Saturday, March 8, 2008 | Science : Math and Tech | print version

Out of the Blue

by Seed Magazine

Thanks to SPS for the link.

Reposted from:
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/03/out_of_the_blue.php

by JONAH LEHRER • Posted March 3, 2008 05:50 AM

Can a thinking, remembering, decision-making, biologically accurate brain be built from a supercomputer?

In the basement of a university in Lausanne, Switzerland sit four black boxes, each about the size of a refrigerator, and filled with 2,000 IBM microchips stacked in repeating rows. Together they form the processing core of a machine that can handle 22.8 trillion operations per second. It contains no moving parts and is eerily silent. When the computer is turned on, the only thing you can hear is the continuous sigh of the massive air conditioner. This is Blue Brain.

The name of the supercomputer is literal: Each of its microchips has been programmed to act just like a real neuron in a real brain. The behavior of the computer replicates, with shocking precision, the cellular events unfolding inside a mind. "This is the first model of the brain that has been built from the bottom-up," says Henry Markram, a neuroscientist at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the director of the Blue Brain project. "There are lots of models out there, but this is the only one that is totally biologically accurate. We began with the most basic facts about the brain and just worked from there."

Before the Blue Brain project launched, Markram had likened it to the Human Genome Project, a comparison that some found ridiculous and others dismissed as mere self-promotion. When he launched the project in the summer of 2005, as a joint venture with IBM, there was still no shortage of skepticism. Scientists criticized the project as an expensive pipedream, a blatant waste of money and talent. Neuroscience didn't need a supercomputer, they argued; it needed more molecular biologists. Terry Sejnowski, an eminent computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute, declared that Blue Brain was "bound to fail," for the mind remained too mysterious to model. But Markram's attitude was very different. "I wanted to model the brain because we didn't understand it," he says. "The best way to figure out how something works is to try to build it from scratch."

The Blue Brain project is now at a crucial juncture. The first phase of the project—"the feasibility phase"—is coming to a close. The skeptics, for the most part, have been proven wrong. It took less than two years for the Blue Brain supercomputer to accurately simulate a neocortical column, which is a tiny slice of brain containing approximately 10,000 neurons, with about 30 million synaptic connections between them. "The column has been built and it runs," Markram says. "Now we just have to scale it up." Blue Brain scientists are confident that, at some point in the next few years, they will be able to start simulating an entire brain. "If we build this brain right, it will do everything," Markram says. I ask him if that includes selfconsciousness: Is it really possible to put a ghost into a machine? "When I say everything, I mean everything," he says, and a mischievous smile spreads across his face.

Henry Markram is tall and slim. He wears jeans and tailored shirts. He has an aquiline nose and a lustrous mop of dirty blond hair that he likes to run his hands through when contemplating a difficult problem. He has a talent for speaking in eloquent soundbites, so that the most grandiose conjectures ("In ten years, this computer will be talking to us.") are tossed off with a casual air. If it weren't for his bloodshot, blue eyes—"I don't sleep much," he admits—Markram could pass for a European playboy.

Click here to continue:
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/03/out_of_the_blue.php?page=2

Add to del.icio.us Posted: Saturday, March 8, 2008 | Permalink

Comments 151 - 200 of 208 |

Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers

151. Comment #141001 by Steve Zara on March 9, 2008 at 2:44 pm

My hunch [speculation] is that it came from an arms race in which organisms evolved more and more complex neuro representations of what the competition was going to do next. This involved mirroring the motivation. In order to do this better, it was useful to have a model of how feelings worked in the "other." If you keep building this higher and higher, I suspect it loops back on itself, and you have a feeling of existence, and "something it is like."[/speculation]

I see where you are coming from, but building higher and higher, and invoking loops still sounds to me like that Escher dragon, trying harder and harder, but still remaining in the two dimensions of neural representation and not getting even the slightest bit into the third dimension of feeling.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

152. Comment #141003 by Quine on March 9, 2008 at 2:55 pm

Until the moment when creature A must provoke in creature B, who doesn't see the tiger, the impending experience of the tiger.

Yes, and then another layer has the opportunity to enable the tiger to act so as to prevent A (models minds of both A and B). And so it goes, layer upon layer, until we get to us trying to take us (and/or our future us) into consideration.

Other Comments by Quine

153. Comment #141004 by Quine on March 9, 2008 at 3:03 pm

I see where you are coming from, but building higher and higher, and invoking loops still sounds to me like that Escher dragon, trying harder and harder, but still remaining in the two dimensions of neural representation and not getting even the slightest bit into the third dimension of feeling.

