is it possible for a computer to gain self awareness

Originally posted by dadudemon
like a real neuron is supposed to do.

individual neurons do not process data

Originally posted by dadudemon
But, here's the odd part about that: memristors operate much more quickly than neurons and the connections are not lost nearly as frequently as neurons. So, basically, it will be a faster thinking, better memory retaining AI than a human mind......IF they can get it work properly.

computers already have much better memory capabilities than does the human brain

Originally posted by dadudemon
How do neurons store memories?

distributed networks, not individually

what I find funny here is that, for all the complaints people come up with here, none of them are the actual seemingly insurmountable issues that exist with simulating the human brain.

Chemicals and gravity or whatever are not the issues. The fact that all human cognition is based on a continuing flow of sensory information is. Its not that we would need to simulate the quantum level interaction of calcium ions going through neuronal membranes to cause depolarization and action potentials, it is that we would need to simulate an environment for this thing to be self-aware in, and there would need to be a representation of this environment simulated through sensory mechanisms.

There is no abstract "self-awareness" that humans have. It is all contextual based on our sensory systems current and past experiences. Like, trying to reduce this to chemicals is the easy part, that simply requires a lot of algorhythms to account for the physical properties of molecules or whatever. Because all functions of the mind evolved for specific purposes in the environment, the real issue will be recreating that. A simulated brain, with no visual or audio input, with no body giving it signals of homeostasis, with no language development, will never become self-aware, a simulation that has all that but doesn't specifically model every graviton's impact on a cell's chemical composition will.

hate=pop psych

Originally posted by dadudemon
"Some" are thinking that memristors will act as the electronic medium necessary for true AI because each memristor "cell" can both store data and process data...like a real neuron is supposed to do.

As I understand it memristors don't "process" things, they are able to remember what has gone through them in the past. The changes in electrical resistance certainly do call to mind long term potentiation and long term depression.

very interesting

Originally posted by Oliver North
individual neurons do not process data

yes yes...but you know what I mean...

Originally posted by Oliver North
distributed networks, not individually

But how? That does not explain how the memories are stored. I have searched and searched and I still do not see how memories are stored. A memory can be recalled by a cluster but that does not explain how the memory itself is stored on a neuron (and because you don't like that: neurons).

Basically, how does the data itself get stored and recalled by a neuron? It is definitely not magic.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
As I understand it memristors don't "process" things, they are able to remember what has gone through them in the past. The changes in electrical resistance certainly do call to mind long term potentiation and long term depression.

Memristors can act as a "transistor" in that it can be used in the same way a CPU functions.

I wrote a white paper on memristors and designed a few hardware applications of memristors. Basically, you can have a slab of memristors to function as your entire computer. All design could be logical (as opposed to physical). No need for things like FSBs, CPU memory, etc. It can all function as the RAM, CPU, and harddrive.

that actually refers back to mine and astner's convo earlier. For things like memory, as opposed to something like low-level visual processes, people just don't know the cell-by-cell way information is stored and retrieved. Certainly, different types of memory are better understood than others, but I could probably only give you a broad strokes type of picture. I can if you want, but even then, it would be me, someone who doesn't study memory, explaining my understanding of something not exceptionally well understood.

a short version may be something like: the hippocampus builds, literal, physical connections between sensory experiences and internal context, and whenever a sensory experience recreates something similar, that, and all other connected things, become activated, and the brain "remembers" some construction of the most activated things based on a narrative it builds out of those activations and general expectations.

Originally posted by Oliver North
a short version may be something like: the hippocampus builds, literal, physical connections between sensory experiences and internal context, and whenever a sensory experience recreates something similar, that, and all other connected things, become activated, and the brain "remembers" some construction of the most activated things based on a narrative it builds out of those activations and general expectations.

Yes, that makes sense but, like you indicated, we are not quite there on knowing exactly how that memory is stored and retrieved. How can people be talking about making "human-like" AI if we don't quite understand how memories work?

