AI megathread

I didn't advocate for computationalism as I think think there's still a mysterious component missing just as Wilder Penfield concluded in his brain stimulation studies. But he could for example stimulate memories and as we know memories can also be lost by damage to the brain. So yes I very much believe there's a lot encoded in the brain that's lost on damage and death. We also know stroke can cause people to change behaviour etc etc. - so I don't think the mysterious component is related to our individual identity.

Tsai (2007) "Recovery of learning and memory is associated with chromatin remodeling", found that Memory is not lost, we just seem to loose access to it when the networks are damaged. It's reestablished by encouraging robust regrowth of the networks.

Computation itself is not "problem solving", not does or can it arise from it. Computation is simply a blind, abstract process of physical processes that extremely talented human engineers developed for the purpose of doing mathematics more quickly. Which then evolved into something more through more and more and more abstractions piled on top.

Yeah one thing I go back to is the Tinker Toy Computer, which as a Turing Machine running programs can actually play Tic Tac Toe.

If someone could actually watch the movements of this literal toy computer [at] each stage of execution as it ran the LLM programs, would there be any reason to say something metaphysically significant is going on? What if we paid a city of people to enact a Turing Machine?

There's also another option, this other Turing Machine instantiated in wood ->



I suspect someone very rich is going to have build something like this on a large scale to show how the internals of the computer operate when supposedly doing cognitive work (such as running Chat GPT) versus how the internals look running programs most of us would agree are not doing anything genuinely cognitive at all such as Theorem Provers and Game AI.

Tsai (2007) "Recovery of learning and memory is associated with chromatin remodeling", found that Memory is not lost, we just seem to loose access to it when the networks are damaged. It's reestablished by encouraging robust regrowth of the networks.

If this is so why does humans not form any episodic memories during the first 2-3 years of life when those networks are relatively evolving the most?

Terminal lucidity suggests brain damage prevents the embodied mind's access to its faculties, not that the faculties are lost for all time.

The evidence for terminal lucidity is extremely poor. It's like Sam Parnia who doesn't really have any NDEs after 25 years of research worth mentioning. It could well be that the few cases are due to these patients having less extensive brain damage than the majority.

The evidence for terminal lucidity is extremely poor. It's like Sam Parnia who doesn't really have any NDEs after 25 years of research worth mentioning. It could well be that the few cases are due to these patients having less extensive brain damage than the majority.

Yeah I think you’re underplaying the evidence here. Even if Parnia didn’t have any NDEs worth mentioning there’s still plenty of documented NDEs.

Similarly there’s at least some history for terminal lucidity.

It’s kinda of amusing you’re discounting all the records of NDEs, meanwhile you are trying to make bold metaphysical claims based on what seems like nothing more than your personal impression of LLM output. So people who witnessed an NDEr’s apparition or had a NDE themselves are just fooling themselves, but somehow you’re looking at LLM output is a gold standard? Still waiting to see if you can provide an execution trace from input to output to justify the idea the program is doing anything like actual human cognition.

But regardless none of this changes the fact that brains can’t encode memories, if by “encode” you mean there is a structure made of matter that, simply by arrangement, has an intrinsic relationship to the Experiencer’s recollection-experience in the present of their past experience. The neuroscientist-philosopher Tallis has actually written about this specifically.

It’s kinda of amusing you’re discounting all the records of NDEs, meanwhile you are trying to make bold metaphysical claims based on what seems like nothing more than your personal impression of LLM output. So people who witnessed an NDEr’s apparition or had a NDE themselves are just fooling themselves, but somehow you’re looking at LLM output is a gold standard? Still waiting to see if you can provide an execution trace from input to output to justify the idea the program is doing anything like actual human cognition.

Your continued use of the straw man argument does not impress me. (I'm at no point talking about code - that's what makes your arguments a straw man.) Large Language Models (LLMs) and other AIs have shown that the presence of clusters in extremely high-dimensional functions can be used to simulate cognitive behavior. Coupled with ordinary human observations—how infants develop, acquire language, and how cognitive growth tapers off after early adolescence, alongside the declines associated with aging and brain diseases—this suggests that who we are is largely shaped by the sensory input we receive in those formative years. All that sensory input is data. I don't think we would be anything without that data.

Your continued use of the straw man argument does not impress me. (I'm at no point talking about code - that's what makes your arguments a straw man.) Large Language Models (LLMs) and other AIs have shown that the presence of clusters in extremely high-dimensional functions can be used to simulate cognitive behavior. Coupled with ordinary human observations—how infants develop, acquire language, and how cognitive growth tapers off after early adolescence, alongside the declines associated with aging and brain diseases—this suggests that who we are is largely shaped by the sensory input we receive in those formative years. All that sensory input is data. I don't think we would be anything without that data.

How can asking about how the actual code works be a straw man?! 

If you mean “simulate” as in “fake” then I agree with you, but then it’s not metaphysically interesting. It’s just a magic trick in the sense the old GPS program Norvig talks about is a trick.

How can asking about how the actual code works be a straw man?! 

If you mean “simulate” as in “fake” then I agree with you, but then it’s not metaphysically interesting. It’s just a magic trick in the sense the old GPS program Norvig talks about is a trick.

It's you who seems very interested in code, not me. Software is so boring. Yes, I do think it's metaphysically interesting to explore the structure that’s preserved in data. For many years, researchers tried (in vain) to model natural languages with formal logic (like your little DSL example). But now it's been proven that a fluid conversation can be simulated using statistics alone. No magic sauce required. Certain human traits require the right data at the right time or certain skills will never develop like language. The similarities can't be ignored.

If this is so...

It is so...

It's you who seems very interested in code, not me. Software is so boring. Yes, I do think it's metaphysically interesting to explore the structure that’s preserved in data. For many years, researchers tried (in vain) to model natural languages with formal logic (like your little DSL example). But now it's been proven that a fluid conversation can be simulated using statistics alone. No magic sauce required. Certain human traits require the right data at the right time or certain skills will never develop like language. The similarities can't be ignored.

Seems like since you don’t care about how the the code of LLMs work you’d have been just as impressed by GPS or ELIZA…