10 Important Differences: Brains And Computers

[Legion]

Enjoy.

 

http://scienceblogs.com/developingintellig...t_like_a_co.php

[Legion]

Hmm Reboot. I suspect that computers will have to change to the point where they are no longer computers, in the sense that we now know it, to embody intelligence.

 

Let me ask you this Re. I know from first hand experience that I anticipate. I am constantly in anticipation.

 

Do you think computers anticipate? I don't think they do. They seem entirely reactive to me.

[Ouroboros]

For example : Difference # 3: The brain is a massively parallel machine; computers are modular and serial

Only true about the general use computer. There are computers made based on parallelism, and with internet (a natural extension of the computers) we have parallel processes running. Internet could become more like the brain. If we created the right kind of application, based on bittorrent data protocol, and build in neural net reasoning in each application, who knows what we would get? Maybe we'd get a conscious internet?

 

And also, PPUs (Physics Processing Units), like Ageia's PhysX are multi-vectorized processing. Close, but not exactly the same.

[Legion]

Hans that reminds me of some great sci-fi by Orson Scott Card in his Ender’s Game series. Ender was contacted by a conscious entity embodied in a computer network that had named itself Jane. And she became his companion and aid.

 

I don’t mean to be a pain in your rear, especially seeing as you’ve been kind and generous to me. But it seems to me that in order for you to convince me that the internet is capable of one day attaining consciousness then you would have to be able to tell me what consciousness is. What is the mind? And if you can’t tell me what the mind is then how can you convincingly argue that computers, or even networks of computers, can have one?

[Guest TheTruthHurts]

it seems to me that in order for you to convince me that the internet is capable of one day attaining consciousness then you would have to be able to tell me what consciousness is. What is the mind? And if you can’t tell me what the mind is then how can you convincingly argue that computers, or even networks of computers, can have one?

Just to keep things on the up and up: can you define the mind in such a way as to be sure computers won't achieve conciousness?

[Ouroboros]

Hans that reminds me of some great sci-fi by Orson Scott Card in his Ender’s Game series. Ender was contacted by a conscious entity embodied in a computer network that had named itself Jane. And she became his companion and aid.

 

I don’t mean to be a pain in your rear, especially seeing as you’ve been kind and generous to me. But it seems to me that in order for you to convince me that the internet is capable of one day attaining consciousness then you would have to be able to tell me what consciousness is. What is the mind? And if you can’t tell me what the mind is then how can you convincingly argue that computers, or even networks of computers, can have one?

First I'd like to challenge you on what a "computer" is?

 

If we one day can construct a brain, by the means of deliberate and precise assembly, piece by piece, neuron by neuron, attach a system of nutritious plasma and interface to the world around with cameras working in a similar fashion as our eyes, and many other functions and properties our body consist of. Would it be possible for this man-made brain to achieve consciousness? Or is it that we now can say it is possible to construct a consciousness, however we have to somehow define that a "computer" is not the same as this man-made brain? If so, then by definition we always have to say a "computer" is a man made machine that is not and cannot be conscious, by definition of the word itself, and not by what we're able to design or construct.

 

In other words, if the word "computer" have to be defined as "a singleton machine that cannot be conscious", then what's the point to argue the differences between a brain and a computer, since it's definition must mean that it cannot be a brain. However if the word "computer" would include a man-made brain (in all its fabulous design) then computers can one day be conscious. Unless of course you subscribe to a supernatural soul that only can be introduced to a human being in the process of "inception" and "birth".

[Legion]

it seems to me that in order for you to convince me that the internet is capable of one day attaining consciousness then you would have to be able to tell me what consciousness is. What is the mind? And if you can’t tell me what the mind is then how can you convincingly argue that computers, or even networks of computers, can have one?

Just to keep things on the up and up: can you define the mind in such a way as to be sure computers won't achieve conciousness?

That's the spirit!

 

Where does the burden of proof reside? One claims that computers can embody intelligence or a mind. Doesn't the burden rest on that one?

