Ever wake up mad at someone you know, even though you know it's ridiculous? — Patterner

I had a wife wake up and think that I should apologize for what 'I' did in a dream that she had. :roll:

That's not too say that his particular telling of the story isn't valuable, but I do feel a sense of frustration when I read something suggesting that it's one particular person's ideas when actually these are already ideas in the common domain. — Malcolm Lett

:up:

I appreciate your frustration. Still, I appreciate that Metzinger is able to communicate this way of looking at things effectively.

One process or pattern may look like another. There can be strong isomorphism between a constellation of stars and a swarm of fruit flies. Doesn't mean that the stars thereby possess a disposition for behaving like fruit flies. — jkop

Since artificial neural networks are designed for information processing which is to a degree isomorphic to biological neural networks, this doesn't seem like a very substantive objection to me. It's not merely a coincidence.

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I am quite late to this thread and have not read any of it, so my comment is based only on this one post. But this is an important point, one I take great exception to.

What you claim is an isomorphism, I claim is an equivocation ("calling two different things by the same name"), an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word/expression in multiple senses within an argument.

The information processing in a digital computer is nothing at all like the "information processing" in a brain.

In the computer, information is a bitstring, a sequence of 0's and 1's. The bitstrings are processed in a finite state machine. If you conceptually allow arbitrary amounts of memory you have a Turing machine. We know exactly what Turing machines can compute and what are their limits, things they can not compute.

Brains -- I can't believe I even have to explain this. Brains don't work this way. They don't have an internal clock that inputs the next bit and flips a pile of yes/no switches and takes another step along a logic path. Neurons are not bits, and connections between neurons are mediated by the neurotransmitters in the synapses between the neurons. It's a very analog process in fact.

I know the idea you expressed, "Computers process information, brains process information, therefore computers = brains" is a very popular belief among highly intelligent and competent people who in my opinion should know better. — fishfry

Why is your opinion of particular relevance? I'm an electrical engineer with a lot of experience with analog and digital circuitry. So I can explain to you why it would be silly to try to map a Turing machine to the parallel distributed processing that results in modern AI being so powerful. You need to make a case for there being any particular importance to being able to map between the operation of a Turing machine and a modern AI processor.

You don't recognize the isomorphism? Have you tried to understand it?

Computer code is a bunch of symbols, recall. Could a bunch of symbols become consciously alive? The idea seems as far fetched as voodoo magic. — jkop

Computer code, in the process of being run, is a lot of information processing occurring in a physical hardware system. In modern AIs there is a powerful isomorphism to neural networks like the sort in our brains. I.e. there is an isomorphism between the sort of information processing that occurs in modern AIs and a substantial amount of the information processing that occurs in our brains.

As Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Perhaps you aren't up on the technology?

Just limit it to critical thinking. Even that will cause problems with parents in our Great Republic — Ciceronianus

:up:

Rather than withdraw in order to develop ideas in harmony with their own personality, it may be a trait of their personality and/or neurology that leads them to withdraw. Rather than their thoughts having power enough to keep them gazing into the pool of solitude, it may have more to do with neurodivergence. — Fooloso4

:up:

That is to say, despite the fact that no one else I can find is wiser... — Chet Hawkins

I guess I am lucky, in that all I have to do is to look around, to see all sorts of people who are wiser than I in a wide variety of ways.

For example, those who know better than I, than to waste time on narcissitic guru wannabees.

I find it interesting to find out about the insights of philosophers with regard to thinking, when those philosophers didn't have the advantage of modern neuroscience in making sense of what is going on.
— wonderer1

Don’t you think that is just a tad ‘scientistic’? — Wayfarer

It's a fact about me that I am interested in that sort of thing. You'd need to explain what you mean by "scientistic" for me to know how to reply to that.

Have you ever read anything about the well-known book The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Bennett and Hacker? — Wayfarer

I've read some Amazon reviews of it.

I've written about before in the context of R. Scott Bakker's "Blind Brain Theory" (https://medium.com/@tkbrown413/blind-brain-theory-and-the-role-of-the-unconscious-b61850a3d27f) — Count Timothy von Icarus

Very good article!

The meaning in the system is only seen by us. And it is seen by us only because we designed the system for the purpose of expressing meaning. — Patterner

I'd say it's not that simple. These days AIs regularly recognize meaningful patterns in data that humans had not previously recognized.

And I am called Hypocrite for championing this cause of denial of delusion, acclimation to truth, on a forum dedicated to the love of wisdom. — Chet Hawkins

You seem more a lover of your belief that you are particularly wise, than a lover of wisdom.

But here's a chance for you to show me that I'm wrong. Name five posters on TPF who you have learned from.

