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I really like the article author's description of the subconscious: > Focus is required to learn to put together puzzles or execute a tennis serve or even pla

I really like the article author's description of the subconscious: > Focus is required to learn to put together puzzles or execute a tennis serve or even play the piano. But after a skill is mastered, it recedes below the horizon into the fuzzy world of the unconscious. Thinking about it makes it harder to do. It makes me think of consciousness like training AI neural networks. Consciousness is akin to training a neural net by testing the result and triggering the reward function accordingly, whereas the subconscious is when you don't bother checking the result, you just "execute" the neural net from the control signal and take whatever result. I'm sure the analogy breaks down quite heavily, but it works pretty well as a simplification: when you're learning you're constantly providing yourself feedback to try to strengthen the neural pathways that led to a positive result through a reward system ("good, that was the right note", "bad, that was the wrong note"). But presumably once those neural pathways are satisfactorily shaped, trying to use that reward system (ie. "thinking about" what you're doing) could serve to just mess you up. Because you don't want to modify those neural pathways further if they were already "good" to begin with. (Problem is, I don't think you're ever not conscious of whether your piano playing sounds right, so your brain is always going to be mutating those pathways whether you want to or not. But if you're already good at the piano, the less you can think about your playing, the better.)

peter303 11y ago
The Brain is like XXXX technology, where XXXX is: 1) Clockwork (18th century) 2) Factory (19th century) 3) Computer (10th century) 4) Nueral Net (21st century) 5) None of the above! Ding Ding Ding
- gipp 11y ago
  It would seem to be increasingly similar to each of those things in turn, not "none of the above".
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  Except a neural network is much like a simulation of neurons. So its not "like a computer," we're using computers to implement a model based roughly on the biological brain. Its an intentional implementation to mimick the brain.
  - warmfuzzykitten 11y ago
    That's a misconception. A neural net is just a mathematical algorithm, not any kind of simulation of the human brain.
    - c22 11y ago
      I don't see the conflict here. Simulations are mathematical algorithms. The mathematical algorithms of neural networks were devised as a model of what we observed neurons doing and turned out to be quite good at some of the things brains are quite good at.
  - orbifold 11y ago
    This is quite an overstatement, the electric potential of a neuron would be most accurately described by some pde, only approximately by the ode's that are usually used. Then it is another bunch of approximation down the line until you arrive at neural networks. It might be the case that certain types of neural networks accurately model the computational essence of what a brain does, but it does so in quite a different way.
- wyager 11y ago
  The brain is quite literally a neural network (in a more traditional sense of the word "neural"). A biological brain (especially a simple one) could probably be modeled somewhat accurately and with reasonable efficiency by a cyclic NN. Unless you have religious objections, it's also quite reasonable to call the brain a computer.
  - fsloth 11y ago
    But how accurate would the simulation be? Real brains have latencies as well as action potential. I don't think it's obvious how memories are stored, as well. I have no objections to brain being modeled through a bunch of linear algebra. I'm not sure that we have all the particular interactions required for a full model yet?
  - geographomics 11y ago
    A model containing only neurons may be too simplistic - glial cells also seem to modulate cognition in ways that haven't yet been fully elucidated. Then you also have rather more asymmetric synaptic behaviours such as volume transmission, where the neurotransmitter is diffused across a less well-defined area, rather than being kept neatly within a shared synaptic cleft.
- JonnieCache 11y ago
  >Factory (19th century) Specifically, a factory with a steam engine, hence the language of internal "drives" and so on. The 21c part of this analogy should be "the internet," following the principle of us basing our mind-model on the newest technology around at the time. I always thought it odd to say that our mind is like a computer, when we created computers in the image of our minds.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >I always thought it odd to say that our mind is like a computer, when we created computers in the image of our minds. Only we didn't do that. We created computers as machines doing arithmetic. In the image of our abacuses would be a better description.
    - firethief 11y ago
      Can an abacus do arithmetic? Before we had the mechanical implementations, "computer" was a human occupation.
- Houshalter 11y ago
  You are arguing against argument by analogy with an analogy. In any case none of those analogies are entirely wrong, they are just increasingly more accurate. An eighteenth century person couldn't have understood computers, so clockwork is the closest analogy.
  - disgruntledphd2 11y ago
    I mean no disrespect, but you are making the same argument that those people did :) I think the more general truth is that we humans explain using analogy, and the brain is complex, so we use something else that isn't fully understood by most.