Well, they call it the "hard" problem. Some argue along these lines that we can intrinsically never get a third-person description/explanation of first-person subjectivity. I think we do have this for species far enough back in evolution. I do not see an intrinsic problem with marching forward, although the practical problem of the complexity is another thing.

Stay tuned; this will go on ...

P.S. I suggest Steve Grand's book Creation: Life and How to Make It for a look at work going on in synthetic feelings.

Other Comments by Quine

154. Comment #141005 by Teratornis on March 9, 2008 at 3:10 pm

In reply to comment #140867 by MaxD:

I suppose it doesn't matter. You've conceded my point. mind=brain at work. It's physcial processes that can be altered when the function of the brain is altered. Thats all I'm saying. I fully accept that we don't yet understand it as fully as we do other physciall processes. But simply because we don't there is no reason to go making any crazy claims about conscioussness.

I would also go at it the other way, and question whether we "really" understand other physical processes. Do we really understand, say, water? We can rattle off the chemical formula, a long list of physical properties, thermodynamic tables, etc. We can analyze samples for purity and everything else. But does that get us any closer to "really" understanding the meaning of the word "wet", let alone understanding how wetness emerges from the atomic theories, not to mention why it should?

I don't think we "really" understand everyday objects much more than we understand the brain, when we split hairs down far enough. It's just that with everyday objects, few people other than maybe the solipsists think much about the parts we don't "really" understand, or imagine there's any point in harping on them.

We have the luxury of concentrating on our non-understanding of the brain because working models have not become commonplace yet.

This reminds me of when I was a kid and first started reading dictionaries. I would look up a word, only to find it defined in terms of other words. I would look up the definitions of those words, and see that they were defined in terms of still other words. Eventually the chain of synonyms brought me back to the word I started with. At that point I actually started to feel a sense of panic, as if everything I was being told was some kind of giant Potemkin village, although at that age I hadn't learned about Potemkin villages yet.

I laugh now, sort of, but only because I've stopped worrying about the lack of any really firm anchor to what we think we know.

Other Comments by Teratornis

155. Comment #141008 by Steve Zara on March 9, 2008 at 3:15 pm

Comment #141005 by Teratornis

I would also go at it the other way, and question whether we "really" understand other physical processes. Do we really understand, say, water? We can rattle off the chemical formula, a long list of physical properties, thermodynamic tables, etc. We can analyze samples for purity and everything else. But does that get us any closer to "really" understanding the meaning of the word "wet", let alone understanding how wetness emerges from the atomic theories, not to mention why it should?

Having spent many postdoctoral years studing the properties of dilute aqueous ionic solutions, and writing simulation models of such solutions, I can tell you that we understand water pretty well, and we understand wetness. We do more than just rattle off formulae and properties of water - we have been using them to make useful (both scientific and commercial) predictions for decades.

(Sorry if I seem like I am being a bit fussy picking you up on this, but I was hooked on the idea of using computers to simulate liquids when I first saw an example of a splash of a drop of water presented as ASCII graphics on a printer page in the 70s, generated by FORTRAN code. A decade later I got the opportunity to run simulations of thousands of water molecules. Unfortunately, the grant money ended. These days, simulations are done with millions of particles, which is beyond anything I could have imagined in the 80s)

Other Comments by Steve Zara

156. Comment #141011 by Russell Blackford on March 9, 2008 at 4:37 pm

bitbutter it's not just objectivists who talk about consciousness being consciousness of something. That's a fairly widespread idea, I think. But what is this "of"ness? A present-day computer can have knowledge, or maybe "knowledge", of all sorts of things (e.g. in a data base). There must be more than that in the kind of "of"ness (or "about"ness) that we're talking about.

I'm with Steve on most of this debate. Going further, I don't think we are anywhere near having a convincing philosophy of mind. All the theories have problems. This doesn't help our theist friends, since substance dualism, their favoured theory, certainly has problems.

My view FWIW is that we know enough to be confident that consciousness does depend causally on the functioning of the neural system and particularly the "higher" areas of the brain; that it's nonetheless pretty damn mysterious how any amount of complex functioning of matter could ever get the dragon off the page (in Steve's metaphor); and that we are not well-situated to find out. Finding out may not be impossible in principle, but each of us is placed for direct observation of only one consciousness: his/her own. That's a real problem.