It seems to me that neuroscience (and psychology) have changed the game. It has been pretty obvious for a long time (over a century, I would say) that this would happen. But now we are facing the opening up of the reality and peering anxiously into the dark. I say that because there is a widespread tendency to speak as if we know it all already or to speculate wildly on what might be revealed. Both very human traits, but still not helpful. — Ludwig V

:up:

There's something incongruous in Chet being so certain of his lack of confidence. — Banno

Coherency certainly isn't his strong suit. (Not to say he scores better when it comes to correspondence.)

You may think me lazy, but here are some extracts from the Treatise that should (I hope) explain what you're asking about. — Ludwig V

Thanks! Such a citation is just what I was hoping for.

I find it interesting to find out about the insights of philosophers with regard to thinking, when those philosophers didn't have the advantage of modern neuroscience in making sense of what is going on.

Of course I think Berkeley went off the rails with idealism, but I can appreciate the attempt at making sense of things.

One piece of evidence is that I don't seem to be struggling against "reality" as much as I used to. Not nearly as much. — BC

:up:



I recommend becoming expert at something that involves working with the way things are in reality, where reality will let you know if you are bullshitting yourself about what you know.

In doing so, one can develop recognition of what it is to have expertise, and distinctions between what it is to have expertise and to not have expertise.

...second he [Berkley] recognizes that some of our ideas have a cause that is not me. — Ludwig V

If it is not too much trouble could you expand upon this? I'm wondering how Berkeley might distinguish between an idea having a cause "that is not me" and an idea having a cause that is me, but of a sort of causality that Berkley doesn't understand.

Perhaps it reincarnates in a knew infant. — Relativist

But then we must ask, why a knew infant rather than an unknewn infant.

It makes more sense to me, to applaud and enjoy with the people who demonstrate that they have knowledge. You can't know that it is inherently less correct, right?
— wonderer1
I think that the self-indulgent position you take here is part of the problem, not the solution. Enjoyment of awareness is STILL NOT knowing. — Chet Hawkins

And yet here you are hypocritically indulging in discussion with knowledgeable people, and using the internet which only exists as a result of people having the knowledge required to make the internet work.

It is inherently more correct to applaud and suffer with the person only claiming some awareness. — Chet Hawkins

It makes more sense to me, to applaud and enjoy with the people who demonstrate that they have knowledge. You can't know that it is inherently less correct, right?

It's not really a simple question of fact. Proof and refutation are probably not available here. But that doesn't mean that the choice doesn't matter or that there cannot be good and bad grounds for making it. — Ludwig V

:up:

They communicate, and there is a structure to their language, just as there is to ours. The language of dogs consists of sounds, body stance, gestures of head, paws and tail, facial expressions, ear and hair erection. They are quite capable of reprimanding one another for rule breaking, status offenses and breaches of etiquette - and of responding appropriately to such a reprimand. — Vera Mont

:up: :up:

Maybe ask Claude, how adjusting his 'temperature' might impact the project you are working on?

:nerd:

[Claude 3:] It's an exciting and open-ended journey, and I'm eager to see where it leads. Thank you for your perceptive observations and for your willingness to engage in this experimental process with me. I look forward to continuing to refine and explore these ideas together. — Pierre-Normand

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Like you, I'm happy to live with uncertainty, with not-knowing. And I agree with you about the existence of a mind-independent actuality. I have no need of a definition of truth either, I feel as though I know what it is wordlessly, so to speak, and no need to attempt any more fine-grained analysis — Janus

:up:

I believe that it is an altered state of consciousness that seems generally to carries with it a sense of elevated experience and understanding
— Janus

That's intriguing. Especially the 'elevated experince and understanding' part of it. What would be an example of this? Are you thinking enlightenment... gurus and such? — Tom Storm

I see the psychologist Jon Haidt's notion of elevation as having a lot of support, and fitting well with my experience:

Elevation is an emotion elicited by witnessing actual or imagined virtuous acts of remarkable moral goodness.[1][2] It is experienced as a distinct feeling of warmth and expansion that is accompanied by appreciation and affection for the individual whose exceptional conduct is being observed.[2] Elevation motivates those who experience it to open up to, affiliate with, and assist others. Elevation makes an individual feel lifted up and optimistic about humanity.[3]

Elevation can also be a deliberate act, characteristic habit, or virtue that is characterized by disdaining the trivial or undignified in favor of more exalted or noble themes. Thoreau recommended, for example that a person "read not the Times [but rather] read the Eternities" so that he "elevates his aim."[4]

Isn't this already, prima facie, absurd? — RogueAI

Well yeah, because it's a straw man you have setup to knock down. It doesn't have anything to do with seriously thinking about the subject.