Maybe I should ask this: what about a particular memory cluster makes that cluster function as a "remember"?

I understand why we would retrieve memories. I also understand that we may also "select" a memory that is not the most associated with certain stimulus (almost like a veto and reprocess command). I guess I could go back and read yours and Asnter's conversation. I could have sworn I read that, already.

Originally posted by dadudemon
How can people be talking about making "human-like" AI if we don't quite understand how memories work?

the people that do are almost, to a person, not memory researchers

Originally posted by dadudemon
Maybe I should ask this: what about a particular memory cluster makes that cluster function as a "remember"?

memories aren't clusters though. they are literal, physical bridges between different "modules" of the brain that specialize in processing different things. "Storage" is more about the connections between things, not so much about a bunch of neurons that store information (because neurons as individuals don't store information).

Like, basically, it sounds like you take the computer model too literally, which is totally reasonable, given that is what seems to be the cultural zeitgeist on the matter.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I guess I could go back and read yours and Asnter's conversation. I could have sworn I read that, already.

thinking about it, it was more how I was trying to explain the issue to red g jacks, not Astner, mine and his convo sort of grew out of the one I was having with red g.

Originally posted by Oliver North
... the statement was about the neuron-to-neuron understanding, contrasting how well vision is known compared to memory. In this case, while the structure of the geniculo-striate pathway is hugely consistent at a level above individual neurons, as are the connections among the earliest levels of V1, individuals show huge differences at the neuronal level... Like, just out of curiosity, do you even know what Talairach space is? I mean without Google...

Honestly, I did not know that*...and I thought I had a "more-than-layman" understand of visual processing. To answer your question, now, the only label I know of that is the T-Atlas.

* I did not know that there were huge differences at the small scale.

Originally posted by Oliver North
Calling something like serotonin the "happy" chemical is a gross oversimplification that really only exists because of pop psychology wanting simple answers to sell crappy books.

lol!

Originally posted by 753
If I built a black hole, it could drag light into it by its infinite gravity (I actually know dick about black holes, but last I heard their gravity was infinite)

If I simulated the same black hole in a computer would it have gravity insofar as the word gravity means anything?

If the gravity were infinite, the universe would instantly collapse into the black hole and there would be no "volume" to space, at all: it would be infinitely dense.

I believe you meant that space-time curvature is infinite in the "blackhole".

Originally posted by Oliver North
the people that do are almost, to a person, not memory researchers

I do hold that the brain can be mimicked to a point that "spiritual machines" will exist. However, I am not as bold to say we can replicate a human mind by 2025 as Kurzweil is want to conclude.

Originally posted by Oliver North
memories aren't clusters though. they are literal, physical bridges between different "modules" of the brain that specialize in processing different things. "Storage" is more about the connections between things, not so much about a bunch of neurons that store information (because neurons as individuals don't store information).

Like, basically, it sounds like you take the computer model too literally, which is totally reasonable, given that is what seems to be the cultural zeitgeist on the matter.

(bold emphasis added to make my response make more sense)

I do mostly because I come from the computer side of things. Associated processing, however, is not foreign to me. lol I just don't quite get how the memory is stored. It is definitely stored. It is retrieved. The mechanism of storage is the part I don't quite get. And, yes, I understand what you are saying about connections functioning as the memory. Basically, the MTL does not solve all the unknowns. But it does look like you're using the LTP model to describe memory 'storage' and that does appear to be a viable model. But it still does not explain the memories...I don't quite know what I am trying to say. That memory comes from something in the brain...

It's possible I need to just study it more.

Originally posted by Oliver North
thinking about it, it was more how I was trying to explain the issue to red g jacks, not Astner, mine and his convo sort of grew out of the one I was having with red g.

Well, I read the whole thing and it seemed more like a pissing match that you clearly won. 🙁

I am off work. Where are you getting the time to read and respond on KMC?