We can't have the slightest confidence of what kind of non-human brain or neural system or whatever generates consciousness. Do dogs have inner experiences, such as experienced pains and pleasures? I guess so. Do lizards? Well, I suppose. Do beetles? Do annelid worms? I wouldn't have a clue. Do paramecia? I imagine not. But I don't see how we'll ever be able to draw the line, given how we're epistemically placed.

Even our inference of other human minds is pretty dodgy, though we don't have much choice but to make the inference. We seem to come with a built-in (presumably evolved) tendency to attribute consciousness to each other, which is just as well because if each one of us relied on the actual evidence we might each be left in a lot of doubt as to whether solipsism might actually true. As it happens, no sane person, including me, even entertains that prospect.

Other Comments by Russell Blackford

157. Comment #141017 by robotaholic on March 9, 2008 at 4:59 pm

It seems to me that the real complexity in consciousness arises from like Douglas R. Hofstadter says looking at yourself or inner reflection... and he likens it to looking in a mirror and seeing your reflection when you have a mirror behind you and you reflect continually. He has a really great book called "I am a strange Loop" and I just love it- it's sort of meandering and the first half is really anecdotal but the last half is interesting. I could be wrong but I believe it's his 2nd book about consciousness with of course The Eternal Braid - The Goedel Escher Bach book... He wrote the Mind's Eye with Daniel Dennett long ago but i have it in pdf if anyone wants it - I recommend it! It really touches on many of the ideas in this article or at least many of the comments - especially the comment earlier about allowing a slower processor and hence a time delay in order to replicate 1 second of human consciousness...In The Mind's I Dennet has this story where he has a brain in one place and a body in another or even his consciousness is split up into different spatial locations and so where is "HE"? It's great reading funnnnn!!! Anyway if anyone wants that paper I'd be happy to zip it and email it it's great.

Other Comments by robotaholic

158. Comment #141019 by Richard Morgan on March 9, 2008 at 5:05 pm

"Paula Kirby : TNT (Truth not Tales)"

Those of you who were expecting a pretty little tune for the musical portrait of Paula are going to be surprised. But not, I hope, disappointed.
This is a portrait of Paula making short shrift of the fleas, Paula wielding the hammer of truth, showing no mercy for lying fleas.
This is the Paula Kirby we all know and love.
It is only one facet of a complex personality, but since I compose with my heart, and the heart is rather more difficult to command than the head, I wrote the notes that I had to write.

I have composed this with a feeling of deep respect, and I offer it with love.

http://www.myspace.com/fleabytes

Other Comments by Richard Morgan

159. Comment #141024 by robotaholic on March 9, 2008 at 5:15 pm

hey Richard Morgan - check out my myspace music page - i have been making music now for 15 yrs and I'm called Sensory Assault - I make it on my computer too - but it's not midi - it's all waves and samples

www.myspace.com/sensoryassault

I change my name all the time like right now it's "self preventing prophesy" lol

anyway tell me what you think oh and add me - not my music myspace but my regular one www.myspace.com/robotaholic

OXOX

Other Comments by robotaholic

160. Comment #141034 by Ohnhai on March 9, 2008 at 6:04 pm

If I recall the esimated need would be a 500 petaflop machine.

the Folding at home DC-network is currently running at 1.327 petaflops (10/Mar/2008) and one whole petaflop of that is coming from the 35,000~ currently active PS3s.

to generate a 500pf network you would need 17.5 million PS3s.. global sales of the PS3 are currently at 10.5 million and rapidly rising each one had the ability to hook into the folding at home network. so the power required is actually there if not now but in the next few months for sure... :)

or if you wanted your own PS3 super brain then it would set you back about 5billion. quite cheep really for what would be the worlds most powerful computing system...

now if IBM concentrated on building the next gen BlueBrain out of cell-processors like the one in the PS3 then I'm sure a 500pf machine would be a lot smaller than a footie field....

Other Comments by Ohnhai

161. Comment #141035 by corruptmemory on March 9, 2008 at 6:07 pm

RE: comments about the brain and software.

I've seen several comments in this forum that seem to hedge on the idea about the "mind" being software. Of course, you can try to unseat the following claim, but it will be hard: the mind is software. The "software" we speak of is intrinsic in the make-up of the brain and emerges on a number of levels, one level being the conscious mind. Being that it is software it is emulateable, and effectively as portable as one would want to make it.

There really isn't any options available to us:

* Turing showed that all computable functions are computable on a Turing machine.

* Church gave us the lambda calculus and showed that it is equivalent to a Turing machine.

