We are constantly fed a version of AI that looks, sounds and acts suspiciously like us. It speaks in polished sentences, mimics emotions, expresses curiosity, claims to feel compassion, even dabbles in what it calls creativity.
But what we call AI today is nothing more than a statistical machine: a digital parrot regurgitating patterns mined from oceans of human data (the situation hasn’t changed much since it was discussed here five years ago). When it writes an answer to a question, it literally just guesses which letter and word will come next in a sequence – based on the data it’s been trained on.
This means AI has no understanding. No consciousness. No knowledge in any real, human sense. Just pure probability-driven, engineered brilliance — nothing more, and nothing less.
So why is a real “thinking” AI likely impossible? Because it’s bodiless. It has no senses, no flesh, no nerves, no pain, no pleasure. It doesn’t hunger, desire or fear. And because there is no cognition — not a shred — there’s a fundamental gap between the data it consumes (data born out of human feelings and experience) and what it can do with them.
Philosopher David Chalmers calls the mysterious mechanism underlying the relationship between our physical body and consciousness the “hard problem of consciousness”. Eminent scientists have recently hypothesised that consciousness actually emerges from the integration of internal, mental states with sensory representations (such as changes in heart rate, sweating and much more).
Given the paramount importance of the human senses and emotion for consciousness to “happen”, there is a profound and probably irreconcilable disconnect between general AI, the machine, and consciousness, a human phenomenon.
I’m not missing anything. I’m simply explaining to you that the fitness function for living organisms is far more complex than simply striving for efficiency. I understand perfectly well how entropy and thermodynamics work.
There is plenty of real evidence. I’ve literally provided you evidence of a person with most of their brain missing who has led a normal life. Another obvious example is people who lose half their brain in accidents and can continue to live normal lives with a single hemisphere. More evidence comes from birds like corvids who exhibit high levels of intelligence and problem solving that’s comparable to primates. Since they have an additional requirement of being able to fly, there is a selection pressure to optimize the system further. Just because you’re completely ignorant on the topic you’re attempting to debate here doesn’t mean that evidence doesn’t exist.
I linked you a blog post by a biologist discussing a paper. This is a very well known case that’s in no way controversial. The fact that you’re acting as if it just just further shows that you have no business having this discussion. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3679117/scientists-research-man-missing-90-of-his-brain-who-leads-a-normal-life-1.3679125
about the level of discourse I’ve come to expect from you lol
You’re being deeply uncharitable here. I never said redundancy in biological systems is something that is never selected for. I was simply stating that the selection for such redundancy is bound by thermodynamic processes that govern natural selection in the first place. Physicists that have ventured into the field of biology have suggested that this is the case for decades. However it’s only in the past 15 or so years that the field has advanced to the point where these hypotheses are testable. Honestly it’s fascinating and outside of this dumb argument you should look into it because it aligns surprisingly well with Marx’s observations about economic development. If you are genuinely interested I’ll share some papers.
No there isn’t. You’ve just made some foolish assumptions and you’ve ignored me yet again. I won’t dox myself but this isn’t some casual interest for me. To give you some idea of where I’m coming from, I’ve seen a hemispherectomy before. I’ve literally stared into a persons skull as half of their brain tissue was either removed or surgically disconnected. I then saw that person wake of up from anesthesia with some complications but less than someone unfamiliar with the procedure would expect. None of this is new to me.
In all of the cases you’ve referenced so far, the patients have cognitive deficiencies. It’s not at all the same as a person losing a kidney or donating a lobe of their liver where a they can got on to be perfectly healthy with what remains. It’s also key to realize that in the cases you’re referencing the problem starts very early in development. That gives the brain time to develop in a unique way which allows it to retain much of its intended function. What you’re seeing is not proof of redundancy but rather proof of compensatory reorganization in the remaining tissue. It’s likely the brain in these patients have, on average, a higher degree of interconnectivity than what you might find in a normal healthy brain. In which case, some complexity is lost but maybe not as much as you’ve assumed. If you tried to remove pieces of a fully healthy brain you will mostly likely see a severe loss of function, think traumatic brain injuries and stroke victims. This is amazing stuff but you’re making assumptions that just don’t align modern neuroscience.
You’re assuming size and complexity are the same thing! They aren’t. Corvids have a way higher neural density than the brains of primates. It’s fascinating but it does not back up the idea that much of the brains complexity is redundant. In fact it would suggest the opposite because under a selective pressure to reduce the size of a brain it still seems that complexity must be preserved in order to achieve similar cognitive capacities.
Maybe at one time he was. Now he’s just a science fiction author. Also what does having a degree in biology prove? I can link you to blog posts written by biologists that claim Covid 19 is a weapon created by China’s evil communist scientists. Would you trust them too? Academic rigor requires more than just the musings of any individual scientist.
I’m not saying the case itself is controversial. However, the assumptions you’ve made and the conclusions you’re trying to draw from such cases is! At least it would be amongst neuroscientists.
I mean you’re right here in the mud with me lol.
Also, I’ve engaged with you as much as I have because I generally agree with most of what you post on this site. I’ve generally appreciated your presence. However, that makes it all the more maddening when you go on to spew such ignorance about the human brain and AI. You make bold claims and then won’t even cite a real peer reviewed publication. I get that kind of behavior flies in online marxist circles especially since some of the best Marxist theoretical papers these days aren’t even translated into English. However, when discussing things like neuroscience I expect better. Throw the science out and what you’re left with is pure idealism.
We’re in complete agreement here. Thermodynamics are the fundamental reason anything happens, and life exists within resolving energy gradients. The selection process favors organisms that use energy efficiently. This point is not being debated. What I’ve been saying here is that that’s only part of the picture, and efficient use of energy competes with other factors such as robustness, error recovery, and so on. Living organisms need to be able to survive in a complex and dangerous environment which creates a pressure for redundancy.
I’ve read a number of papers, and even reference a few here https://theunconductedchorus.com/
However, I’m always interested to read more on the subject. So by all means link the papers you’ve read.
Sure, and I’m not arguing that removing large portions of the brain is not going to cause cognitive deficiencies. The point being made is that they’re still able to function and retain much of the cognitive ability. It’s quite clear that the brain is able to route around the damage and compensate for it in many cases.
The original point we were debating here is what is the size and complexity of a biological neural network that starts exhibiting interesting properties that we would care about implementing in an artificial one. It’s clear that is smaller than the entire brain of a healthy human adult.
The total number of neurons and connections is significantly lower than primates, yet they are able to solve problems of similar complexity. In fact, crows exhibit abilities such as transfer learning which chimps do not.
Perhaps you should start by defining what you mean by complexity instead of just throwing the term around. I’m using it to mean the combination of the number of neurons and the connections between them.
You continue to attack his credentials, but you have yet to address what he says or what the original study of the patient suggests. You’re dismissing the results using an argument from authority here. Clearly, he’s qualified to have an opinion on the subject.
Make an actual argument to substantiate your position.
What ignorance have I spewed regarding human brain and AI. Please quote specific things I said that you’re referring to.