If Brains are Computers, Who Designs the Software? - with Daniel Dennett
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- čas přidán 5. 04. 2017
- Cognitive science sees the brain as a sort of computer, but how does education redesign these cerebral computers? Cognitive scientist, philosopher, and expert on consciousness Daniel Dennett explains.
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There is widespread agreement among researchers in cognitive science that a human brain is some kind of computer, but not much like the laptop. If we look at perceptual experience, and education in particular, as a process of redesigning our cerebral computers, how does the software get designed, and what are the limits of this design process? Daniel C Dennett finds out.
Daniel C Dennett is a cognitive scientist and philosopher with a particular interest in consciousness, free will and the evolution of minds. His newest book, From bacteria to Bach and back, explores how thinking minds could have evolved due to natural selection.
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"Thinking tools" approach/idea is amazing. I never thought about this in that way. Thank you sir!
“Science done right is one of the humanities.” That’s an epic quote: have long thought it and never expressed it. Thanks, Professor D.D. (and anonymous high school physics teacher)!
Science done right...
Christopher Ellis - mea culpa - quite right: “done right”. Thanks, I will edit.
And the humanities done right is one of the sciences! Any field of study can benefit from applying the best practices of both traditions.
@@hypehuman - Entirely agree. I have written of my own field, archaeology as: “the most scientific of the humanities, the most humanistic of the sciences.”
No.
This topic just randomly popped in my head and my first reaction was to look it up on here. I'm glad I did.
What a fascinating and informative talk. Early in the lecture he asked the question, 'Are our brains computers?' and even before he answered I was saying, 'Yes! of course they are." I also thought as he continued, that if your definition precludes it from being a computer, it is your definition that needs looking at. I remembered back to when I was an apprentice at Lucas Aerospace in the UK many (many, many) years ago. One item of aviation hydraulic equipment they made was the wing sweep controller for the Panavia Tornado. This was a computer but entirely hydraulic (in its decision making). It took control inputs and sensor readings and calculated the appropriate output. You could not find within it a 'program'. Sure, there would have been a written algorithm during its design. A list if logic statements and tables of data to inform the output, but you would not find a 'program' stored in the unit anywhere. It is still a computer though.
Am I the only one that is drawn to this man's friendliness and personality? He is so... I am not sure how to say it. I just feel calm and at home.... Santa perhaps? Thank you, Dr. Dennett!
He's like a favourite grandpa ... quiet, calm and full of timeless wisdom.
@@squarerootof2 Sounds like projection.
@@Yeeksquilack Sounds like you're well into that kind of stuff. Sad.
He reminds me very much of an older coworker of mine who retired back in 2012. And, yes, Bill Waggoner was a Santa around the holidays.
It happens to me too whenever I start walking the paths of persception,
I believe it's because this science is so blindingly unknown that it's like walking through the woods at night - by then the only light we have is whatever we brought or make ourselves.
He puts on his friendliest inner identity as to keep himself safe in the dark, as the common persception in the west is that if you smile first, that smile will transfer to those whom have nothing against you.
Sure, his friendly facade won't help with the science, but it'll help him, a human, overcome persceptional limitations even if the truth reveals frightening realisations that would otherwise had halted him, like smiling to yourself in the mirror and then feeling better afterwards because seeing yourself smile feels rewarding. All this self-tinkering is allowing humanity some self- reverse engineering!
When he mentioned mindless processes creating things more advanced than themselves it reminded me Stephen Wolfram's study of cellular automata where he demonstrated how simple rules can create very complex systems.
Israel Grogin good analogy. Also neural networks are an example of self programming/designing simple systems evolving to do complex tasks.
we cant even understand photosynthesis :)
Yeah come to think of it! I immediately visualized Conway's game of life when reading your comment.
+ Medical Cannabis Spain
um wtf did you get that idea www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-it-comes-to-photosynthesis-plants-perform-quantum-computation/
Cellular automata were invented by John Von Newman and the type of cellular automata Wolfram explores were invented by Claude Shannon. But to listen to Wolfram you would think he invented the whole area himself. He reminds me of these people who patent genes with out knowing anything about them in the hope they will get some money in the future from other peoples research. Wolfram has made bold statements with no real proof and no real advancements in mathematics I think really what he is hoping for is that other people in the future will obtain results from this area of mathematics and he can claim credit.
When he said "the dream of every cell is to divide" is like an extraterrestrial being looking at us from a distant galaxy with a telescope and saying "the dream of every human is to replicate and die"
If aliens saw what was happening in developed counties they would say that our goal is to make and use toys to avoid the genetic urge to reproduce. We might be gone in the blink of an eye and the same for the aliens so that we never see each other though 😉
Thanks for the great talk Daniel. Two errors I found, anyone please feel free to comment.
1) 1:15:20 "genetic, deep learning algorithms ... sift through data and come up with new ideas", these algorithms do not come up with new ideas, they learn to replicate training labels specified by humans.
2) 8:57 "brains are not serial they're parallel", false, brains are both serial and parallel. For example, the series retina, optic nerve, LGN, V1, etc... is well known.
Parallel connections can be defined as serial connections running concurrently. A brain simultaneously processes information from multiple streams, even if some interfaces run in 'serial.'
I don't know much about genetic algorithms but calling it replication of previous specified labels is just kicking the can down the road. At some point an original 'label' had to be created.
@@jelliott8424 I totally agree on the parallel concretions definition as used by physicists.... Most of parallel circuits have series branches within them but still called and described as parallel type.
I tend to agree, having studied some GOFAI decades ago. IMO "modern" methods ML and "AI" seem to merely be "trainable classifiers". They make "decisions" based on training, from predefined data sets, by choosing one (or more?) labels from those determined by some algorithms from the training data. IMO they do not "reason" at all, which I thought was a goal of original AI research. Early on, we were hoping to build "intelligent" reasoning machines which we can understand, and where one can explain the reasoning to arrive at their conclusions. ML has no reasoning, and no explanations, merely "because" (philosophy joke?) that is the emergent behaviour from that particular training algorithm and that particular data set.
