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I'm probably way off the mark here, but my instinct tells me there's nothing intrinsic about the human condition that makes it the exclusive vessel of thought.

I'm probably way off the mark here, but my instinct tells me there's nothing intrinsic about the human condition that makes it the exclusive vessel of thought. It is theoretically possible, after all, to simulate a human brain at a subatomic level. Sure, the complexity is absurd and interface required to measure it seems far fetched, but technically there's no restriction. Because of this I believe what we know as "thought" or consciousness exists in the space between the physical world. It's just a way to represent the world around us, with the ability to reference the past and systems to predict the future. LLMs to me are like a simplified version thats stretched across the domain of active memory. The "thought" process is the same, an active state (current token) guided by the past state (previous tokens). I think the next step is to reduce what a token is. Right now they are vectors that are linked to words. If instead of words we fed it direct video and audio, and a way to translate the raw data into something resembling the information passed from our eyes and ears in real time, and train it like a child learns from its parents, it's hard to draw the line on where thought begins. It's an interesting experiment, but I still consider it anti-human. In the future, when we have "robot" rights for robots that identify as humans, you'll find me on the side of "they aren't a real human". We'll be called bigots, and I'm okay with that.

randomImmigrant 2mo ago
Made some updates to my post but glad you brought up simulation: today when we simulate the brain, at whatever resolution, we do so in digital systems that have the Von Neumann bottleneck. Processing and memory are separated. In humans and all of biology, these things overlap instead. And that’s where simulations ultimately fail. They are out of step with real time in a way biology is not, because biology is attuned to the environment, and down to the molecular level, is actually enacting a physical process distributed across many cells that track the periodicities in various external signals, then anticipate them.
- defrost 2mo ago
  Does Danny Hillis' Connection Machine have a von Neumann bottleneck? Do transputer arrays separate processing and memory? When custom silicon is made to speed up LLM behaviour doesn't that operate fully parallel with mixed memory and processing? When real time remote sensing signal processing pipelines are built isn't it possible to parallel in the kinds of filters that "anticipate" the expected future (and highlight deviations from the expected).
  - randomImmigrant 2mo ago
    Yes... when these things are done, we can talk. Which is why I said "I believe machines could be made that think". They can be. We just haven't done it yet.
    - defrost 2mo ago
      > Yes. To which question? The Connection Machine CM-2 (1987) has a non von Neumann architecture and mixes memory and processing .. so that's been done, 40 years ago. Anticipating the future in real time remote sensing signal processing pipelines has been about for at least [redacted] decades.
      - randomImmigrant 1mo ago
        > The Connection Machine CM-2 (1987) has a non von Neumann architecture and mixes memory and processing .. so that's been done, 40 years ago. Are you claiming that it therefore thinks? It’s a foray into a different type of computing, and certainly one we need to explore more. But if you’re claiming it is actually thinking, can you point to the data that indicates that? > Anticipating the future in real time remote sensing signal processing pipelines has been about for at least [redacted] decades. Yes the humans anticipate. I’m not sure you’re getting what it means for the anticipation to be built ground up in biology. Every single cell is cycling in anticipation of the coming day, in advance of it. This is the basal dynamics of life. Before you get to “thinking” in the human verbal sense, you have pre-verbal awareness that’s cell deep in every human body, which consists of anticipatory cycling that is seen learning, cell division, metabolism, and so on. What you lack in engineered systems (so far) is that kind of deep anticipatory architecture that goes down to the molecular scale. Maybe we do get to build that. Like I said, I don’t but that we can’t build artificial minds and artificial life. What I’m saying is we’re nowhere close to there.
rustcleaner 2mo ago
>I'm probably way off the mark here, but my instinct tells me there's nothing intrinsic about the human condition that makes it the exclusive vessel of thought. I'm in your boat. Molecular biology looks quite analogous to something like Conway's Game of Life, but a particle automaton with freedom in 3D space rather than cells in a fixed 2D aetheric grid. Conway's Game of Life is Turing complete, the fundamental laws/algorithms are simple. Per Wolfram (NKS), you don't need complex algorithms in order to exhibit complex behavior. GoL is just four rules and a[n infinite] grid. Wolfram's automata are simpler. I will go even further out 'there' and state that we are the equivalent to Greek "city-gods" which arise out of the polity/demos composing them, except our polities are little biological von Neumann machines acting in concert to emerge us in their aggregate. What most people think of as 'god' being some top-down omniscient/omnipotent creator entity, I think is wrong and reverses the true heirarchy of nature. The fabric of spacetime, the quantum field, or whatever emerges it from a lower level with its fixed simple rules, is the primary force driving the universe's [and our] existence. If there are gods, we are categorically much closer to them in form than the pious fanatics say! (Disclosure: I am petulantly Atheist.)
esikich 2mo ago
You might like this. Maybe math is existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...