* A number of other Turing machine equivalents have been developed (including the game of life played on an infinite grid, for example).

* Church's thesis (not yet proved, but considered to be true) is that there exist no computational models more powerful than a Turing machine.

Now, it may be that the brain actually contains computational capabilities that exceed a Turing machine (rather unlikely, but who knows), and can therefore potentially address P vs NP, cryptography cracking of arbitrary strength cyphers (another P/NP problem). However, this, so far does not seem to be the case. Rodger Penrose in the "Emperor's New Mind" tried, and failed to argue that the mind/brain does indeed posses computational abilities greater than a Turing Machine.

So this leaves us with:

1. The Mind/Brain is a Turing machine, therefore software, therefore emulate-able. Therefore consciousness is a emergent property of such software, and clearly as software variations, alterations, and arbitrary "improvements" (for some appropriate definition) is possible.

2. The Mind/Brain has computational abilities that exist in a class that is a super-set of Turing machines. This leads us to two options:

a) The computational model of the brain (the super-Turing model) is ultimately comprehensible.

b) Would be perpetually indistinguishable from magic.

2b has some interesting ramifications for atheists, including: seems awfully impossible to believe that, in-fact the emergence of an otherwise indecipherable mind construct embedded in the "known universe" would occur by accident or through evolutionary means. Although I cannot discount the possibility of this case, it seems to me to be, for all intents and purposes, uninteresting.

This leave 1 and 2a. In either case the mind is an emergent property of some software running on some substrate, even if the software in question is super-Turing. Now, although Church's thesis has not been proved, the general consensus is that it will eventually be shown to be true, meaning that all our minds, or all possible minds are reduce-able to software. Now I did see some disparaging remarks about reductionism in the thread, that is not a healthy way to look at this, in my humble opinion, just because the mind may be reduce-able to be included in the set of Turing computable functions does not mean that this trivializes the mind any more than I can say that you are a bag of chemicals, and as an atheist, that is perfectly OK, your life is still just as wondrous.

But software is indeed the best way to think of the mind.

Other Comments by corruptmemory

162. Comment #141036 by Quine on March 9, 2008 at 6:23 pm

Comment #141011 by Russell Blackford:

We seem to come with a built-in (presumably evolved) tendency to attribute consciousness to each other, ...

What is "built-in" is the ability to develop this. Developmental psychologists are hot on this trail because they can do experiments with children that yield consistent results. They would love to stick kid's heads into FMRI machines about once a week for a period of a couple of years, so that they could watch that dragon get up off the page. Current instrumentation makes this not feasible for human subjects, but I am sure it will be done to chimps.

The phylogenic problem (in which species does the dragon get, at least partially, off the page?) takes somewhat different approaches from the ontogenic problem (when/how in development of the individual does that happen?).

Other Comments by Quine

163. Comment #141041 by Richard Morgan on March 9, 2008 at 7:16 pm

"Simply Steve Z."

Steve talks science and logic, enquiry and reason.
But if he held your hand, this is what you would feel.

http://www.myspace.com/fleabytes

Other Comments by Richard Morgan

164. Comment #141046 by corruptmemory on March 9, 2008 at 8:14 pm

RE: built-in "recognition" of consciousness...

Quine wrote:

What is "built-in" is the ability to develop this. Developmental psychologists are hot on this trail because they can do experiments with children that yield consistent results. They would love to stick kid's heads into FMRI machines about once a week for a period of a couple of years, so that they could watch that dragon get up off the page. Current instrumentation makes this not feasible for human subjects, but I am sure it will be done to chimps.

I would attribute the built-in tendency to ascribe consciousness to other human beings being the same mental/instinctive mechanism that does species recognition (for instance how dogs identify other dogs even if they are as varied as Grate Danes and Chiwawas). Sometimes when this mechanism fails we actually DON'T ascribe consciousness, take for instance the view of pre-20th century Americans and Europeans towards Central Africans or Australian Aborigines, sometimes the "built-in" mechanisms are not sufficiently calibrated (i.e. trained). This also probably explains traditional biases against other kinds of animal consciousness that many scientists today readily recognize. The built-in mechanism gets calibrated based on a "local" sample of fellow humans (of course this is my opinion, but I would expect that this hypothesis has some general merit).