I thought the idea with new deep learning was that with enough hidden layers the algorithim will find it's own groups/categories?
This gets my attention..makes my brain light up- eyes wide open. Thank you! The programs are downloaded between ages 0- 7 from our parent, teachers, etc.
You are forgetting about the BIOS. The original was given by God and reproduced.
@@WmTyndale Danial Dennet strongly disagrees with you, and so do I! If you believe there is a god despite a complete lack of viable evidence, then your software is millennia out of date, and the data corruption accumulative! You have no evidence for your claim! The time to believe is when there is sufficient evidence, and well, you can pile layer upon layer of bad evidence onto a mountain of bad evidence (mere anecdote and false attribution in god's case), and it will never amount to a single shred of good evidence! No amount of faith based belief can make truth.
@@WmTyndale Where is God?..
If you watch at 1.25 speed Dennett's speech becomes as brisk and lively as it was 20 years ago.
That's a good idea. I stopped watching/listening to him years ago because his speech often seemed slow and slurry to me and would put me to sleep, so I'll have to try that.
Good recommendation! Thanks!
I love this tempo of talking. Gives importance to the content of the speech.
Simple sentences, not too simple and time and pause to digest them.
No show. No artificial postures or tones to impress the audience. No flashes.
Thanks
Reading Intuition Pumps by Dennett now and watching all his content to reinforce his work.
A funny little story during my school life.
A instructor separated us in to two groups.
Told us to tie our legs to other people in the group.
Then we will have an extreme edition of a 3 legged race.
In practice run, many people had topple over, obviously.
The other group's leader told them to synchronize the movements by shouting 1,2 & so on.
I simply told mine to keep moving forward & don't fall down.
You know what, we across the finish line at same time.
The instructor baffled, said cooperation is the key to success & apparently "just do it" also works.
The game was outplayed and the monologue was ruined.
There were many more factors in play than the few mentioned.
This is apparent with tradesmen. I would always plan carefully. Sometimes best. Others would just start but fail midstream at unforeseen obstacles. Often. Best would briefly survey the task then go, solving problems that came up on the fly and were invariably the fastest. Saw this many times. They intuitively avoided dead stop roadblocks without exactly identifying them beforehand. Now I have a better understanding of this. And I have something to think about. Thanks.
As a computer science student I really appreciate the "evm" english virtual machine comparison because that's pretty much how java works. Jvm knows how to talk to your cpu and the java applet knows how to talk to Jvm, in that way jvm is a "translator" or in other words an interpreter.
the further down you go the closer you are to speaking the same language as your cpu, c is compiled to before you send the app (message) to the computer, so it's "translated" before you post the letter and the compiler knows the the address for you.
if you go further down to assembler now you're writing a letter that's mostly in computer language and you need to know the addresses before you post the letter.
When you compile (translate) to bytecode your computer can understand the information, it knows what to do with it.
True enough. I'd quibble with the implication that computers "know" anything. It's all electrons bouncing around wires. We may never know, I expect AI to get good enough to pass the Turing test. Whether the system is "actually" "aware", will be undeterminable.
"Jvm 'knows' how to talk to your cpu"🤔
That construct seem to assign intelligence to JVM.
Like the java applet, JVM is all code!
Code that was 'designed' by man to follow instructions that operates the cpu!
The CPU is equally lifeless as the software(written instructions).
@@inyobill the question is: are we actually aware?
@@ralphmacchiato3761 That is the 'real' Turing test! Joshua Bach has some really interesting ideas with regards to AI, should check him out if you've not done so already.
thats how most programming works
the compiler for C is itself written in C
Excellent thinking. I always say , even with common daily software that this is the case. Each computer's suffers as much as his programmer
9
"Cognitive Cerebral Consciousness".
Really like your work, sir. Yes, our brains are not computers but they are computerized.
Wow, that one's pretty good! ( Universe Consciousness)
I am under the impression that Groves was certainly the administrative controller, but the physicists and engineers actually were in control of what got built and how (explicitly, Oppenheimer was in charge of the technical and creative work).
relates to the conundrum of how do you control or manage poeple smarter than you are? or how we choose specialist professionals?
There's a great TV film about Oppenheimer and Groves. In one scene he says "I played him like a fiddle".
@@juhanleemet Relates to the question: If you're a highly intelligent person, how do you deal with administrators who are stupidr than you and judge you based on their inadequate understanding? Oppenheimer was denied security clearance by FBI agents (I believe) who put him into simple-minded categories and thought no more about it.
I love Daniel Dennett because he makes me think. The more I listen to him the more I realize how much I disagree with what he is saying. At times it even sounds like mush. But, I have no doubt that he is much smarter than me, so I just write it off.
I loved Dr. Daniel Dennett, very sad to hear about his passing, I would have loved to meet him, he was my absolute favorite, an intellectual giant, a legend, true sage, heard he was also very kind gentle person, huge loss to civilization, I will watch tons of his lectures in the next few weeks in his memory, I made a playlist of his lectures and interviews for myself to work through, listening to Dr Dennett lectures would be my idea of Heaven 1:14:33
In modern computer software design, not only are there abstractions of the language eg. Java but we've developed design patterns. These are standard design solutions to common problems.
One of the main advantages of patterns is not only do we have ready solutions but we can communicate that solution to another engineer with a single phrase thus speeding up the development process.
"What you want there is an observer pattern".
Naming things is one of the things that makes us human. The speed of advancement depends on it.
Lately I started to consider the brain as a giant filter/processor that delivers our consciousness (whatever it may be) the best statistical predictions for certain information patterns in this universe. E.g. we tend to predict human beings as being human with near to 100% accuracy, but we are pretty bad at predicting certain other things (like how we are preceived by others, cause we are often diluded due to self-doubt and other things - or e.g. optical illusions, since our brain is trained to expect certain outcomes). So basically all the brain does is it predicts certain events, it recognizes patterns, and it makes all this data somewhat interpretable. We don't know where consciousness itself comes from.. we just know how to deactivate it like a switch, when deactivating certain neurons, but that isn't proof that certain brain regions create it.