 

I confess that I am unable to tell you what a mind is. In fact, I feel fairly certain that no one can. (Which is why I played that card.) So what I am saying is that I am an AI atheist. I say that we have no compelling reason to believe that computers can embody a mind. If you are a believer then convince me.

[Ouroboros]

I confess that I am unable to tell you what a mind is. In fact, I feel fairly certain that no one can. (Which is why I played that card.) So what I am saying is that I am an AI atheist. I say that we have no compelling reason to believe that computers can embody a mind. If you are a believer then convince me.

So basically you're saying the our mind is something more than the result of the processes of the matter?

 

What about if we make a quantum computer? Or a biological computer? What about if we assemble our own DNA, clone it, and it reproduces and we mold it to our liking and train it... what is it we created in such a case? A non-conscious being, but maybe this machine will claim it is conscious, will you deny it to make such a claim?

[Legion]

First I'd like to challenge you on what a "computer" is?

This seems like a dodge to me. I want you to tell me what a mind is. Let me go back to my books for a moment and refresh my memory. I've been thinking about myth all day, so I am out of this zone, so to speak. I will give it an attempt, but I can tell you now that it won't be: a computer is that which can't think. Rocks would fit that definition.

 

What have I gotten myself into here? Why does it seem like so many want it to be true that computers are capable of embodying a mind?

[Legion]

So basically you're saying the our mind is something more than the result of the processes of the matter?

I don't believe that there is anything unnatural or unphysical about the mind. But I also don't believe that matter is all there is to nature. I also think there are principles of organization which are almost entirely devoid of considerations of matter.

 

I can tell that stand to learn some things here by taking you guys on.

[Ouroboros]

First I'd like to challenge you on what a "computer" is?

This seems like a dodge to me. I want you to tell me what a mind is. Let me go back to my books for a moment and refresh my memory. I've been thinking about myth all day, so I am out of this zone, so to speak. I will give it an attempt, but I can tell you now that it won't be: a computer is that which can't think. Rocks would fit that definition.

Okay. I think you don't understand my point, but I'll try to explain a mind to you:

 

It's the emergence of consciousness from a very complex process in a highly advanced structure of matter where even quantum mechanics play a role in it's final function.

 

So now, back to you, why can't a future design of a computer be conscious?

 

What have I gotten myself into here? Why does it seem like so many want it to be true that computers are capable of embodying a mind?

You have gotten yourself into deep water!

 

I don't want a computer to be capable of embodying a mind. For me it's just a natural end of the reasoning behind the non-dualistic view of human nature that I hold. There are two ways we are capable of consciousness:

 

1) The soul is a supernatural "thing" that attaches to our brain of some unknown reasons and are able to communicate with our brain through unknown principles. Maybe this "soul" matter gets attached to our brain because our brain works as a "receiver" or "antenna". Which leads to the question: is it possible to replicate this "antenna" like functionality through human design and mechanics? Very possible, in my opinion.

 

2) Or our soul is just the illusion of existence and identity through emergence of the actual process of the brain. If this is the case, again, we could very well be able to reproduce a brain that would do the exact same thing.

 

What other options to the concept of "soul" or "consciousness" do your propose? Lets look at them all.

 

Or you can take this approach, why does a fetus grow and become a conscious human being? What is it that is so special about Human DNA that only humans can have it? Or is it that we misunderstand the concept and can't see that consciousness is a gradual faculty that grows with experience and development rather a On-Off concept?

[Ouroboros]

So basically you're saying the our mind is something more than the result of the processes of the matter?

I don't believe that there is anything unnatural or unphysical about the mind. But I also don't believe that matter is all there is to nature. I also think there are principles of organization which are almost entirely devoid of considerations of matter.

 

I can tell that stand to learn some things here by taking you guys on.

If all that is, is matter, space and energy and possible some other higher order or "meta-physical" energy, then when you reproduce as a human being, how is it possible that the mechanics of nature is able to reproduce a consciousness in the kids? If nature can do it, why can't we, if we figure out what nature does?