Now, general consciousness recognition is not only non-trivial, but may, in fact be non-solveable. Non-solveable both because there is no general way to phrase the question properly, but also in the sense that there may be no "sound" and constructive answer available. So we will be stuck with the "make it up as we go along" kind of deals. Alas, we have to be sensitive to the possibility that we can repeat the mistakes of the past such as the general judgement of Central Africans and Aborigines. This is why Turing gave the answer to "what is a conscious mind" in the form of the Turing test: assuming that an AI can be constructed such that for some arbitrary period of time people interacting with it cannot determine if they are interacting with another human being then, for all intents and purposes, the other entity is a conscious mind. Now, not everyone agrees that the Turing test is a valid test of consciousness, personally, I can see none better. However, there are some interesting potential future games to play with this: assuming that we create AIs in the future that can, in fact, pass the Turing test (with flying colors, I might add) for at LEAST human lifetimes, then as the processing power of these AIs increases, and perhaps the very nature of their consciousness evolves "back" (so to speak, in fact I mean really far forward) to a point where the gulf between "mere" human consciousness and AI consciousness is such that the human readily recognizes a machine consciousness, but the AI does not even perceive a meaningful consciousness coming from the human, the Turing test gets turned on its head!

Other Comments by corruptmemory

165. Comment #141049 by Quine on March 9, 2008 at 9:10 pm

Comment #141046 by corruptmemory:

... there is no general way to phrase the question properly ...

That is the case, at this time.

The Turing Test was about machines playing the Imitation Game well enough to be mistaken for a thinking person. It was about the question of thinking, not quite as far along as consciousness. Also, it is a one sided test; not passing does not mean you don't think. I suspect that if you put Kim Peek in the Turing Test against a regular person, he would be identified as the "computer" in a very few questions, every time.

It has been predicted that within the next 100 years some computer program will go to court to establish "personhood" as did the Aboriginal peoples you mentioned. My feeling is that they will be conscious when they can talk us into accepting that they are conscious, which is basically the same thing I have to do for you in this medium.

Other Comments by Quine

166. Comment #141062 by MPhil on March 10, 2008 at 12:16 am

Dr. Benway,

...300 milliseconds ago

Are you referring to the famous experiment by Benjamin Libet?

For anyone who doesn't know about it... I suggest a brief look on the wikipedia article on Libet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet

Russell Blackford,

Dennett analysed this as the fact that we have no choice but to adopt the intentional stance toward each other.

Basically, we can adopt either one of three stances to any system:

The physical stance: Predicting it and analysing it on the physical level - which (if the knowledge of the system is complete enough) will always yield correct results, but is very costly in terms of memory and computation.

The design stance: Predicting and analysing the behaviour of a system on the level of "what was it designed to do" (these may be designed or 'designoid' systems). So, for example I predict the behaviour of my alarm clock from the design stance - and it works very well... until some error occurs in the predictions although I have gotten the "design"-parameters and data exactly right. Then we have to revert to the physical stance to find out exactly why the error occurred.

The intentional stance: We attribute beliefs, desires, feelings and other intentional attributes to the system - and the predictions may work out fine. Dennett also says that the only thing there is to being an intentional system is to be a system whose behaviour can successfully be analysed and predicted from this stance.

I've written an essay on this. Sadly, it's full of orthographic mistakes and some syntactic errors. If you won't think less of me for that, feel free to download it here:

http://www.speedshare.org/download.php?id=262577372

And again, as for non-identity theories, I'll simply restate that they are caught on the two horns of a dilemma: interactionist dualism and epiphenomenalism. Conservation of energy and momentum anyone?

Other Comments by MPhil

167. Comment #141084 by Russell Blackford on March 10, 2008 at 2:28 am

Quine:

What is "built-in" is the ability to develop this.

Yes, that's probably more accurate.

Other Comments by Russell Blackford

168. Comment #141087 by Steve Zara on March 10, 2008 at 2:42 am

They would love to stick kid's heads into FMRI machines about once a week for a period of a couple of years, so that they could watch that dragon get up off the page.

That is not what I really meant by the metaphor. I am sure, in the (perhaps reasonably) near future, we will be able to follow the activity of the brain in almost complete detail. We will see the reaction to photons hitting the eye, the activity of nerves and the visual cortex, the "thinking" about the results of that, and the signals to the mouth to say "that was red".

But where in all this detail is anything, anything to do with what it is like to experience red? That is the "third dimension" to me.

The only way I can see that we may get some kind of clue is to follow in detail the activity of the brain of someone who is thinking:

"I wonder why it is like anything to have experiences?"

Now THAT will be something worth finding out!