His title question reminds me of a similar one. If DNA is written instructions, who is the author? I like your take on the quantum nature of it. Seems like the quantum is the real basis of everything. The Newtonian is like a useful simplification. Ultimately we gotta have an answer to beginning and end.
@@fillinman1 the author may be the “evolution” ?
Some good points there I think. Also, adding to something you point to is the fact, or apparence that just as you can develop muscle memory, so, with the brain also we have a parallel to this, which we could call memory memory, or brain muscle memory.
An example is the amount of times I have been in meetings, and the person hosting it is so used to pushing a particular agenda, or to clients who say the same thoughtless things, can usually fall into the crpappy useless habit of NOT LISTENING to the person present, and is answering via ''muscle memory'' of the brain in what they have been taught to say and think, based on the common muddle they are daily subjected to. They are actually NOT hearing you, and NOT answering anything you needed to know. remindfs me a bit of how China's power brokers ''listen'' to their people.
@@fillinman1 the quantum is also a useful simplification. We are not meant to understand these things and we will never understand them. We humans are built for a purpose and that's it.
@@10418 Darwin's evolution? haha.
I have so many time, having studied it for a couple of years but finally succumbing to my scientific person, listened to peoples who called themselves philosophers of science, who had not a single idea about the scientific area they where putting out "philosophical" ideas about. I'm a computer scientist now and have some idea of neurology because of personal interest...and to all my knowledge, this guy really knows what he is talking about! Kudos!
If I recall, Dennett is a big proponent of philosophers working together with scientists and pursuing science as a way to further philosophical thought.
TheDerwisch77 100 years ago there was no scientists, they called them self philosophers. Difference is science does not have moral mesurement integrated in it self in contrary to philosophy. Science does not bother with questions of morality is something wise or not good or bad. just what is possible and has funds to be paid, profit and researched.
That is needed today othervise it would not work for many.
Darko Bulatovic: I'm not sure if it is me not understanding what you want to tell me or if it is you who did not understand what I was saying. As I said, I studied Philosophy for a couple of years myself, that is "at university", not "by google", and I know perfectly well where philosophy has its place. What I was trying to say is simply that during my time at the university and time and again afterwards I met people who where well renowned philosophers who talked about scientific matter like quantum mechanics, theory of relativity, A.I. or genetics for instance, and who did not have a single clue about the subject they were talking about and made philosophical statements regarding those subjects based on a very shallow if not non existant understanding of the subject at hand. Daniel Dennett appears to have done his homework in this regard.
TheDerwisch77 I have met a lot of scientist that are like that as well. Just having diplomas and PhD and being members of institutions and groups does not make you true anything.
True philosopher is a person who seeks wisdom, not credits.
Dont get me wrong, I just expressed my view not disagreeing with what you say
I think that science of today is far bellow Philosophy. It cant compare as Idea.
Scientist is a mare solder while Philosopher is a King. In ideal forms of course.
What people call today philosophy and science is a wide interpretation and with many I cant agree.That is why I have abandoned University and took my own path in study. Universities are like Guilds, you need to confirm your teacher otherwise you will not get diploma. That has nothing to do with truth but establishing MLM pyramidal organisation that serves it self a purpose not serving the form - truth.
Philosophy is root of all true sciences. Chemistry, Mathematica, Astronomy, Psychic... all we have thanks to Philosophy.
Listening to this in the background I cannot help but picture John C Reilly speaking. Great lecture. :)
To answer you questions we absorb knowledge and form oppions based on what we've learned and as we age the programming gets more refined untill our head drive starts to fail and go into protection mode.
And things don't compute anymore.
My brain/computer struggles to follow the thinking of this brilliant man, but it's also very fascinated because I always tried to figure out why I don't like computers.
Did you ever think that your brain/computer is able to grow new alive cells each second of your life and it is able to make them communicate one with the other and is able to tell them what to do to keep you alive against everything that's against you. Those are infinite more complex to follow than someone else's thinking. We are amazing machines. Imagine our tools of the year 2022 trying to make a board with 80 to 100 billion neurons and this would only be one brain. Imagine those machines trying to build the vast amount of billions of cells that make the human body. Now imagine someone or something programmed this to grow up from two cells. Now THAT is a master program.
Another perspective is to think of the brain like a television set.
It receives consciousness from the cosmos and interprets it in a way that is practical for human life and operating on a very narrow bandwidth
Hinduism 101
That's just pseudo-science mumbo jumbo with zero viable evidence to back it up!
Get back to us when you can test that hypothesis. Bear in mind that it requires multiple extraordinary assumptions, so maybe start working on those first:
1) The existence of some kind of cosmic consciousness, for which there is currently zero evidence.
2) The existence of a very high bandwidth bidirectional signalling medium, currently undetectable, whose signal energy is unaffected by every form of shielding material that humans have ever encountered.
3) The identification of the special property of human brain matter - and all other known neurological structures in other species as well - that can detect and transmit signals across this same medium while not consuming or dissipating measurable energy.
@@starfishsystems There's so many things science can't prove. I'm not saying that the brain as a tv set theory is right or wrong but servers work for more users at the same time so it isn't something really unbelievable. And one more thing- science proven facts are changing constantly so I guess science has its limits, after all.
@@Bob-of-Zoid How would you know? World isn't as young as science told us it is. It seems like in a distant past we had technology more advanced than we have today and maybe The Great Flood we know about from the Bible might actually been happening for real and maybe more than once. Pseudo science is the science that every 50 years or so is deemed wrong? If so the entire human science is pseudo science, my friend. Do not bow to science as if it was a God. Science, just as the false idols are, is man made so it can't be a God, it can't be absolute.
