[tux1968]

I couldn't disagree with you more. The article referenced by GP mistakes the form for the function. Just because the computer uses different technology than human tissue, doesn't mean it isn't emulating the same ultimate processes that are happening in our bodies.

And even if we don't have the correct algorithms in sight today, there is every reason to believe that whatever processes are occurring in our brains and bodies, can indeed be simulated and replicated virtually.

The only way to argue against this idea is to claim that there is some special magical non-material aspect to our existence... which no article or neuroscience education has yet demonstrated.

[Fishysoup]

The comment was about universal Bayesian brains and other things that are quite a stretch to say the least. Of course, since our brains are made of physical matter, they must perform computations that other physical matter can perform.

The trap is to think about the brain in terms of things we find impressive, and about things we find impressive as being like brains somehow. Therefore analogies to steam engines, computers and deep learning. And these analogies have always turned out to be silly.

[temac]

> Just because the computer uses different technology than human tissue, doesn't mean it isn't emulating the same ultimate processes that are happening in our bodies

BUT: at least I think we are far from it. Very far. In the sense that we don't need more computing power of the current approaches to get e.g. AGI, we need radically new ones. And I actually don't see why this would be opposed to more neuroscience education, instead of excitement for cool but still quite limited models, and why this would be pretending that there is some "special magical non-material aspect to our existence"

How much can you compress the essential structure and complexity of an intelligent brain? It is an open question, but if in the end you can not compress it "enough", it does not have much practical consequences of it being also theoretically a mathematical object. And on top of that: we already know how to make new ones...

[pixl97]

Define intelligent.

Very tiny animal life shows what we would consider intelligent behavior. There is no particular reason to believe that evolution has even come close to size optimization that intelligence can be reduced in, as there are a large number of other dimensions it is working on at the same time, survival being the big one.

[phkahler]

>> which no article or neuroscience education has yet demonstrated.

True, but there are some pretty interesting ideas out there. I'm going have to start putting together a list of articles. From the proof that if we have free will, so do particles to some extent. To the notion that quantum computation may happen in the brain. Not saying I believe these things, but the people behind them are pretty smart.

[Fishysoup]

There is no real evidence that we have free will, and the general "suspicion" in the field is that we don't. Yes the brain is made of particles, but their arrangement is very particular and very complex, leaving cognition and all other things the brain does to almost certainly be emergent phenomena. Boiling down to single particles is like trying to reverse engineer a Tesla by focusing on the fact that it has iron atoms in it.

[tux1968]

> From the proof that if we have free will, so do particles to some extent. To the notion that quantum computation may happen in the brain.

The question remains, what reason do we have to believe that only a living brain, and not a silicon analogue, can tap into those features of reality?