Other Comments by Steve Zara

169. Comment #141089 by MPhil on March 10, 2008 at 2:50 am

We have an incredibly detailed knowledge of how individual molecules work together as a cell, how cells function - how nutrients are gathered in our digestive tracts from the food we eat, how our lungs "extract" oxygen from the air we breathe and how these nutrients and oxygen-molecules are delivered through the entire body via the blood-stream. We also have very detailed knowledge of how traits are passed on, what the mechanisms are and what the frequency of occurrence will be based on the number of alleles and whether the traits are recessive or dominant... etc.

[vitalism]

"But where in all this detail is anything, anything to do with what it is to be alive?"

[/vitalism]

Sorry, couldn't resist... :) All good fun.

Other Comments by MPhil

170. Comment #141091 by MPhil on March 10, 2008 at 2:51 am

"I wonder why it is like anything to have experiences?"

Now THAT will be something worth finding out!

I agree - and compare the findings to those of people thinking that there is nothing it is like...

:)

Other Comments by MPhil

171. Comment #141092 by Steve Zara on March 10, 2008 at 2:52 am

I agree - and compare the findings to those of people thinking that there is nothing it is like...

:)

Heh heh. We could build a "zombie detector" ;)

Other Comments by Steve Zara

172. Comment #141093 by MPhil on March 10, 2008 at 2:54 am

Yes, - and the 'people' found to be zombies get stripped of their rights and priviliges - and get to be sacrificed on the altar of David Chalmers :)

...or used in horror-movies.

Other Comments by MPhil

173. Comment #141094 by Quetzalcoatl on March 10, 2008 at 2:58 am

Brainsssssss...

Brrraaaaaiiiinnnnssssssss......

Sorry.

Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl

174. Comment #141095 by MPhil on March 10, 2008 at 2:59 am

What is "built-in" is the ability to develop this.

Yes, that's probably more accurate.

Hmm... One of the points I made in my essay (the one to which I posted a link above) is that we seem to have a hard-wired, non-representative (thus not necessarily or even not possibly conscious) version of this, which provides the basis for adopting this stance consciously - and accounts for the fact that we cannot conceive of ourselves otherwise.

Other Comments by MPhil

175. Comment #141096 by MPhil on March 10, 2008 at 2:59 am

Brainsssssss...

Brrraaaaaiiiinnnnssssssss......

Qualiaaaaaaaa....

Quuuuuaaaaaaalllllliiiiiaaaaaa.......

:P

Other Comments by MPhil

176. Comment #141097 by Steve Zara on March 10, 2008 at 3:03 am

Brainsssssss...

Brrraaaaaiiiinnnnssssssss......

Qualiaaaaaaaa....

Quuuuuaaaaaaalllllliiiiiaaaaaa.......

:P

This is a useful approach to discussion. Maybe we could use it to deal with fundamentalists on matters such as creationism. I suspect it will work as well as any other approach.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

177. Comment #141098 by MPhil on March 10, 2008 at 3:05 am

This is a useful approach to discussion. Maybe we could use it to deal with fundamentalists on matters such as creationism. I suspect it will work as well as any other approach.

What, you mean:

Designnnn....

Deeeesssiiiignnnnnnnn......

Other Comments by MPhil

178. Comment #141100 by Quetzalcoatl on March 10, 2008 at 3:11 am

Evidennnccceee....

Tessssttabbbllleee evvvideennnceee....

Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl

179. Comment #141114 by utelme on March 10, 2008 at 3:55 am

Our brain which art in heaven.....

Other Comments by utelme

180. Comment #141115 by utelme on March 10, 2008 at 3:58 am

Maybe they'll create the very thing you fear...God.lol

Other Comments by utelme

181. Comment #141116 by Steve Zara on March 10, 2008 at 4:03 am

Maybe they'll create the very thing you fear...God.lol

Hello. They may create something that thinks it's God. They may create something that believes in God.

I would imagine that one would need a pretty large amount of computing resources to create God. Still, I guess it takes the first cause problem one step further.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

182. Comment #141120 by Geoff on March 10, 2008 at 4:30 am

But surely we (humans) would be its gods. We would have created it - and unlike the "other " gods, we'd have evidence to prove our existence.

Other Comments by Geoff

183. Comment #141121 by Quetzalcoatl on March 10, 2008 at 4:37 am

Geoff-

But surely we (humans) would be its gods

A quick scan of the Internet would swiftly change the AI's opinion on the matter.

Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl

184. Comment #141122 by Richard Morgan on March 10, 2008 at 4:46 am

Steve Zara :

I would imagine that one would need a pretty large amount of computing resources to create God.