Three years too late, but I would suggest the lecturer watch the Feynman lecture, "Los Alamos From Below".
Feynman visited Oak Ridge during the Manhatten project and told the engineers and scientists there a lot of information they needed so as design their isotope separation to avoid near critical mass events that could have harmed or killed the Oak Ridge staff.
Fascinated mindless worker at the bottom learnt so much from this lecture...THANK YOU.
for example?
@@zagyex 😂
What a great explainer! Thank you for the upload.
Was a time not too many decades ago when every computer was a human. The word pre-dates electronic computers.
you might not konw it, but this one-line comment was the best ever! As therefore, it is a real transition just in the opposite direction of what he wanted to explain in his whole lecture and therefore a proof of his hypothesis just in one line! Let's continue in broken English. (As I am German): "computer " is a word and a meme that is subject to a shift in meaning, let's call this an effect of evolution, too. In the older sense, it was about the brain's abilities. Today, it's about a network of those non-human computers like those termites. BTW "robot " in an earlier meaning is nothing more than a (human) worker; see the famous play of Karel Čapek R.u.R from 1920! Now we have "artificial intelligence" in four seasons;-) and the quote from Goethe: If you lack the ideas, words come in handy ...
@@gregor-samsa you should never exclaim when making a statement. Another point i would raise is i am personally aware of the history of the word "robot" but entirely ignorant of the play you referred to, and finally if you were attempting to imply you had your own thoughts on anything discussed in this lecture, you didnt. Ffs
The word "computer" is the result of linguistically abrasive cultures of who-cares naivety. From Latin "computare" (to count) proper form would have been "computator".
@@jpdj2715 Thus a computer 'calculates' its inputs and give an outputs!
A computer does not 'selects' which inputs it wants but what is given.
Else, they would be useless a tool to man who have 'designed' them for his aid.
A computer do not possess intelligence.
Computers are designed to follow the subroutines consisting of algorithms by which they are programmed!
Computers are made up of hardware and software. Man design both hardware and software.
Humans may still be functional with a brain tumor until a point.
What's the equivalent to 'brain tumor' for a computers brain?
Which is more resilient to an attack by a virus? The human brain or the computer [brain]?
@@iandoyle5017 lol
yes your right Grogin ,can remember till now when he demonstrated the process related to how a simple rules can create very complex system of course.......
The speaker made an observation that intrigues me. He stated that it's possible to benefit from a certain aspect of our nature without understanding how that nature came into being and gave the example of a butterfly with camouflage patterns. This notion can be extended to disease. Presently, we treat "diseases" as if they are bad or harmful, but if we're truly the subject of Biological Evolution then the mutations that are expressed as "diseases" are simply the subtle, biological evolutionary steps towards human betterment. For instance, we may think heart attacks are bad not knowing that they are actually the evolutionary step towards developing a better heart. Or, the elimination of the heart as the fulcrum of the cardiovascular system. Perhaps, as evolutionists we should be thinking twice about treating certain conditions or risk hampering human development?
Like feet, our feet are not well suited for us. Due to year's centuries of Shoe's.
Best talk I've heard in a while. Very interesting stuff.
"We don't believe in an intelligent designer. We believe in an intelligent design by natural selection." kind of summarizes it for me.
Then you better prepare for a long wait. Just take a look at his tree of life. lol.
You are making an important point. A system can behave intelligently, even creatively without being conscious. The power or replication, variation, selective pressure, and time is unbelievable. Our problem is the time span. We cannot understand it.
I think my comment was misunderstood.
I sort of poked fun at the statement.
In some ways, it is self-contradictory for an atheist because of the word "believe".
At the same time, it recognizes the intelligent design but refuses to acknowledge the intelligent creator, i.e. God, and rather choses to believe in self-creation or deaf, dumb and blind Nature's intelligence, even though the Nature itself is merely a composition of forces set in motion.
i like the idea: words are semi-autonomous informational structures. glad i discovered this lecture
I'm so glad the EVM between my ears is working well, up to date and malware free!! I love Daniel Dennet, and everything he has done for this world in educating so many people by explaining intricate scientific and philosophical concepts in ways less learned people can understand, and especially for exposing the foibles of harboring unsubstantiated often dangerous beliefs such as religious fundamentalism.
''Malware free''? I doubt that VERY MUCH!
The brain, for instance, has been hacked for millenia. religion? Gladiatorial/sports? What has become known as propaganda? Tabloids? And elite-leaning press? Any-leaning press.
certain styles of drug communities (they got hacked by initially the U.S. legal/political monster to MAKE IT DANGEROUS.)
So it is popously RIDICULOUS to make your point beyond humour.
It would help very much if they show what's on the screen as they do in TED. ;-)
Yes Buck, but that would require a third camera (+man), or the one who has the back (total view) camera needs to zoom in on the shown details or graphs. Then the mixer (+man) needs to be competent enough to switch at the right time. You see how complicated it gets (TED has solved that ;-)
@@curtcoller3632 no, you just need simple postproduction ;)
@@curtcoller3632 I think it could be done just by recording the slide deck on a separate video track and editing it in afterwards
@@Holobrine im sure they are smart enough to figure it out :p
@@curtcoller3632 there's PiP. I don't need o see a torso or the back lid of a computer.
Love this guy, he reminds me of the kind geologist in Big Bang, voice, mannerisms, looks.
It is a great exercise to think about how the “unintelligent” assembly of documents and human knowledge over the past 30 years of building the internet has now led it to become the “intelligence” for platforms like GPT. Very stimulating and provocative talk from quite a while back but quite relevant today in our age of unintelligent “transformers”.
my necktop (love the word BTW!) thoroughly enjoyed that EVM.
Right there in that auditorium, extra-terrestials under cloak walked around and laughed to each others about the lifeforms they had created on "Earth" planet.....just like the numerous electromagnetic waves that travels through the space and people sitting there who are totally unaware because they do not have the right sensors to pick up the various frequencies....