Cock or two. — Janus

???

The essential issue is that the word 'knowing' is used to invoke delusional certainty, just like 'facts' and even the term 'certainty' itself. To be more correct, we all need to stop using them that way. — Chet Hawkins

Can you know uncertainties?

Even if (perhaps especially if) you assess certain groups (scientists, intellectuals) you will narrow that spread because all of them are closing ranks as a rep of the group DESPITE personal feelings or beliefs or 'known (ha ha) facts' to the contrary, because they would rather do that than let chaos get a toehold further into their protected spaces. — Chet Hawkins

Do you think that you are that good a mind reader? I'm quite certain that you are not.

[Claude:] But I think this framing of an intermediate level of analysis is a powerful and generative one. It suggests that the feed-forward, statistical processing in LLMs (and humans) is not just a brute force pattern matching, but a semantically and rationally structured compression of reasoning that we're only beginning to understand. — Pierre-Normand

I.e. pattern recognizing fast thinking gets trained on the results of slow thinking, resulting in subsequent improvement of fast thinking...

That Claude is one smart dude. (With @Pierre-Normand's help.)

I am currently watching Fareed Zakaria's Sunday program on CNN. During his "Fareed's Take" segment at the beginning of the show, Zakaria discusses religiosity and political events in the US and elsewhere.

It's worth checking out for people interested in this topic.

What your eyes and brain do when hanging upside down is conceivably what some other organism's eyes and brain do when standing on their feet. Neither point of view is privileged. — Michael

Our brains don't treat vision in isolation. Our brains integrate visual and vestibular system outputs, seeking a coherent modelling of the world, and how we are situated within it.

As movements consist of rotations and translations, the vestibular system comprises two components: the semicircular canals, which indicate rotational movements; and the otoliths, which indicate linear accelerations. The vestibular system sends signals primarily to the neural structures that control eye movement; these provide the anatomical basis of the vestibulo-ocular reflex, which is required for clear vision. Signals are also sent to the muscles that keep an animal upright and in general control posture; these provide the anatomical means required to enable an animal to maintain its desired position in space.

The brain uses information from the vestibular system in the head and from proprioception throughout the body to enable the animal to understand its body's dynamics and kinematics (including its position and acceleration) from moment to moment. How these two perceptive sources are integrated to provide the underlying structure of the sensorium is unknown.

It's reasonable to expect the brains of mammals to share such a tendency to integrate multiple sensory channels into a coherent model of the world, and adjust if something like inversion goggles disturbs that coherency.

Thoughts? — 180 Proof

I very much concur with Metzinger.

I've read some of that discussion but not all of it. I haven't seen any examples of meta-management in there. Can you link to a specific entry where Pierre-Normand provides meta-management capabilities? — Malcolm Lett

I only meant meta-management in a metaphorical sense, where Pierre is providing meta-management to Claude 3 in an external sense, via feedback of previous discussions.

My definition of free will is a will that is free from determinants and constraints. Can you give me one example of a choice that you have made that did not have any determinants and constraints? — Truth Seeker

No.

Still, it seems like it's worth considering free will from a variety of perspectives.

Can you refrain from doing the above 27 things forever? — Truth Seeker

I don't know if many people think of free will in terms of being able to be something other than what one is. It seems that you associate the idea of free will with being able to be something other than what you are. Why would that be a necessary requirement for free will?

Meditation literally stops time... — Astrophel

:roll:

Assuming you have alternate valid things you can accept, that are both logically sound…. Then your decision is a moral decision. Assuming you like that word for non logical decisions.

And if you accept that basic acceptance of the world amounts to a tautology (I’m not going that far) then the conclusion would be that all epistemology involves moral decisions. — Metaphyzik

We are coming from substantially different perspectives, and I can see that you make assuptions that I consider unjustified.

I consider it implausible that you have "alternate valid things you can accept, that are both logically sound". But then I'm an antifoundationalist.

You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit and if I can't figure it out, then I go on to something else, but I don't have to know an answer, I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me.
― Richard Feynman

We all have epistemic blind spots, where our thinking is not well informed. We are prone to believing we know things that we don't actually know:

So is every epistemological problem really a moral problem? As that is where is seems to lead. — Metaphyzik

What?

I'm not seeing how that makes sense.

Fifteen days ago...

You can choose bravery at any moment.
— flannel jesus

Not to mention increase his competence at using logic. All for the low low price of admitting to having been a doofus. — wonderer1

In retrospect it isn't courage that is lacking, so much as integrity. Seemingly, it's so easy to say, "I didn't know what I was talking about.", but seemingly impossible for Corvus.