Really? According to some reading I have done (I think Atkins..) God wouldn't have had to have done much to get the show on the road.
Well, this show anyway - you know, life, the Universe, multiverses, sunsets, bad breath and everything.

However, clearing up the mess would take some pretty hefty computing resources I'm sure. We can't always just click on "Delete" can we?
We can?
Wow, tell me about it!

Other Comments by Richard Morgan

185. Comment #141123 by Steve Zara on March 10, 2008 at 4:57 am

Comment #141122 by Richard Morgan

Really? According to some reading I have done (I think Atkins..) God wouldn't have had to have done much to get the show on the road.

Depending on the model of the universe you pick, the amount a God would have had to do varies from from very little (twiddling some fine-tuning knobs to set the constants of the universe) to absolutely nothing whatsoever. In fact, a God would only get in the way.

The God that is hard to make is the all-knowing one. That would require an awful lot of memory circuitry and disk space. The omnipotent God would require an awfully big power supply.

In fact, one could argue that a simulated God could not be all-powerful and all-knowing because of both capabilities would have to share the same power source.

Unless, of course, one postulated the existence of Hilbert's Computer. You can get an infinite amount of power for both knowledge and actions by powering the memory from the even-numbered power slots, and the actions from the odd-numbered ones.

(This is what happens when I drink too much coffee. Please, stop me, someone....)

Other Comments by Steve Zara

186. Comment #141124 by Quetzalcoatl on March 10, 2008 at 5:03 am

Steve-

calm down. Lay off the Nescafe.

Richard Morgan-

you could argue that for the creation of a Universe. But as far as the creation of this specific Universe is concerned, with life, sandstone, traffic cones and Wooter, you could argue that you would need some hefty computational resources in order to be able to tweak things at the beginning in just such a way that this is how it would turn out.

Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl

187. Comment #141129 by Richard Morgan on March 10, 2008 at 5:09 am

Steve ZARA :

Please, stop me, someone....

Anyone tries to stop you, they'll have to get past me first!
ME!
King Cantankerous, remember!

Other Comments by Richard Morgan

188. Comment #141133 by Philip1978 on March 10, 2008 at 5:12 am

Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Sorry, tea fundamentalist daemon just momentarily possessed me!

Steve

They may create something that thinks it's God. They may create something that believes in God.

Douglas Adams created one!

(From the book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams) The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

Hows that?

Hang on, Christopher Hitchens might help here, an excerpt from The Portable Atheist:

"If we stay with animal analogies for a moment, owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection they will think you are god. Whereas the owners of cats are compelled to realise that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that THEY are gods (Cats may sometime share the cold entrails of a kill with you, but this is what a god might do if he was in a good mood")

Either of those examples works for me! :)

Philip

Other Comments by Philip1978

189. Comment #141134 by dj2baduk on March 10, 2008 at 5:14 am

I, like some of the others on here, am interested in the ethics of creating something with the computing power (and reasoning shortcuts) of a human brain or, come to that, a dog brain. Even that would be impressive.

I was going to say - 'I can't see any reason why they would want to inflict such a brain with any of the handicaps incumbent on biological thinking organisms', but the interesting question is then, what reason would it have to learn? In any case, I think we're a long long way off from having to think too hard about whether to pull the plug on the thing or not for ethical reasons. It will be a truly interesting development when that does become a truly difficult question. Then we'll be getting somewhere

Other Comments by dj2baduk

190. Comment #141137 by Steve Zara on March 10, 2008 at 5:19 am

Comment #141124 by Quetzalcoatl

you could argue that you would need some hefty computational resources in order to be able to tweak things at the beginning in just such a way that this is how it would turn out.

Of course, something the Creationists never point out is HOW the creator could have set things up. If you are going to suggest that someone or something tweaked the constants of the universe, then you are going to either have to say by what mechanism they tweaked those constants, or just say "magic". The problem with "magic" is it means "don't have to follow any rules". But in that case, magic alone could have created the universe.

So creationists either have to explain how God did it, or they are arguing against the need for a god. One possible escape from this argument is if they claim that God did things via an unknown mechanism, but even then they still have no justification for involving God, as if the mechanism is unknown, they can't claim the need for a God operating it...

Yet more reasons why creationism is wrong. It isn't even internally consistent.

This kind of argument works equally well against those who say that God guided evolution. I want to see the guide-O-tron device please, along with the instruction manual.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

191. Comment #141141 by Richard Morgan on March 10, 2008 at 5:28 am

dj2baduk

the interesting question is then, what reason would it have to learn?

