Donald Cooper’s Post

Anil Seth, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex: My intuition is that consciousness is not something that computers (as we know them) can have, but that it is deeply rooted in our nature as living creatures. Conscious machines are not coming in 2023. Indeed, they might not be possible at all. However, what the future may hold in store are machines that give the convincing impression of being conscious, even if we have no good reason to believe they actually are conscious. They will be like the Müller-Lyer optical illusion: Even when we know two lines are the same length, we cannot help seeing them as different. https://lnkd.in/dagPebUz

Whole-mindedness Current AI resembles left-brained reasoning - optimized, logical but decontextualized. Humans play the right-brained role anchored in real world connections. #artificiality #ai #artificialintelligence #generativeai

The idea here is that we need to think a whole lot more about how AI might be put to good use as an integrator of complex values and choices.

The neuroscience of intuition: today Professor Joel Pearson explains what intuition is/isn’t, when it can be relied upon and when it shouldn’t, how it differs from instinct, plus thoughts in AI, aphantasia and more. This one is fascinating. To listen/watch click link in bio or start here: https://bit.ly/richroll841

Rob's less than interesting facts No. 3751. Did you know that you can estimate the time until sunset using your hands? With hand horizontal and at arm's length, hold your little finger to horizon. Every finger width from horizon to the edge of the sun (even with hands stacked on each other) represents 15mins until sundown. Not especially useful as - I don't know about you, but - I've rarely been that far from my end point that this is ever going to matter !! But judging time passing or passed simply goes to pot when fully engaged in activities that have your focus. Time perception and the experience or awareness of the passage of time is a hugely complex thing for humans to understand. Manifestly, sequence and duration are relative to the events people isolate in the sequences through which they live: the duration of a kiss, of a meal, of a trip. Experience is not simply that of one single series of events, but of a plurality of overlapping changes. The duration of a radio programme, for example, can combine with that of breakfast, both being inserted within the longer period of a journey to work. Humans seem to be unable to live without some concept of time. Descartes began a critical era of philosophy by stressing the problem of the origin of ideas, including the idea of time. Kant, providing a radical answer to the problem of time, wrote that we do not appreciate time objectively as a physical thing; that it is simply a pure form of intuition. A move to empirical psychology emerged with the growth of research on the introspective data of experience and from the mid-19th century, psychologists conducted experiments to study the relationship between time as perceived and time as measured in physics. They then broadened their investigations of time to cover all forms of adaptation to sequence and duration. To perceive is to be aware of stimulation. Awareness of sequence or duration may, at first glance, seem inconsistent with the definition of perceiving. In a mathematical sense, certainly, the present is only a point along the continuum of being, an instant when future is transformed into past. Nevertheless, there is indeed a more prolonged psychological present, a brief period during which successive events seem to form a perceptual unity and can be understood without calling on memory. There is a perceptual field for time just as there is a visual field for sight. So when time stands still, or an experience is over in a flash, just remember that there are smarty-pants people who've thought long and hard about why this happens and still don't fully know !! The truth? whatever you see, hear, taste, smell and perceive all reaches your brain a few nanoseconds after the experience enters your receptor. This means that we're ALL experiencing the past, ALL the time !! But regular listeners will know that there's often little point to these posts. Maybe it'll make you think, maybe it won't, but: #beexcellenttoeachother

🧠💡 Philosophical Musings on Consciousness and Understanding: Where Does Memorization End and Understanding Begin? How do we truly know if an entity understands a concept, or merely projects an illusion of understanding through memorization and variation? This intriguing question sits at the heart of the ongoing debate about consciousness and cognitive processes, particularly when it comes to non-human entities like AI. A recent article in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences delves deep into theories of consciousness (ToCs) and their implications for understanding what makes a life valuable. The paper, authored by Liad Mudrik and colleagues, explores how various theories can help us discern not only the presence of consciousness but also the potential for consciousness in both biological organisms and artificial systems. According to the paper, theories like Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) provide frameworks to assess whether a system is merely simulating consciousness or genuinely experiencing it. These theories distinguish between having the capacity for consciousness (being built in a way that supports conscious states) and the actual presence of consciousness (neural activity within that structure). This distinction is crucial when we consider the difference between memorizing a concept with consciousness and truly understanding a concept to generate new, conscious variations. For instance, a system might memorize and reproduce information (like a chatbot responding with programmed answers) without truly "understanding" in the way humans do when they generate creative or novel responses based on deep comprehension. But the big question remain: how can we definitively determine if a system truly understands a concept, or is simply regurgitating memorized information? #Consciousness #AI #CognitiveScience #Philosophy #Ethics #BehavioralSciences 🔗 Read the full article for more insights

New Post: A Neuroscientist’s Guide To Getting Things Done – World Pakistan - A computational neuroscientist uses a mathematical approach to dissect procrastination, identifying its various patterns and causes like time misjudgment and ego protection. The research focuses on crafting personalized strategies to mitigate this widespread and detrimental behavior, enhancing both productivity and mental well-being. Understanding the reasons behind our procrastination can help us regain productivity. Procrastination, the …

Few questions I am going to discuss tomorrow 16:30-18:00 in the Current Trends in Human Science, Doctoral School in Humanities, Jagiellonian University 24.04 and 15.05.24 What can AI teach us about ourselves?  Can LMMs understand? What is understanding, and how to test it? Are we only imitating? At which level? What makes us creative? Brains-LLMs comparisons at different levels.  M. Minsky “Society of minds,” large distributed brains/minds. Human confabulations, mental models, and inverse base rate examples. Confabulations in networks/brains, conspiracies, and memetics.  Awareness, mechanism of autoreflection, and consciousness content. Mind over matter: placebo and nocebo examples. LLMs persona, talks with Sophie/Claude, and understanding ourselves. What it means to be a sentient being. Join link: https://lnkd.in/dPfgRd3Z Webinar number: 2790 757 3517

Machine consciousness is a pseudoscience. TL;DR We cannot falsify the hypothesis of having conscious machines. Hence, conscious machines are just a myth of transhumanism. In this paper I give a plethora of arguments against the fact of having a science of machine consciousness, from Godel to Mary and visiting Turing, Searle, Stilwell Brain and many more. Later, I review lots of theories about how consciousness can be implemented in a machine giving the arguments against the theory. From GWT to IIT and many more. Check it out!!! https://lnkd.in/dZ6CASiA

A.I. will be as powerful as the human brain. 🤯 Or will it? That's what the tech world wants you to believe. But scientists still don't fully understand the brain because it is so complex. Our brain is intricately arranged, with billions of neurons and a quadrillion synapses. Each synapse contains different molecular switches, and there is variability among all the cells and synapses. The brain's output is more abstract than the output of other organs. So to claim A.I. will replace the human brain is not just farfetched, it shows a lack of appreciation for how complex, intricate, mysterious, and beautiful our minds are. As David Brooks with the NYTimes writes: Many fears about A.I. are based on an underestimation of the human mind. Some people seem to believe that the mind is like a computer. It’s all just information processing, algorithms all the way down, so of course machines are going to eventually overtake us. This is an impoverished view of who we humans are. The Canadian scholar Michael Ignatieff expressed a much more accurate view of the human mind last year in the journal Liberties: “What we do is not processing. It is not computation. It is not data analysis. It is a distinctively, incorrigibly human activity that is a complex combination of conscious and unconscious, rational and intuitive, logical and emotional reflection.” https://lnkd.in/ez2Rbxds