    - MarkPNeyer 11y ago
      > but you are making the same argument that those people did of course that person is. GP is saying "each model is a better approximation, but still an approximation" - and you are saying "they all said that, and they were all wrong." but are they getting _less_ wrong over time?
      - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
        Technically they're all the same Turing machine analogy. (Recurrent neural nets aren't really Turing complete, but they become Turing complete if you add repeatable state logic.) It's just that the later analogies include some hint of emergent properties that are missing from the earlier ones. Is the brain really a Turing machine? I doubt it's the right model, but obviously I have no way to prove this. But here's a question - if the brain is a symbolic data processor, what exactly does it process? This sounds like it should have an obvious answer, but the more you think about it (ironically...) the less obvious the answer becomes.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >You are arguing against argument by analogy with an analogy No, he's arguing against a specific argument by analogy with an analogy. Or rather, he's not even doing that. He's arguing not against "argument by analogy" (in general) or a "specific argument by analogy" (in particular), but against an analogy bare from argument.
true_religion 11y ago
I'd imagine playing the piano as an expert is like typing as an expert. You may think about what you want to do as an end result, but not necessarily how to place your fingers.
afro88 11y ago
I like this analogy. It works with my experience of consciously retraining myself. If you want to change the way you think about or do something, you have to be totally focussed and present, ignoring subconscious messages and doing everything with conscious present focus. It's literally retraining the model of the action in your subconscious. That's brilliant.
riemannzeta 11y ago
I have seen this called "chunking" by folks who study learning http://smile.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra/dp/039916524X/ http://smile.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra...
deepnet 11y ago
Conversely the conscious mind can also make it harder to learn things. I refer to the "Inner Game of Tennis" by Tim Gallwey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieb1lmm9xHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieb1lmm9xHk As a teacher he tries to distract the conscious mind so learning can take place.
- noobermin 11y ago
  This reminds me too of learning to draw. When I took drawing in college, we had to resist the urge to draw an apple in front of us like stick figure apples. We had a conscious idea of how an apple should look like, and we default to drawing that. Instead, we were to try to forget that it's an apple and see the shape as lines and the shade as gradient. Then, you reproduce the object better, once you learn to not lean on your conscious knowledge of what you're drawing.
  - nine_k 11y ago
    In other words, you had to switch off the visual parsing model you already had for day-to-day interactions with aples, and form another, more useful for reproducing its images. One is a 'shapes and stick figures', another is 'spots and gradients'. Still I suspect they have a similar nature.
- ninkendo 11y ago
  Interesting video. I'd be interested to see if that learning technique could be compared side-by-side with the same technique without the distractions, to see if the benefits come from distracting your conscious mind, or just from observing and mimicking the real tennis player. I've been trying to find out how I learn best, and I really think I get the best results from pure repetition and imitation (ie. being shown examples of how things are done, over and over.) It's similar to what we do when we're young (when we can't speak enough language to be properly "taught" anything), which is definitely the time in our lifespan where we absorb and internalize novel information the most. The supposed drawback to pure-imitation learning is that you don't get the "why" of what you're learning, you're just mimicking what you see. But I think our brains are really good at generalizing stimuli and making meaning on our own (or at least mine is), so if I'm able to just mimic something, I get the best of both worlds: my subconscious is busy mimicking and memorizing what I see, while my conscious mind is distracted by finding "meaning" behind the things I'm mimicking. I think this can apply for anything from learning a new programming language (just let me read examples until I "get" it) to sports, to musical instruments. I've had piano instructors try to tell me what legato is, but it's so much faster and simpler to just watch a good piano player do it, and I'll just pretend to do it too until it sounds right. Same with any youtube "how to" video. I don't want to hear anybody's explanation, just show me you doing it, and I'll mimic it the best I can. I'll figure out on my own how close my action is to yours. I wonder if there are any good sites out there that are geared towards this? A how-to site that's focused exclusively on video/text that just simply shows you how to do something, with no accompanying explanation. I know Rosetta Stone works this way, but I think it can work for more than just spoken languages.
KingMob 11y ago
Thing is, the limbic reward system can be pretty automatic, too. You're reward system can signal mistakes without conscious input, e.g., cutting yourself while routinely chopping vegetables. The reward system can be involved consciously but doesn't have to be.