Exactly.
The human brain is basically a survival-problem-solving gadget.
It wants to stay alive.
So the first thing you'd need for your Godputer is an over-riding need to avoid getting unplugged.
And, probably a need for coffee or tea. (So it wouldn't be a Mormon God!)

Other Comments by Richard Morgan

192. Comment #141142 by Quetzalcoatl on March 10, 2008 at 5:28 am

Steve-

then you have to wonder how a transcendent deity beyond space and time can actually do anything in the Universe; bar perhaps setting it up to begin with.

Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl

193. Comment #141143 by Richard Morgan on March 10, 2008 at 5:30 am

I want to see the guide-O-tron device please, along with the instruction manual.

No problem, I'll ask my mother-in-law to send you a copy.

Other Comments by Richard Morgan

194. Comment #141144 by Steve Zara on March 10, 2008 at 5:35 am

Comment #141142 by Quetzalcoatl

then you have to wonder how a transcendent deity beyond space and time can actually do anything in the Universe; bar perhaps setting it up to begin with.

They can't. Or, rather, you really can't show that they can from within space and time. All you can say is "weird stuff just happened.".

If someone is insisting that there is influence from another realm, it is perfectly reasonable to ask to be shown that realm, and how that influence is achieved, otherwise it is perfectly acceptable to file what they say under "just making stuff up", and tell them that.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

195. Comment #141145 by Steve Zara on March 10, 2008 at 5:37 am

Comment #141143 by Richard Morgan

No problem, I'll ask my mother-in-law to send you a copy.

I was going to ask "can she influence matter at the sub-quantum level, inducing targetted mutations (an idea raised by our good friend Dianelos)?". But I suspect I know what your answer is going to be.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

196. Comment #141151 by Quetzalcoatl on March 10, 2008 at 5:51 am

Steve-

If someone is insisting that there is influence from another realm, it is perfectly reasonable to ask to be shown that realm, and how that influence is achieved, otherwise it is perfectly acceptable to file what they say under "just making stuff up".

Then that gets countered by the old "God works through natural laws" argument. Which sounds good in theory, but then you might as well ask (as I did in my last blog post), why not just say that the all-powerful purple hippo works through natural laws? There's just as much evidence for it.

Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl

197. Comment #141153 by Steve Zara on March 10, 2008 at 5:53 am

Comment #141151 by Quetzalcoatl

Then that gets countered by the old "God works through natural laws" argument. Which sounds good in theory, but then you might as well ask (as I did in my last blog post), why not just say that the all-powerful purple hippo works through natural laws? There's just as much evidence for it.

Precisely.

It is a good blog. I have forgotten the URL. Could you post it on this forum for me?

Other Comments by Steve Zara

198. Comment #141154 by Quetzalcoatl on March 10, 2008 at 5:59 am

It is a good blog. I have forgotten the URL. Could you post it on this forum for me?

But of course, Steve. Here it is:

http://musingsofastrangemind.blogspot.com/

Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl

199. Comment #141165 by stephenray on March 10, 2008 at 6:24 am

Perhaps the brain of a baby might be a better analogy for a superlarge computer with sufficient neurons and sufficient synapses. But since none of us can remember anything from our first few days (principally because the RAM has not yet been constructed) I think it safe to say that neither a new-born baby nor a newly-switched on brain-mimicking computer are self aware.

However, for humans it comes pretty quickly after that. But what else is there, in the brain, apart from neurons and symapses, that makes the brain into a learning machine?

There are the relationships between the different parts of the brain - motor control and feedback, visual processing, auditory processing - the autonomic functions, redundancy.

Think about it this way: if you connect a billion processors together, and power them up, what happens? Nothing, surely. Just a lot of power doing no work (apart from heating the room). It's the program that makes things happen.

So the question of whether - if at all - supercomputers can become self-aware should not be focussing on the complexity of the machine, but on how it is programmed.

These things are happening, obviously - expert systems and such like - but it's much sexier to print stories about thousands of processors than it is to go into dull detail about complex software.

Other Comments by stephenray

200. Comment #141172 by Richard Morgan on March 10, 2008 at 6:32 am

stephenray

But since none of us can remember anything from our first few days (principally because the RAM has not yet been constructed)

Slow down here, please. I might have something to say: are you saying that there are no memories stocked somewhere, anywhere, or just that we are (apparently) unable to access those memories?

Other Comments by Richard Morgan

Reload Comments | Back to Top