 

The only way it would be impossible for humans to reproduce it, is if it's beyond nature, i.e. supernatural and outside our ability to ever control or manipulate it. Currently a baby is a reproduction of mind, and it's using DNA and matter to do it.

[Legion]

Okay. I think you don't understand my point, but I'll try to explain a mind to you:

 

It's the emergence of consciousness from a very complex process in a highly advanced structure of matter where even quantum mechanics play a role in it's final function.

 

What other options to the concept of "soul" or "consciousness" do your propose? Lets look at them all.

First, I want to make it crystal clear that I am a naturalist. I don't believe in the supernatural. You got that? And I don't believe in "souls" so to speak.

 

What you seem to paint here is a vitalism/mechanism choice. I have been told that there is a third option, which you touched upon Hans, called complexity. I am not vitalist. I don't think there is something forever mysterious about life or mind. But neither do I believe that machines are capable of life or mind. I think they can be understood. But we may have to examine this notion of complexity. What is it?

[Ouroboros]

First, I want to make it crystal clear that I am a naturalist. I don't believe in the supernatural. You got that? And I don't believe in "souls" so to speak.

 

What you seem to paint here is a vitalism/mechanism choice. I have been told that there is a third option, which you touched upon Hans, called complexity. I am not vitalist. I don't think there is something forever mysterious about life or mind. But neither do I believe that machines are capable of life or mind. I think they can be understood. But we may have to examine this notion of complexity. What is it?

Complexity is what also is called "emergence" theory. It's basically the idea that a "meta-physical" level come into existence from the very emergence (coming out from) the complexity of the underlying process. My second option was what you consider the third option. What you think of as the second option is more of the "robot" idea or living "zombie" or such, which I don't think of as a viable idea at all. We're not talking about a very clever robot that mimics human behavior, and that would be somehow conscious, that's not what I mean at all.

 

Take MS Windows as an example. Does it exist on the CD, or does it exist on the harddisk, or does it exist in your hardware (CPU, memory, keyboard, screen) or does it exist as it's own entity emerging from all of it together? So where does Windows go when you turn of the Computer? Where is Windows before you turn it on? Can it be reproduced? Is every session of Windows the same session or is it different each time? (But yet, it's Windows.)

 

If animals have a low level of consciousness, and if babies also have a beginning to a consciousness, but you have to grow and experience to fully expand it, then is it not possible to recreate this process by other means? Can it only be done using DNA?

 

There has been experiments with biological computers, and even to reproduce brain cells. If I remember right, they replicated a small set of brain cells and managed to get them to do simple calculations. Also, right now the processing and memory of a home computer is about 1% (IIRC) of the brain capacity. We're slowly getting closer. Ageia had plans on making PPU network servers (but I don't know what happened, they removed it from the website), where the vector processing was in the trillion OPS. We're not talking quad core, but billion-core, but only for straight, vectorized, calculations. With computers like that. Maybe even do a beowulf kind of processing grid, we could create a computer with the same processing power as one brain. I don't see it as unlikely at all that we could end up with machines that can "think". Btw, there are lab computers that do experiments. I heard about this some years ago, some advanced chem-lab computer that was inventing its own hypothetical combinations and doing the tests to confirm. Not just a "do what I say" machine, but a "make something up and see if works" machine. If this is true, that a machine can be inventive, we're truly are getting closer.

[Guest Net Eng]

Hmm Reboot. I suspect that computers will have to change to the point where they are no longer computers, in the sense that we now know it, to embody intelligence.

 

Let me ask you this Re. I know from first hand experience that I anticipate. I am constantly in anticipation.

 

Do you think computers anticipate? I don't think they do. They seem entirely reactive to me.

 

Agreed. Computers do what they are told. Make a faster computer and current operating systems (dedicated or not) will do the same shit faster.

 

/rant

in the case of Windows Vista that means fuck up faster

/end rant

<sigh> I feel better now.