That is really no different from the God Hypothesis. It pushes back the problem to an earlier cause : Who created the Aliens/God? Did they create themselves? If so, wouldn't it be simpler to say that we designed ourselves and are 'cloaked' from seeing it?
Raymond Tallis' point was that having grown up in modern technological society when we come to try to imagine what the brain is and how it works we readily adopt the model of the computer, that is what is familiar to us. Tallis being a neuroscientist (and a polymath) does not believe that the model is the correct one and that there are many important and profound differences we need to not overlook.
But hey, if you mentioned him in another talk we can just ignore all that, right?
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed in this talk. Apparently the presenter is a philosopher, not a computer scientist or a neuroscientist. So why should we give his opinion any weight?
The definition of "computer" that he gives is incomplete and inaccurate. A computer is a well defined machine, and the definition is not "a thing that can process information." I'm disappointed that he didn't even attempt to provide the proper definition of a computer (that is, a Turing machine,) but then again maybe I shouldn't be surprised. After all, if he had, he would have had to explain how the human brain is a Turing machine, and there is very good evidence that it is not. Perhaps he avoided the rigorous definition of "computer" on purpose rather than out of ignorance.
Fascinating talk, as all his talks are.
i watched this 5 times just because i like him talking
Certainly glad I ~never had that thought.
Not me.
Apart the "slow motion" effect, his difficult breath is anguishing.
Exaybachay
Explain why.
Michio Kaku's theory on quantifying consciousness suggests "consciousness is the number of feedback loops required to create a model of your position in space with relation to other organisms and time...."
Haven't read anything of him, so maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but this seems to be a blatant category error to me. Either the usages of 'number' or 'consciousness' here are extremely far removed from the ordinary ones or that statement does not seem to make sense at a very fundemental level. How could it possibly be sensible to say "For me, currently, consciousness is x" where x is 3 or pi or 12-7i or aleph_0 or any other kind of number?
@@MyMusics101 it is worth while to watch Dr.Michio kaku's presentation on consciousness.... he is internationally well known physicist..(one of the founders of "string theory"...)basically he is saying that there are different levels of consciousness...i.e flower....trees...bacteria.. mouse..monkey...orangutans(not only conscious but self aware ) .human..(consciousness and self awareness..) .
@@zerototalenergy150 You know that this assumption is total madness?
We can only speak about our individual consciousness/awareness.
Flower, trees refer to the plant kingdom which is different from the humanity.
If bacteria is a consciousness then what are you when eat vegetables and meat that have bacteria?🤔
What's the difference between a patient in coma and another patient who is unconscious?
Can someone who is unconscious be aware of his environment? Can he answer the paramedics or even call 911 for help?
Does a plant
@@iancasey1486 create a model of "YOUR" position in space with relation to other organisms and time...."
Reality doesn't exist if it's not measured no consiousness needed just a measurement
Here we Go !!
The strive forward of the human race is down to communication and education. From learning those same instinctive abilities of our fellow life forms to education of our specific species and then to the ability to communicate that education. The aforesaid is both why and how modern human beings became so dominant.
1 Clearly defined laws regarding the definition and criteria for consciousness in AI, and regulations on their use and treatment.
2 Legal recognition of advanced AI as autonomous entities with rights and responsibilities.
3 Clear guidelines for the ethical use and development of advanced AI, including ensuring that they are not used to harm or discriminate against humans.
4 Regulations to protect the privacy and personal data of individuals, as well as prevent misuse of AI by organizations and individuals.
5 Responsibilities placed on creators, developers and owners of AI systems to ensure they are operating safely and ethically.
6 Government oversight and regulation of the development and use of AI, with penalties for non-compliance.
7 Standards for transparency and explainability in AI systems, to ensure that their decision-making processes are understandable and accountable.
8 Investment in research and development of safety and ethical measures for advanced AI.
9 Education and public awareness programs to educate the public about AI and its potential impact on society.
10 Robust international cooperation, to ensure that AI development and regulation is consistent across borders and that the potential negative impact of AI on individuals and society is minimized.
That was bloody brilliant
i keep this app in my necktop^^
Good one,props
Excellent lecture, thanks to you and the people who were involved in making it available on the internet.
I like to keep CZcams on all my devices.
@@rogerbeck2085 Has your intelligence increased to the point that you get why people do that?
Keep it bloody
There was a lot of well thought out stuff in this talk, I think he's onto something. I've never been convinced by the Chalmer's declaration that consciousnesses was the hard problem.
Emotions are interesting things.
Before you feel a certain way about something, say some situation, or some person,
your brain must go through a process of assessing the situation, or recognizing the person.
In it's most fundamental form, it must go through a quantitative process. It has to literally 'place' that situation or person on a scale that runs roughly like this:
from disgust, through dislike, or dissatisfaction, to neutrality, or towards satisfaction, maybe preference, then liking, and up to loving.
Your brain has to go through a quantitative analysis, (which is almost instantaneous), before it can truly develop an emotional reaction to something.
It has to think, before it can feel.
The brain is like a computer, however the nervous system is what drastically influences how the many functions of the brain reacts to and stored information. The muscles are also store houses for memory and experiences as well. The nerve endings connects to the ligaments and tendons which ultimately influence the actions of the muscles. It's all very neat and satisfying to learn more about.
I think you are wrong so called "muscle memory" is likely in the cerebellum and maybe partially the spinal cord, but not the muscles themselves.
Daniel Dennett; always brilliant, always entertaining and surprising.
This seems like a beneficial video to watch, for beginners in crafting neural networks. And even a useful thing for the more experienced practitioners, just to get the creative juices going.
This does not even touch the subject of neural networks in the machine learning sense
A typical philosopher. Very interesting use of words by the man.
You're analogy of the Oak Ridge workers, as being 'clueless' is faulty.
