Re:Consciousness is a recurrent neural network
by the_gipsy on Thursday November 24, 2016 @11:32AM
(#13031149)
> What you _want_ is the user manual for Mac OS.
I think "the kernel's source code" would be a better analogy. For all I know the Mac OS manual is probably silly and explains how to turn it on and off, and how to go to appstore and itunes.
Re:Consciousness is a recurrent neural network
by partycoder on Thursday November 24, 2016 @10:49AM
(#13030885)
This is a talk that I personally enjoyed about this https://youtu.be/NPtAIVieh4k?t=8m5s (Dileep George, from Vicarious)
Re:Consciousness is a recurrent neural network
by naasking on Thursday November 24, 2016 @11:01AM
(#13030939)
> - neurons are not causal.
What does that mean?
Re:Consciousness is a recurrent neural network
by hprotagonist on Thursday November 24, 2016 @11:10AM
(#13030990)
the same input does not always produce the same output. IN fact it's guaranteed not to for at least three reasons:
- repeatedly presenting the same input to a neuron has a response that depends on neurotransmitter reuptake rates. If the synapse isn't "recovered", you get a different spike rate out.
- neurons fire stochastically in the absence of stimulus. Responses to small stimuli are indistinguishable from noise.
- The above two phenomena propagate through connected series of neurons in a nonlinear way.
Re:Consciousness is a recurrent neural network
by naasking on Thursday November 24, 2016 @11:23AM
(#13031087)
Right, but these properties don't make neurons acausal, it makes them stateful and sensitive to noise which is not explicitly modelled as an input in your view. You can model noise as a constant input variable though, which preserves causality, just not determinism.
Re:Consciousness is a recurrent neural network
by hprotagonist on Thursday November 24, 2016 @12:23PM
(#13031430)
Re:Consciousness is a recurrent neural network
by HelloYouPerson on Thursday November 24, 2016 @11:08AM
(#13030976)
They're a little neurotic.
Re:Consciousness is a recurrent neural network
by pier25 on Thursday November 24, 2016 @12:02PM
(#13031305)
> which you shouldn't
Why not? Isn't the brain a biological machine?
Re:Consciousness is a recurrent neural network
by hprotagonist on Thursday November 24, 2016 @12:17PM
(#13031389)
ish. Why do you think all machines are computers?
some things to remember:
- neurons are not linear.
- neurons are not time-invariant.
- neurons are not causal.
- neurons and actual anatomical connectivity do not map well to electronics-inspired wiring diagrams. (see: dendritic arbor)
- anatomical structure does not imply functional connectivity.
- functional connectivity does not imply anatomy!
- synaptic junctions respond more or less well to different neurotransmitters, all of which are continuously present, at different times. We don't know why.
- So far, what we have observed about anatomy and physiology of the brain does not look like a RNN.
- The relationship between the meat architecture and the phenomena it hosts may not be as 1:1 as you'd like. Opinions vary.
My favorite analogy about relating brains to consciousness is this: "if you believe that brains are like computers, (which you shouldn't, but just for the sake of argument, let's), then even if you really and truly produce a full map of the brain, what you've _got_ is the spec sheet for an x86 processor. What you _want_ is the user manual for Mac OS."