 

Also the promise of artificial intelligence (which is where we are heading in this thread) was promised decades ago. They're still working on it. I'm not discounting that in the future it's possible... but for now AI is still a dream.

[Ouroboros]

Also the promise of artificial intelligence (which is where we are heading in this thread) was promised decades ago. They're still working on it. I'm not discounting that in the future it's possible... but for now AI is still a dream.

True. We're not there yet. But I do think it could be possible one day, and very well will be, unless we destroy the world first.

 

 

---

 

By the way, this brings up that Weizenbaum, who created the Eliza program (long time ago, and I made my own simple implementation of it on a Luxor ABC800 computer with a Zilog80 CPU, some 25 years ago), died recently: article

[Legion]

Hans I admit that I am not yet able to dismantle all of your arguments. But I am hoping to be able to in a year or so.

 

I've not yet told you this but I was actually very interested in AI for several years. But eventually I became very disillusioned. I eventually came to suspect that AI was a pipe dream.

 

Here is where I stand now. I suspect that in order to understand the mind I will first have to understand organisms. The mind is clearly instantiated in the brain and the brain is but one organ of the body.

 

Let me ask you this Hans. Do you hold the metaphor that organisms are machines?

[Ouroboros]

Here is where I stand now. I suspect that in order to understand the mind I will first have to understand organisms. The mind is clearly instantiated in the brain and the brain is but one organ of the body.

I don't disagree with that. I think it's a very complicated issue, and maybe we'll fail because we (as humanity) would become to dumb to really figure it out, but I don't think it's impossible in a theoretical sense.

 

Let me ask you this Hans. Do you hold the metaphor that organisms are machines?

It's a little loaded question.

 

I think everything is a machine, even the mind and organisms. I don't hold it as a metaphor, I think it is a machine. But the problem by saying that is people are very simple minded in thinking what a "machine" is. They think of a clock-work or a mechanical robot which assemblies a car or something, or maybe they think of a TV or a CD player. But that's a very simplified view of "machine". The process how a cell divides itself into two copies, is "mechanical" int he sense it follows real, and testable, physical and chemical laws of nature. The same for every bioelectric signal that goes through the brain. It can be explain and experimented upon. So in the end, I don't think there is a difference between matter acting for one thing, or matter acting for another thing, but the difference is how "evolved" or advanced one machine over another. And consciousness/awareness/soul or whatever it is, does somehow stem and connect to, and is based upon, the level of advancement one "machine" has.

 

If organisms are not "machines" (of nature) then they're something else, and there is a dividing line we can't set between the two groups of "mechanical" and "living". To me it must be part of the whole, or the "living" have something above and beyond what nature consists of. If living is not by nature, then it must be beyond nature. And you believe it is not so, then "living" must be part of nature, and mechanics follow physical laws, and so does "living" things. It follows the physical laws of nature, and not of anything outside of it.

 

Now, with that said, it is very possible that "living" require a certain connection to Quantum Mechanics. Like "free will" for instance. Maybe our "free will" is indeterministic because it somehow connects to quarks? If that's the case, just know that they already are experimenting in quantum based computers.

 

 

--edit--

 

I think some of our misunderstanding might come from the issue of, not if there is a theoretical possibility to create a machine that is conscious, but rather if it's practically possible. There might be some curve balls in nature that will put a halt to our technology and we can't progress our computers any further and the goal to the ultimate AI is just but a dream. Some predict that we might not be able to produce any more computers in 15 years, because of scant resources (I think beryllium is one of the elements we're running out of). If this is true, and we can't solve that problem, we will not get our intelligent robots.

[Legion]

Hans, Reboot, I am not yet able to effectively argue what are now only intuitions. If we went by the number of contemporary scientists that would agree with you that AI is possible in principle then you would win the debate. But agreement does not imply correctness.

 

I want to quote some excerpts from the late theoretical biologist Robert Rosen here from his book Life Itself. I’ve been trying to understand his work for a while now. I suspect that when I comprehend it I will be able to dismantle your arguments.