Originally posted by dadudemon
But it still does not explain the memories...I don't quite know what I am trying to say. That memory comes from something in the brain...

it comes from the activation of the two related systems that have been connected in the past.

the same way that "visualizing" yourself doing something in the brain activates visual and motor areas used when you actually do that thing, memories for doing that thing would be the activation of those locations.

at a neuronal level, there are probably distinct neurons that do each, maybe, but the memory itself is the association between these things in the context you find yourself in.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Well, I read the whole thing and it seemed more like a pissing match that you clearly won. 🙁

nobody wins internet pissing matches

Until a computer becomes self aware........

All depends on what peoples idea of awareness is.

Personally I believe it's only a matter of time.

Originally posted by Oliver North
aren't tables and chairs?

the chemicals aren't the important part, it is the distributed pattern of activation. What causes that activation is interesting, but in theory, anything that allowed that type of inter-cellular communication would have the same effect. [/B]

I see no reason to assume mathematical models of a physical process could yield the same epiphenomenon as internal mental states, even if it could simulate its computational faculties.

Originally posted by 753
but the physical behavior of those chemicals is that very activation. how can you be so sure the mind can be reduced to an activation pattern regardless of the physical system?

Can't most things?

Originally posted by 753
I see no reason to assume mathematical models of a physical process could yield the same epiphenomenon as internal mental states, even if it could simulate its computational faculties.

What exactly do you mean by epiphenomenon?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Can't most things?

What exactly do you mean by epiphenomenon?

Think epiphanies.

A human brain operates much like an advanced, self-aware computer already. It's only a matter of time before self-awareness can be imitated, and improved. Metacognition and total recollection are things very taxing upon the human mind, like trying to remember every detail of a surreal dream. The deepening process of being cognitive about cognition (metacognizance) can expand the cognitive faculties of the human brain, however very slowly when compared to what the superior silicon-based imitation of the mirroring mind that is a futuristic self-aware computer. A human sized computer, in 52 years, will be smarter than a human sapienome (id est, every single human mind) according to current rates of increase in performance, that compounds the already inhuman tools computers possess, tools like perfect computational devices, eidetic memory, completely logical decision making uninhibited by and completely removed from the emotions it feels from it's self-awareness, and finally it's necessity to constantly form a deeper cognition to achieve higher levels of clarity through perpetuating metaconscious feedback.

Originally posted by Dolos
Think epiphanies.

I doubt that. 753 uses pretty formal philosophical language which makes me think epiphenomenon should fit somewhere with phenomenon and noumea

Originally posted by Dolos
A human brain operates much like an advanced, self-aware computer already. It's only a matter of time before self-awareness can be imitated, and improved. Metacognition and total recollection are things very taxing upon the human mind, like trying to remember every detail of a surreal dream. The deepening process of being cognitive about cognition (metacognizance) can expand the cognitive faculties of the human brain, however very slowly when compared to what the superior silicon-based imitation of the mirroring mind that is a futuristic self-aware computer. A human sized computer, in 52 years, will be smarter than a human sapienome (id est, every single human mind) according to current rates of increase in performance, that compounds the already inhuman tools computers possess, tools like perfect computational devices, eidetic memory, completely logical decision making uninhibited by and completely removed from the emotions it feels from it's self-awareness, and finally it's necessity to constantly form a deeper cognition to achieve higher levels of clarity through perpetuating metaconscious feedback.

You don't need to sell me on this part of your religion. I happen to believe that the human mind can be simulated, its 753 who doesn't. On the other hand prophecies like "in 52 years" are ridiculous.

I'll also add that what you've written is just a long list of claims without justifications. Who cares? The discussion we're having is about why or why not simulating a mind is possible in the first place. What, other than your faith in the cyber rapture, makes you think a brain can be recreated on a computer?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
What exactly do you mean by epiphenomenon?

Originally posted by dadudemon

Well, I read the whole thing and it seemed more like a pissing match that you clearly won. 🙁