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Well, the brain is a physical neural network, and evolution seems to have figured out how to generate a (somewhat) copiable model. I bet we could learn a trick

Well, the brain is a physical neural network, and evolution seems to have figured out how to generate a (somewhat) copiable model. I bet we could learn a trick or two from biology here.

tomxor 2y ago
Some parts are copiable, but not the more abstract things like the human intellect, for lack of a better word. We are not even born with what you might consider basic mental faculties, for example it might seem absurd, but we have to learn to see... We are born with the "hardware" for it, a visual cortex, an eye, all defined by our genes, but it's actually trained from birth, there is even a feedback loop that causes the retina to physically develop properly.
- immibis 2y ago
  They raised some cats from birth in an environment with only vertically-oriented edges, none horizontal. Those cats could not see horizontally-oriented things. https://computervisionblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/cats-and-vision-is-vision-acquired-or-innate/ https://computervisionblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/cats-and... Likewise, kittens with an eye patch over an eye in the same time period remain blind in that eye forever.
  - tomxor 2y ago
    Wow, that's a horrific way of proving that theory.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    Geez poor kitties, but that is interesting.
- alexpotato 2y ago
  Another example: Children who were "raised in the wild" or locked in a room by themselves have shown to be incapable of learning full human language. The working theory is that our brains can only learn certain skills at certain times of brain development/ages.
  - deepfriedchokes 2y ago
    We should also consider the effects of trauma on those brains. If you’ve ever spent time around people with extreme trauma they are very much in their own heads and can’t focus outside themselves long enough to focus enough to learn anything. It definitely impacts intellectual capacity. Humans are social animals and anyone raised without proper socializing and intimacy and nurturing will inevitably end up traumatized.
hansworst 2y ago
The way the brain does it is by giving users a largely untrained model that they themselves have to train over the next 20 years for it to be of any use.
- lynx23 2y ago
  20 years of training is not enough. Neuroscientists say 25. According to my own experience, its more like 30.
  - dcuthbertson 2y ago
    In the end, it's a life-long process.
- wbillingsley 2y ago
  Sometimes. Foals are born (almost) able to walk. There are occasions where evolution baked the model into the genes.
  - tomxor 2y ago
    Yeah that example came to my mind too. I suspect there may be trade off undergoing evolutionary selection here, where for some organisms a behaviour is more important from the offset, it's worth encoding more of the behaviour into genes, at what cost I wonder? It's also possible there is some other mechanism going on at an embryonic stage, a kind of pre-training. I suspect some of the division is also defined by how complex the task is, or how sensitive the model is to it's own neurons (kind of like PNN). I don't have a well rounded argument, but my instinct is that encoding or pre-training walking is far easier than seeing. Not to mention basic quadrupedal walking/standing is far easier than bipedal, they can learn the more complex coordinated movements after.
- salomonk_mur 2y ago
  It is extremely trained already. Everyone alive was born with the ability for all their organs and bodily function to work autonomously. A ton of that is probably encoded elsewhere, but no doubt the brain plays a huge part. And somehow, it's all reconstructed for each new "device".
chbint 2y ago
There's indeed a nice trick to be learned from cognitive science focused in biological cognition: the mind is embodied and embedded. Which means, roughly, that it is not portable. It doesn't store things like "glass at position x,y" but only "glass is at a small movement of the hand towards the right". Consequently, whatever gets encoded only makes sense within a given body and only inasmuch as it relied on its environment (with humans, that includes social environments). The good news is that, despite being not portable, this reliance on physical properties might be a step in the right direction, after all.

Well, the brain is a physical neural network, and evolution seems to have figured out how to generate a (somewhat) copiable model. I bet we could learn a trick or two from biology here.

tomxor 2y ago

Some parts are copiable, but not the more abstract things like the human intellect, for lack of a better word. We are not even born with what you might consider basic mental faculties, for example it might seem absurd, but we have to learn to see... We are born with the "hardware" for it, a visual cortex, an eye, all defined by our genes, but it's actually trained from birth, there is even a feedback loop that causes the retina to physically develop properly.

immibis 2y ago
They raised some cats from birth in an environment with only vertically-oriented edges, none horizontal. Those cats could not see horizontally-oriented things. https://computervisionblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/cats-and-vision-is-vision-acquired-or-innate/ https://computervisionblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/cats-and... Likewise, kittens with an eye patch over an eye in the same time period remain blind in that eye forever.
- tomxor 2y ago
  Wow, that's a horrific way of proving that theory.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  Geez poor kitties, but that is interesting.
alexpotato 2y ago
Another example: Children who were "raised in the wild" or locked in a room by themselves have shown to be incapable of learning full human language. The working theory is that our brains can only learn certain skills at certain times of brain development/ages.
- deepfriedchokes 2y ago
  We should also consider the effects of trauma on those brains. If you’ve ever spent time around people with extreme trauma they are very much in their own heads and can’t focus outside themselves long enough to focus enough to learn anything. It definitely impacts intellectual capacity. Humans are social animals and anyone raised without proper socializing and intimacy and nurturing will inevitably end up traumatized.

hansworst 2y ago

The way the brain does it is by giving users a largely untrained model that they themselves have to train over the next 20 years for it to be of any use.

lynx23 2y ago
20 years of training is not enough. Neuroscientists say 25. According to my own experience, its more like 30.
- dcuthbertson 2y ago
  In the end, it's a life-long process.
wbillingsley 2y ago
Sometimes. Foals are born (almost) able to walk. There are occasions where evolution baked the model into the genes.
- tomxor 2y ago
  Yeah that example came to my mind too. I suspect there may be trade off undergoing evolutionary selection here, where for some organisms a behaviour is more important from the offset, it's worth encoding more of the behaviour into genes, at what cost I wonder? It's also possible there is some other mechanism going on at an embryonic stage, a kind of pre-training. I suspect some of the division is also defined by how complex the task is, or how sensitive the model is to it's own neurons (kind of like PNN). I don't have a well rounded argument, but my instinct is that encoding or pre-training walking is far easier than seeing. Not to mention basic quadrupedal walking/standing is far easier than bipedal, they can learn the more complex coordinated movements after.
salomonk_mur 2y ago
It is extremely trained already. Everyone alive was born with the ability for all their organs and bodily function to work autonomously. A ton of that is probably encoded elsewhere, but no doubt the brain plays a huge part. And somehow, it's all reconstructed for each new "device".

chbint 2y ago

There's indeed a nice trick to be learned from cognitive science focused in biological cognition: the mind is embodied and embedded. Which means, roughly, that it is not portable. It doesn't store things like "glass at position x,y" but only "glass is at a small movement of the hand towards the right". Consequently, whatever gets encoded only makes sense within a given body and only inasmuch as it relied on its environment (with humans, that includes social environments). The good news is that, despite being not portable, this reliance on physical properties might be a step in the right direction, after all.