 

Robert Rosen: In short, efficient causation of something inside the system is tied to final cause of something outside the system. As Voltaire once succinctly put it, “a clock argues a clockmaker,†from which he went on to conclude, by extrapolation, “therefore a universe argues a God.†This kind of dialectic is in fact, as we have seen, inherent in the concept of a machine; once one puts efficient causation of a system component into the environment, one thereby also puts final causation outside the environment. And as I pointed out before, one of the main thrusts of the machine metaphor itself was to dispense with final causation entirely. Instead, it reappears in a worse form than before.

…skip…

Thus, we conclude that there is no way to go from machines to organism, neither by adding states nor by subtracting (constraining) them. However, we can easily go the other way. Namely, given a relational description of an organism, i.e. an abstract block diagram of the type I have described, we can easily find subdiagrams that look like (the diagrams of) machines. Put another way, organisms generally have many different machine models. But the organism itself is not in any sense a direct sum of such models; it can only be considered as a kind of limit of them.

…skip…

Let us sum up the status of the “machine metaphor.†It succeds in likening organisms and machines to the extent that both admit relational descriptions. But beyond that, it is fundamentally incorrect; it inherently inverts the notion of what is general and what is special.

On balance, the Cartesian metaphor of organism as machine has proved to be a good idea. Ideas do not have to be correct in order to be good; it is only necessary that, if they do fail, they do so in an interesting way.

[Ouroboros]

When Rosen argues the "Final Cause", to me it rings the bell from the ancient philosopher Aristotle. Final Cause is loosely translated to "Purpose". Purpose requires a higher order or will of things. To me, it sounds like Rosen is a believer in a metaphysical state of organisms that transcend matter, or in other words, organisms have something that is more than matter, and it can't be captured in nature or by science. But I suspect it wasn't really what he wanted, but I just wanted to make a note of that first, that I suspect some underlying direction of his argument that is not based on a fully naturalistic view. I think it kind of argues that there's a "life force" that is beyond and transcends nature, and if that is the case, I still think it's possible to make a machine that would be "just like" us.

 

Secondly, I suspect that when he use the "machine metaphor" argument, he conceives the image of a machine in his head, from the old fashioned "steam engine with cog wheels" . It has to do with the definition of the word, that's why I earlier said it was a loaded subject. And that's why I favored the term "man made" instead. A Machine is to many people a mechanical and predictable apparatus that is programmed and set in its path to only do as it is told, and never expand it's own "knowledge" or functions. But today they have programs that evolve and expand in function. Machines today aren't the same as machines yesterday. If the word "machine" is a stumbling block for people, then lets call it something else, because these softwares that grow in complexity aren't machines in the original sense either, so either they're machines (which they're not) or they're organisms (which they're not), so we now have a third instance of an automaton, and we can't set a clear line between any one of them. Will we make more in the future, and keep on adding "terms" for each one of them? Or should we redefine the words we use to describe these things? A computer isn't a machine like machines were during Descartes or Newtons time. They have evolved, and they're more than machines today.

 

The day when they make a biological computer, that is, we use real brain cells (a whole 100 trillion of them) and make a copy of the brain with these designed nerves and cells, is this apparatus a machine or an organism?

 

Btw, I saw that MIT Press have an article criticizing Rosen's conclusion based on ill based premises: link

I don't subscribe to the journal, so I can't read it, but the abstract clearly claims Rosen got things wrong.

[Legion]

When Rosen argues the "Final Cause", to me it rings the bell from the ancient philosopher Aristotle.Final Cause is loosely translated to "Purpose".

Right on. Final cause can also be loosely translated as "intent."

 

To me, it sounds like Rosen is a believer in a metaphysical state of organisms that transcend matter,...

Absolutely not. Rosen was no believer in the metaphysical. He was a naturalist, and a scientist of the highest caliber.

 

...or in other words, organisms have something that is more than matter, and it can't be captured in nature or by science.