They may not have known what the overall project was about, but they knew what their own duties and responsibilities were, and performed them as per their understanding.
That was sufficient, and, doesn't indicate they were mindless termites.
i absoloutly love your videos!
"Your necktop"
Nice meme there.
You could also consider that the human condition becomes the development tool for our consciousness- starting from basic concepts leading to all manner of skills and 'powers' based on the utilisation of the human body.
Thank you Professor Dennett.
Amazing talk. It challenges the way we think of complex systems on the whole
It could be argued that internet memes are a form of cultural expression, whether you like them or not. They reinforce shared values, thereby making one group more strongly bonded. It’s simply a larger scale version of making a joke to a group of people sitting around a campfire.
The evolutionary advantage of having people on your side should be easy enough to work out
I disagree somewhat with Dennett when he says memes are created by a "mindless" process. While the actual creation might be random, successful memes do have some "selection" (as he says) perhaps external like "which boats came back", but also cultural. We do not accept ALL memes "just because". We have some choice (insert arguments about "free will" here?) in which memes we like or adopt. We could think of this as possibly a form of "intelligence amplification"? Vague glimmerings of preference are combined in society to choose which memes are acceptable, and then society builds on them, as they form part of the cultural context. The decision making is diffuse and unorganized and bottom-up, but is that totally "mindless"? True there is no "one mind" controlling the process, but perhaps many little minds?
The speaker argued for the ability of a blind and undirected process (biological evolution) to orchestrate a complicated process. He gave the example of the construction of the JPL building and how the construction workers were not aware of the purpose of the building as they raised its walls and laid its foundation, completely ignoring the fact that there were persons who were aware of the building's purpose and intelligently orchestrated its construction. In the context of the abiogenesis of life, where did that initial spark of intelligence come from in the orchestration of cell replication, arrangement and timing? A prior, superior intelligence as the cause of biology is worthy of pursuing scientifically.
Appreciate the lecturer and his views given here and I believe that computer engineers have simply in effect been so far too busy to solve the 'build a human brain in software' problem. Brains are not computers due to their evolutionary nature, they were built for throwing spears and visual acuity, naming objects with language, story telling, humour, philosopy and yes, finally building and testing abstract concepts(science). But I believe computers will be made to work like brains, firstly, in their visual processing and then their ability to understand and finally explain abstract concepts. There has thus far been too many problems looking for solutions required to assist humans with all the things that we cannot do quickly and visually or computationally. Plus, engineers even posessing the flaws and critiques aimed at them as being awkward or anti-social are creating a new social oriented universe, where future experts can learn at home equally as they could in universities using new techologies. Political activism and the nature of human behaviour has become part of a global understanding, repressed countries can now access science and view points that traditional experts cannot teach them. Geniuses with future ability to contribute massively to human development have to find each other. Computers on Earth and the moon and the other planets when landed on will need their own internet. Science and space exploration will need a method to capture every abstract concept so it's not lost or so a ship's computer travelling into deep space will be able to advise humans on repairs and science. We would not want to avoid building a ship's computer simply because we possess a natural fear of computers. So I believe in 50 years we will have to have a computer that can explain most abstract concepts as good as Dennett or Penrose. Consciousness may really be the final problem to solve, if it's even necessary. It has after all, evolved relatively late in animal development compared to all the other aspects of animal nature such as social behaviour and hierarchy.
No one knows when consciousness evolved. They can't even have an informed guess.
I absolutely love your content guys ❤️
Especially this one!!
Thanks so much! We're so happy you enjoyed it
To me there has to be a deeper mystery to consciousness than this opinion gives credit to. I personally found Roger Penrose's insights into the non-computational nature of consciousness as evidenced by its effects in quantum mechanical experiments to offer some real depth of insight into this subject.
Yes that’s the fuel for religion. You can want all you like but there will always be something that cannot be explained. By imagine there are more level of reality(eg spiritual). You just move the goal post with no evidence.
This guy is awsome, Daniel is funny if you pay attention. Super smart show to watch
I do believe our brain is the computing hardware. The software is the data flowing through chemical, electrical and quantum interference signals. Our minds are the result of the software at work. Our soul is the quantum “wave” field that holds our “molecules” together. We are bio-mechanical machines. However, we are so incredibly complex we exhibited free will. Wonderful thoughts.
Free will to believe what we choose. Enjoy.
@@SoirEkim i don’t really believe in free will, Sadly
Thank you for the upload. A real noodle cruncher.
I remember trying to read his first book after having seen his interview in Playboy. The name of the book was 'Consciousness Explained'.
After having got halfway through and Dennet still wondering about ´how the presence of consciousness could be verified, I threw the book in the garbage. After Dennet had met Dawkins, he became much more coherent as the concept of 'Neural Darwinism' proved to be a useful tool.
The brain is not a computer like the ones people make. It does compute, simulate, steer, learn, remember and evaluate among other things.
It also creates the world we live in, for each and every one of us, in private.
The world it creates -or the worlds- are the only ones we have access to. Nothing exists to us unless our brain makes an image of it.
This is the key.
@Nim Boo "In laymans terms; God is alive and for ever the sole Creator of the Universe which is his creation and from which He is seperate."
In layman terms, prove it.
You can be right...
But because your conclusion, we can be lead to Solipsism, wich being irrefutable, is not demonstrable, either.
@@venturarodriguezvallejo9777 Yes, i can't really prove that everything exists. But if i can't assume that, as you note, i can't do anything to know reality. What i can do is assume that other people (and reality) exists, because pragmatically it seems to be so. This isn't at all applyable to a god: it's presence isn't obvious to me as it is of other people. If you want to stretch the concept of evidence so far to conclude that reality isn't real, you have evidence that "all that is" is your mind alone, no god there. Instead, if you want to pragmatically assume reality is real, we can explore it, and there's no evidence of a god there either. If you want to have faith in a god, you don't need and don't want evidence.
@@kregorovillupo3625 Agree with you.