randomImmigrant 2mo ago

Made some updates to my post but glad you brought up simulation: today when we simulate the brain, at whatever resolution, we do so in digital systems that have the Von Neumann bottleneck. Processing and memory are separated. In humans and all of biology, these things overlap instead. And that’s where simulations ultimately fail. They are out of step with real time in a way biology is not, because biology is attuned to the environment, and down to the molecular level, is actually enacting a physical process distributed across many cells that track the periodicities in various external signals, then anticipate them.

defrost 2mo ago
Does Danny Hillis' Connection Machine have a von Neumann bottleneck? Do transputer arrays separate processing and memory? When custom silicon is made to speed up LLM behaviour doesn't that operate fully parallel with mixed memory and processing? When real time remote sensing signal processing pipelines are built isn't it possible to parallel in the kinds of filters that "anticipate" the expected future (and highlight deviations from the expected).
- randomImmigrant 2mo ago
  Yes... when these things are done, we can talk. Which is why I said "I believe machines could be made that think". They can be. We just haven't done it yet.
  - defrost 2mo ago
    > Yes. To which question? The Connection Machine CM-2 (1987) has a non von Neumann architecture and mixes memory and processing .. so that's been done, 40 years ago. Anticipating the future in real time remote sensing signal processing pipelines has been about for at least [redacted] decades.
    - randomImmigrant 1mo ago
      > The Connection Machine CM-2 (1987) has a non von Neumann architecture and mixes memory and processing .. so that's been done, 40 years ago. Are you claiming that it therefore thinks? It’s a foray into a different type of computing, and certainly one we need to explore more. But if you’re claiming it is actually thinking, can you point to the data that indicates that? > Anticipating the future in real time remote sensing signal processing pipelines has been about for at least [redacted] decades. Yes the humans anticipate. I’m not sure you’re getting what it means for the anticipation to be built ground up in biology. Every single cell is cycling in anticipation of the coming day, in advance of it. This is the basal dynamics of life. Before you get to “thinking” in the human verbal sense, you have pre-verbal awareness that’s cell deep in every human body, which consists of anticipatory cycling that is seen learning, cell division, metabolism, and so on. What you lack in engineered systems (so far) is that kind of deep anticipatory architecture that goes down to the molecular scale. Maybe we do get to build that. Like I said, I don’t but that we can’t build artificial minds and artificial life. What I’m saying is we’re nowhere close to there.

rustcleaner 2mo ago

>I'm probably way off the mark here, but my instinct tells me there's nothing intrinsic about the human condition that makes it the exclusive vessel of thought. I'm in your boat. Molecular biology looks quite analogous to something like Conway's Game of Life, but a particle automaton with freedom in 3D space rather than cells in a fixed 2D aetheric grid. Conway's Game of Life is Turing complete, the fundamental laws/algorithms are simple. Per Wolfram (NKS), you don't need complex algorithms in order to exhibit complex behavior. GoL is just four rules and a[n infinite] grid. Wolfram's automata are simpler. I will go even further out 'there' and state that we are the equivalent to Greek "city-gods" which arise out of the polity/demos composing them, except our polities are little biological von Neumann machines acting in concert to emerge us in their aggregate. What most people think of as 'god' being some top-down omniscient/omnipotent creator entity, I think is wrong and reverses the true heirarchy of nature. The fabric of spacetime, the quantum field, or whatever emerges it from a lower level with its fixed simple rules, is the primary force driving the universe's [and our] existence. If there are gods, we are categorically much closer to them in form than the pious fanatics say! (Disclosure: I am petulantly Atheist.)

esikich 2mo ago

You might like this. Maybe math is existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...