They do have something that is more than matter. He called it organization. And he argued that it is is manifest in nature and can be understood by science.

 

I think it kind of argues that there's a "life force" that is beyond and transcends nature,...

That's vitalism, a dirty, fighting word.

 

he conceives the image of a machine in his head, from the old fashioned "steam engine with cog wheels".

Not at all. He uses a formal description of machine. He says that Turing first described the formal machine.

 

The day when they make a biological computer, that is, we use real brain cells (a whole 100 trillion of them) and make a copy of the brain with these designed nerves and cells, is this apparatus a machine or an organism?

If it is alive then it's an organism.

[Legion]

Btw, I saw that MIT Press have an article criticizing Rosen's conclusion based on ill based premises: link

I don't subscribe to the journal, so I can't read it, but the abstract clearly claims Rosen got things wrong.

Make no mistake about it Hans. He is hated and reviled by some. And the reason why is because if correct his work will completely alter physics and science as we now know it.

 

Check this out... http://www.panmere.com/

[Ouroboros]

Right on. Final cause can also be loosely translated as "intent."

Which is the argument the Catholic Church used to argue the existence of God. For a purpose to exist, someone have to plant that purpose prior to the existence of the object. Or are we talking about an emerging purpose from the evolving system?

 

They do have something that is more than matter. He called it organization. And he argued that it is is manifest in nature and can be understood by science.

If organization emerges from matter, than we can copy the components needed in matter to recreate the organization. If we can't copy the organization, then the organization isn't natural.

 

I think it kind of argues that there's a "life force" that is beyond and transcends nature,...

That's vitalism, a dirty, fighting word.

And it's supernatural, beyond nature. I do think Rosen were playing with dualism, but with carefully picked words trying to avoid saying it straight out.

 

Not at all. He uses a formal description of machine. He says that Turing first described the formal machine.

You see, that is the a mechanical, programmed, predictable machine. That is the old fashioned machine idea I'm saying we have to forget. I'm talking about a unpredictable, copy of our brain, machine. Literally. Using physical neurons, attaching them and starting to feed data, connect it to robot arms and what not. Is it alive or not? It's man-made, but is it alive or is it a machine (in the new definition)?

 

I knew these arguments were coming when I answered you earlier, and I tried to be proactive and I explain why it's so touchy. But we still get into this discussion that is completely based on two different views of what a "machine" is, and how to define it. The Turing formal machine was... formal. It was formulated and constructed to do specific tasks. And yes, life or organisms are not like that, but that's not what I was talking about.

 

Listen, we have today software that mutates and start doing new things it never did before. That means that the programming for that software is made on a deeper level than just computational. It's only programming is for it to "learn" and "evolve". I can't recall if Turing defined a machine that way. From what I can remember, his definitions was about very linear and very strict coded systems.

 

But now, with the quantum computers, we're entering a completely new field of theory of machines. It's not Turing machines anymore. So forget the sequential processing formal machine code, but enter into parallel fuzzy logic with superposition memory.

 

The day when they make a biological computer, that is, we use real brain cells (a whole 100 trillion of them) and make a copy of the brain with these designed nerves and cells, is this apparatus a machine or an organism?

If it is alive then it's an organism.

But still it's completely man made. That's why I say the word "man made" is better than "machine", just because of these conflicting views that people can't get passed the definition of a machine as a steam engine powered calculator. In this example I just gave you, human created the artificial brain, and you call it alive, so can it become conscious?

[Ouroboros]

Check this out... http://www.panmere.com/

Thanks for the link. I looked at some of the material about Rosen's complexity and I still know what I know and even where you and I are failing in communicating. And I'm trying my hardest to explain.

 

Let me ask you this, what is Rosen's argument to why we can't create a Complex System?

 

And secondly, what is Rosen's argument that the definition of a machine must always be that of a Simple Systems?

[Guest end3]

Yes, but will it be able to make balloon animals?

 

edited: I forgot the humor smiley