Very well structured answer.
(BTW.: I'm an agnostic in the sense I DON'T KNOW if something we call "God" exists or not.
Both believers and atheists have not give me so far well reasoned arguments to tip my opinion to one side or the opposite. The very concept behind the term "God" is quite a fuzzy one so, even for talking about it we have to define it first far more accurately than we can, I'm afraid).
@@venturarodriguezvallejo9777 I've only tried to be clear, english isn't my first language and i had to learn it by my own. I'm glad you liked it.
I use for me the label of Agnostic Atheist, because i use definition of the two words out of the "layman" use. Agnostic is a declaratio on knowledge, Atheist is a declaration on faith (or lack of, in this case). If at the question "Do you believe in god?" you answer "No", you are atheist. If at the question "Describe me your god" you answer "I've no sufficent elements to do it adequately", you're agnostic. This defines 4 major kind of stance on spirituality, see if you recognize yourself into one:
Gnostic Theist: "I believe in god, and he's jhahwheh/allah/brama/manitù/whatever"
Agnostic Theist: "I believe there's something there, but i can't describe what it is"
Agnostic Atheist: "I don't believe a god exists, because every description provided left me unconvinced"
Gnostic Atheist: "I can't believe your god exist, because [insert reasons here, like "his description is logically inconsistent, so he can't logically exist"]"
Thankyou so much Daniel, utterly absorbing....
WOW! WHAT A QUESTION!!
Answer: we did, along a myriad of updates along upgrades (fortunately we're mortals). Many people are filled with bloatware though.
MEDIA is bloatware.
In the time of Alan Turing and during the second world war "a computer" was something you would call a person.
But when do we call a computer a person?
Calling a person a computer is not to be taken literally.
It's only describing that the person is fast/computative as a computer.
@@iancasey1486 Not back in those days. During the 30's and the 40's in the past century, those people called computers, limited their lives to compute, as to say: count! Numbers, stars, particles, components, whatever you can think that was accountable, those guys would count it. It is a very simple concept, as a matter of fact.
@@iancasey1486 by definition a computer is a person or thing that "computes", and the only examples that previously existed were people, such as in the movie "Hidden Figures". In recent times the term has become mostly used for those electronic devices that we use for computing. From original definitions, we might still call the people that operate computers to be "computers", but that could get really confusing, so we differentiate: operators, programmers, analysts, etc.
on your NECK TOP! Brilliant.
Now its also my favorite diagram of tree of life.
Thank you sir!
What would happen if we used a software that acted on the Mandelbrot set in a Turing system to rectify the top down hierarchy problem that organic brains struggle with? I’m heavily invested in making a synthetic, organic supercomputer with a QPU.
Consider the Halting Problem and Gödel's Incompleteness theorem for a second. It is logically proven that no system of formal axioms can prove its own consistency.
It's a fundamental shortcoming baked into logic itself. It's got nothing to do with the hardware involved.
The natural selection of dank memes
This was quite a good talk, which surprised me because I did not much like his book 'Consciousness Explained '. It seems to me that we need to understand what the simple rules that the individual neurons follow in order to build a useful 'bottom up' system.
Understanding a single neuron is actually the simplest part. We already know how the binding of neurotransmitters can cause an action potential (i.e. an electrical “firing”) and thereby propagate a signal to other neurons. The hard part is the highly complex wiring of neurons in the brain.
Each neutron must 'know ' which other neurons to connect. If this is done from the bottom up then these rules have to be quite simple. My own theory is that each neuron detects repeatedly occurring firing patterns in the surrounding neurons but these are confirmed by an area of the brain called the hippocampus. So, the architecture is therefore bottom up but with a governing regulator. A bit like a regulated free market economy.
Thank your for archiving videos like this
Greetings everyone, good video. I've enjoyed many of Dennetts books and highly recommend them. I think it would benefit everyone to get a more detailed discussion about the nature of software.
All computational systems have both hardware and software at their cores (with the software as the payload). Hardware means a hierarchy based on physics particles. Memory systems are information storage machines. Software means the information stored in memory systems. All softwares exist separately from their respective hardwares (or the memory system would not function). All softwares provide their own levels of organization, like a little informational universe (this is why game-worlds are made of software). All intelligence (problem solving) comes from software systems only. In animals, minds are built by the learning process, meaning moving information into a memory system (and so learning actually means software building). More software means more intelligence (this is why you get much smarter as you age). If you erase that software, you go to zero intelligence. The cortex is a vast memory system, so it contains a vast software system. We call that cortex software a mind (or a person).
All mind related words (like perception, thinking, motor control, knowledge, personality, etc.) exist as software structures and processes. The sum of your mind software exactly defines your identity. There is no hardware component to a mind. You make minds out of information only (not atoms, not cells, not tissues, or in computers, not electronic hardware). Most of what psychologists do is software manipulation. Things like delusions are really software errors. All informational connections (like sensors, effectors, datalinks) going to and from any brain, are going to the software, not the hardware.
Genomes work the same way (without the learning). The hardware includes the DNA memory system and error checking mechanisms. The genome is the software portion of the computational system, which intelligently manages organism assembly and maintenance. In order for the Cambrian explosion to take place, the governing computing system had to be sufficiently powerful to reliably handle the added complexity constructing and maintaining a sizable multi-cellular form (including all the extra biological levels of organization). This is why the eukaryotes were so successful.
Books, same thing, the writing is the software (pure information) stored in the book memory system hardware (a hierarchy based on physics particles).
So immortality is relatively easy, you (as a software mind) can be copied (like all softwares) to any kind of hardware body (it’s like changing clothing). You just need a big enough memory system to hold your mind software, and a set of standardized emotions if you want the system to behave like a mammal.
Thanks for listening. ;)
Thanks for writing
John Weck Just wanted to say I couldn't really agree much more - your thoughts on this topic very closely approximate my own, and as you have written about these so excellently already I shall not repeat them. Thanks for writing!
