEE spectrum surveilled the field of cognitive science a few years ago, for their Singularity issue - http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/singularity http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/singularity - & he was the only one that felt like that. I was annoyed with him because it seemed he wanted to shoot down the field without even trying, because clearly it would never work. Max Tegmark looked into the timing required for quantum effects to be significant in synapses - http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/brain.html http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/brain.html - & showed it was just not required to build an effective model. The rebuttals, such as they are, strike me as tenuous & argued from faith & dogma rather than evidence. You can see a bit of this back-and-forth at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind#Ongoing_Debate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind#Ongoing_Debate Edit: Links, & fixing word wrap.