peter303 11y ago

The Brain is like XXXX technology, where XXXX is: 1) Clockwork (18th century) 2) Factory (19th century) 3) Computer (10th century) 4) Nueral Net (21st century) 5) None of the above! Ding Ding Ding

gipp 11y ago
It would seem to be increasingly similar to each of those things in turn, not "none of the above".
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Except a neural network is much like a simulation of neurons. So its not "like a computer," we're using computers to implement a model based roughly on the biological brain. Its an intentional implementation to mimick the brain.
- warmfuzzykitten 11y ago
  That's a misconception. A neural net is just a mathematical algorithm, not any kind of simulation of the human brain.
  - c22 11y ago
    I don't see the conflict here. Simulations are mathematical algorithms. The mathematical algorithms of neural networks were devised as a model of what we observed neurons doing and turned out to be quite good at some of the things brains are quite good at.
- orbifold 11y ago
  This is quite an overstatement, the electric potential of a neuron would be most accurately described by some pde, only approximately by the ode's that are usually used. Then it is another bunch of approximation down the line until you arrive at neural networks. It might be the case that certain types of neural networks accurately model the computational essence of what a brain does, but it does so in quite a different way.
wyager 11y ago
The brain is quite literally a neural network (in a more traditional sense of the word "neural"). A biological brain (especially a simple one) could probably be modeled somewhat accurately and with reasonable efficiency by a cyclic NN. Unless you have religious objections, it's also quite reasonable to call the brain a computer.
- fsloth 11y ago
  But how accurate would the simulation be? Real brains have latencies as well as action potential. I don't think it's obvious how memories are stored, as well. I have no objections to brain being modeled through a bunch of linear algebra. I'm not sure that we have all the particular interactions required for a full model yet?
- geographomics 11y ago
  A model containing only neurons may be too simplistic - glial cells also seem to modulate cognition in ways that haven't yet been fully elucidated. Then you also have rather more asymmetric synaptic behaviours such as volume transmission, where the neurotransmitter is diffused across a less well-defined area, rather than being kept neatly within a shared synaptic cleft.
JonnieCache 11y ago
>Factory (19th century) Specifically, a factory with a steam engine, hence the language of internal "drives" and so on. The 21c part of this analogy should be "the internet," following the principle of us basing our mind-model on the newest technology around at the time. I always thought it odd to say that our mind is like a computer, when we created computers in the image of our minds.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >I always thought it odd to say that our mind is like a computer, when we created computers in the image of our minds. Only we didn't do that. We created computers as machines doing arithmetic. In the image of our abacuses would be a better description.
  - firethief 11y ago
    Can an abacus do arithmetic? Before we had the mechanical implementations, "computer" was a human occupation.
Houshalter 11y ago
You are arguing against argument by analogy with an analogy. In any case none of those analogies are entirely wrong, they are just increasingly more accurate. An eighteenth century person couldn't have understood computers, so clockwork is the closest analogy.
- disgruntledphd2 11y ago
  I mean no disrespect, but you are making the same argument that those people did :) I think the more general truth is that we humans explain using analogy, and the brain is complex, so we use something else that isn't fully understood by most.
  - MarkPNeyer 11y ago
    > but you are making the same argument that those people did of course that person is. GP is saying "each model is a better approximation, but still an approximation" - and you are saying "they all said that, and they were all wrong." but are they getting _less_ wrong over time?
    - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      Technically they're all the same Turing machine analogy. (Recurrent neural nets aren't really Turing complete, but they become Turing complete if you add repeatable state logic.) It's just that the later analogies include some hint of emergent properties that are missing from the earlier ones. Is the brain really a Turing machine? I doubt it's the right model, but obviously I have no way to prove this. But here's a question - if the brain is a symbolic data processor, what exactly does it process? This sounds like it should have an obvious answer, but the more you think about it (ironically...) the less obvious the answer becomes.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- coldtea 11y ago
  >You are arguing against argument by analogy with an analogy No, he's arguing against a specific argument by analogy with an analogy. Or rather, he's not even doing that. He's arguing not against "argument by analogy" (in general) or a "specific argument by analogy" (in particular), but against an analogy bare from argument.