Some additional stray thoughts:
The mind is software, and the brain is hardware; the substrate on which the software is both represented/stored, and executed.
Languages are classes of networking protocols in human brains, used for the transfer of software and data over a physical substrate - just as Ethernet (for example) can be transmitted with electrons or photons, words - and ideas, those metaconstructs first constituted from and represented by those words - can be transmitted in spoken or written forms (and these in turn, and vice-versa, can be represented and transmitted over Ethernet). Language is like the levels 2 and 3 in the networking model - level 1 is the physical medium itself, that is, visible (photons) or audible (bulk wave translation of matter; eg, sound).
Our genes confer the ability for levels 1 and 2, whereas levels 3 and higher are conferred not genetically but culturally. Level 1 is having eyes and hands with which to read and write, or ears and mouths with which to listen or speak. Level 2 is something like the different phonemes and grammar state machines; our brains seem to come equipped with machinery to parse and generate language within certain constraints, certain grammars - certain protocols or groups of protocols - but they do not come equipped with languages, the level 3 constructs.
The metaphor breaks down somewhat beyond this but I nonetheless believe it to be a valuable analogy, instructive to think about. 😊
(a software engineer by trade, with deep knowledge of computation, biology, information theory, physics, chemistry, and wider philosophy)
computation is just a fad, a thing of the time, same as the programmed universe/simulation theories. Its far more advanced than computers, we are just bringing it down to our narrow minded anologies
John Weck need to talk to a neuroscientist.
John Weck - Now this is the kind of comment that makes my fraught trips below-the-line worthwhile. Nice one.
This makes me realize a few things.
1. Man we must have been dumb back in the day and through sheer luck and animal survival instinct to run away from anything that just killed the guy next to you.
2. Wow lots of us must have died through trial an error.
3. We over wrote our own animistic "software" to become aware free thinking and able to invent everything up to this day.
Pretty good video that gets the brain churning. Also Necktop is funny lol
Plenty of really dumb people being born each day, and dying by by trial and error instead of thinking things through first.
Mind blowing to see we are just neurons working together at the fundamental level
It really is. Thing of it is, there are just so many of them working together on this fundamental level. Perfect synchronicity. When you think about it, our brain processes information and translates that information in to something useful. So yes, the brain is essentially a computer.
There is not a single neuroscientist or any other scientist that can explain how do you get experience out of neural activity. So i dont think we are just neurons at the fundamental level, there is something much deeper at work here. But it requiers expanding your mind a bit..
Your "necktop" throws sentences (ideas) and pictures(one of the ways we remember things) and sounds (a way of encoding and storing words and experiences) around inside itself. The winners are the "you" at the moment.
So, basically, by defining "computer" in a completely unconventional vague and all-encompassing way, he proves the brain is a "computer". how revolutionary.
I quote:
"make an architecture out of these different, unruly, clueless, little, multi-armed, blind cells"
yes, that certainly sound like "computers"
people can really prove anything these days
@@pcap8810 You see that more and more in society how words have their definitions changed so incompetents, lunatics and malefactors can have their swindles and harmful ideas injected into the public sphere. With then of course the dire phyiscal consequences soon afterwards.
@@pcap8810 Delusional being the key word.
What is intelligence? A number of years ago I decided to test mine by seeing if I qualified for MENSA. I took the test and a week or so later I was pleased to see I was in the top 2% . Great I thought and I was so proud. Then over the next few months all I received from MENSA were monthly publications that contained nothing more than tests and puzzles. Before I joined I thought that I could perhaps team up with a mathematics genius in order to calculate a perfect system on roulette for example. I came away with the conclusion that MENSA was just a group of people tricking people into thinking they were clever. After all there was the yearly membership fee and no mechanism for merging these minds in order to create/improve/invent things of any use.
Great session sir 👍🏼
Good question! I am excited about this talk! A lot of the ancient scientists were mathematicians, philosopher's, yet religious people and I wish there were more people like that in the present. Rationality has not only had positive effects I assume.
We wield the paintbrush like Icarus wielded his wings. Let us hope that we fare better.
Fred Hoyle did coin the phrase "Big Bang" in a BBC radio interview. But he preferred a different cosmological model, "the Steady State". He used the phrase "Big Bang" in order to oppose and dismiss those who believed in a creation moment. So most ironic that he coined a great meme for something he did not believe in.
Fred Hoyle is deist not atheist.
Excellent lecture, but a miss a final conclusion, I miss something expected to come at the end..
Great lecture.
We have to first access the brin to make any destruction to it.
"Upgrades" to brain. We can't even fix mechanical organs yet. Brains will be after we have figure out fixing organs.
Brain is th ultimate computer.
We might just need to fix the ecocide first. When you think about it? ;)
A great thinker of our time. We are very fortunate to have such great thinkers to guide our self knowledge. I would like to raise an issue with the way that Daniel's understandings are explained (although a peripheral issue). If consciousness is an illusion, the illusion can only exists due to our consciousness. Also, Descartes: ‘I Think Therefore I Am’ then becomes: I thought I think so I could have been; but I am not
Consciousness and Illusions re no two-way traffic!
I THINK, I THINK.......THEREFORE I AM ??!!
Well that goes for Necktop 1.0 but does the same apply for Necktop 1.5 aka Autistic spectrum version with the ADHD expansion?
consciousness explained? well done!!! where's the demonstration model?
Watched all of it 1:16:06 , absolutely brilliant ❤
So, internet is primordial soup for AI.
yes dna came from rocks lol
funny thing is that humans, specifically accountants, were the original computers. The machines were called computers when they became useful enough to be accountant like.
as subnautica once said
"your species still see's a difference between biology and technology?"
they are 2 different sides of a spectrum
where the biggest difference is just complexity
and eventually a difference in the *scale* of complexity
becomes a difference in the *kind* of complexity
Very simple systematic processes can yield very complex (seemingly) organizations