true_religion 11y ago

I'd imagine playing the piano as an expert is like typing as an expert. You may think about what you want to do as an end result, but not necessarily how to place your fingers.

afro88 11y ago

I like this analogy. It works with my experience of consciously retraining myself. If you want to change the way you think about or do something, you have to be totally focussed and present, ignoring subconscious messages and doing everything with conscious present focus. It's literally retraining the model of the action in your subconscious. That's brilliant.

riemannzeta 11y ago

I have seen this called "chunking" by folks who study learning http://smile.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra/dp/039916524X/ http://smile.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra...

deepnet 11y ago

Conversely the conscious mind can also make it harder to learn things. I refer to the "Inner Game of Tennis" by Tim Gallwey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieb1lmm9xHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieb1lmm9xHk As a teacher he tries to distract the conscious mind so learning can take place.

noobermin 11y ago
This reminds me too of learning to draw. When I took drawing in college, we had to resist the urge to draw an apple in front of us like stick figure apples. We had a conscious idea of how an apple should look like, and we default to drawing that. Instead, we were to try to forget that it's an apple and see the shape as lines and the shade as gradient. Then, you reproduce the object better, once you learn to not lean on your conscious knowledge of what you're drawing.
- nine_k 11y ago
  In other words, you had to switch off the visual parsing model you already had for day-to-day interactions with aples, and form another, more useful for reproducing its images. One is a 'shapes and stick figures', another is 'spots and gradients'. Still I suspect they have a similar nature.
ninkendo 11y ago
Interesting video. I'd be interested to see if that learning technique could be compared side-by-side with the same technique without the distractions, to see if the benefits come from distracting your conscious mind, or just from observing and mimicking the real tennis player. I've been trying to find out how I learn best, and I really think I get the best results from pure repetition and imitation (ie. being shown examples of how things are done, over and over.) It's similar to what we do when we're young (when we can't speak enough language to be properly "taught" anything), which is definitely the time in our lifespan where we absorb and internalize novel information the most. The supposed drawback to pure-imitation learning is that you don't get the "why" of what you're learning, you're just mimicking what you see. But I think our brains are really good at generalizing stimuli and making meaning on our own (or at least mine is), so if I'm able to just mimic something, I get the best of both worlds: my subconscious is busy mimicking and memorizing what I see, while my conscious mind is distracted by finding "meaning" behind the things I'm mimicking. I think this can apply for anything from learning a new programming language (just let me read examples until I "get" it) to sports, to musical instruments. I've had piano instructors try to tell me what legato is, but it's so much faster and simpler to just watch a good piano player do it, and I'll just pretend to do it too until it sounds right. Same with any youtube "how to" video. I don't want to hear anybody's explanation, just show me you doing it, and I'll mimic it the best I can. I'll figure out on my own how close my action is to yours. I wonder if there are any good sites out there that are geared towards this? A how-to site that's focused exclusively on video/text that just simply shows you how to do something, with no accompanying explanation. I know Rosetta Stone works this way, but I think it can work for more than just spoken languages.

KingMob 11y ago

Thing is, the limbic reward system can be pretty automatic, too. You're reward system can signal mistakes without conscious input, e.g., cutting yourself while routinely chopping vegetables. The reward system can be involved consciously but doesn't have to be.