This is a great idea. But… I think you have to look towards your cultural bias. I am retired after a full career and have a Bachelor Degree. I have no idea what I am supposed to do with questions about SAT, ACT, GRE, GPA, college majors. Is someone who was educated partly in Canada, partly in the UK (and not recently) not welcome? How would you think someone who is from a non-English speaking region and who has English as a second language would view the questionnaire? At least “IQ” and “highest academic level achieved” are somewhat universal ideas. Good luck.
JanetK
“The local worldview reduces everything to some combination of physics, mathematics, and computer science, with the exact combination depending on the person. I think it is manifestly the case that this does not work for consciousness.” No it doesn’t work because you have left out BIOLOGY. You cannot just jump from physics and algorithms to how brains function. Here is the outline of a possible path: 1.We know that consciousness has an important function because it consumes a great deal of energy – that’s how evolution works. 2.Animals move – therefore they must have a model of where they are, where they are going etc. - like the old Swedish joke is ‘I cant yump when I got no place to stood’. 3.To make a model, animals need to sense the environment and translate the info into elements of the model (perception). 4.In order to use the model to plan and monitor motor action, they have to also model themselves – so the model is of the animal-in-the-world—the tree is not the real tree in reality but the modeled tree and the me in the model is not the real me in reality but the modeled me. 5.In order to make a good model that was useful it would have to be a unified global model of the animal in the world – all the parts of the model have to be brought together in order to create the best fit scenario and in order for various functions to use the information. 6.In order to make a good model that could be used to plan and valuate actions it would have to model the needs of the animal such as goals, motivations, emotions etc – the model has to have a theory of mind for the animal—so my thoughts in the model are not my real thoughts in reality but the modeled mind. When we introspect we are aware of our model of ourselves but not of ourselves in reality. Definitions can be a problem here – do we use the word ‘mind’ for cognition or for awareness? For we have trouble if we confuse these two things. 7.To make the model more useful it should be predictive to overcome the time it takes to construct the model – so if ‘now’ is t, then the model would be created from the information the brain has at t-x used to predict what reality will be after x duration where x is the time it takes to construct the model – this allows errors in motor actions to be monitored and corrected because the sensory data coming it does not match the model prediction – even the ‘now’ is a modeled now and not the now in reality. 8.So the biological criteria for a good model are unity, speed, accuracy and predictive power. The elements used to create the model must be easily manipulated in order to achieve these goals and must also be capable of being stored as memories, imagined, communicated etc. The qualia of the model will be anything and everything that is biologically possible and makes a good model. We have the data that the sense organs can measure and some effective ways of representing that information in the model. So the question “Why red?” can be answered with “Why not – it works.” And the question “Where is the red?” can be answered by “ In the structural elements of the model”. If someone has a better way to model the frequency of light, I have never heard of it. If you cannot envisage this modeling as a sequential computer program that because it isn’t one. It is a massively parallel assembly of overlapping feedback loops that involve most of the cortex, the thalamus, the basal ganglia and even points in the brain stem. It has more in common with analogue computers then digital ones.
“To believe that the phenomenal world, the world you actually live in, is a fiction, while an invented “physical” world, for which no evidence exists, is the real world, is not merely wrong, it’s an irrationality which makes a complete mockery of the goals of this website.”
This seems to be the root of the problem. How do you start to argue with this statement? Why would anyone choose the map rather than the territory as their foundation? Why engage in science if you are not willing to accept the inferences that it makes about reality? Am I not going to believe in atoms because it doesn’t match what I see with my eyes? If there is no evidence of the physical world then why don’t you walk through walls? Do you have any explanations of illusions? Talk about making a mockery of rationality!
If we want to be rational then lets start with: consciousness is real and important but not yet explained by science, however we assume (at least for now) that the explanation is possible in materialistic terms. We can make this assumption because science is making steady progress in understanding brain function, (starting a decade or so ago) and when science makes steady progress it usually ends up with an explanation in materialistic terms.
I noticed this tendency in British running of hospitals, schools and police forces. The gov got hooked on the idea of targets and not on medicine, education and public order.
I want to try to get away from the idea of jumping from mind to physics. The middle ground is more firm. The brain is a biological organ with a function. The stomach is a similar organ with a digestive function. The heart is a similar organ with a circulation function. The function (or one of them) of the brain is mind. Mind is not a thing, it is a biological function. If I extract an electron from my heart, I do not have a bit of circulation. There is no magic here. Take the physics and move to chemistry, take them and move to biochemistry and biophysics, take them and move to biology in its sub-sciences like physiology, genetics, development etc. and then to neuroscience. There is not a shortcut from electrons to thoughts. Materialism does not require that jump.
Yes indeed, mind is what the brain does—and mind includes consciousness. I will give a picture, but I do not believe that this is the explanation as there are many such explanations—it is just an illustration of how it might be so as to show that such things are possible. Suppose—the brain does the work of perception, and goal directed motor planning etc. and then creates a model that predicts what the incoming data will be in a fraction of a second. It takes a fraction of a second (same fraction) to do this. It then compares the model with what is coming in and makes corrections to the model based on errors in its prediction. The model is stored in short-term memory to assist in the construction of the next frame of the model and the more permanent memory a little later. This model is shared by all the parts of the brain that require it to do their work (more of less the whole brain). The model is involved in predictive monitoring, sharing of information and memory storage. How would this ‘feel’ any different from conscious experience? Experiments in neuroscience have given evidence of the movie-like frames, the prediction, the link to memory, the periodic synchronous communication across the brain etc. This is not handwaving but science. And there are other just as reasonable ways to envisage the evidence.
Surely something like Occam’s razor comes in here. If we can explain consciousness in terms of our current science then why would we try to change our current science to include a mind-like quality as a fundamental property of matter? Make not sense to me.
‘cogito-ergo-sum style knowledge we all enjoy’ I think you have to speak for yourself. I do not find cogito-ego-sum convincing and I hope I am not alone. That is a very slippery slope to dualism. I am and therefore I think is more in keeping that how brains evolved. Animals move, therefore they have to know where they are going, therefore they must model reality, therefore they become conscious.
Jack—I seems to me that ‘slippery slope’ may have been a sloppy use on my part. What I meant was that ‘I think therefore I am’ so implies dualism that it would be difficult to avoid it once you accepted the statement. It is a statement that starts with ideas and goes on from there. On the other hand ‘I exist therefore I think’, starts with materialism. The question is not whether we exist or not but whether we know of our existence because of mental thoughts or because of physical reality. I agree that we cannot be mistaken about our existence. Descartes’ method also implies that in introspection we gain direct knowledge of something. I believe that this is an untenable idea in light of neuroscience. When we see a tree, there is no actual tree inside our skulls, there is a model of a tree. When we experience our thoughts we are likewise experiencing a model of our thoughts. Consciousness is highly processed and in no sense that I know of is it direct knowledge.
Academian, I have re-read your epistemology a couple of times and finally have taken a chunk of it and posted it on my blog. Thank you. You can find it at thoughts on thoughts. I do not seem to be able to create a link here but the site is http://charbonniers.org
This was a great post.
Some observations:
1) The map/territory tool can be used more extensively. Let us take the territory as fairly ‘unknowable’ except that using our map, we can make predictions. If our predictions are wrong then we assume that is a failing in our map and we try to repair the map. Math is a tautological system that has not failed us yet and we use it as part of the map. If it did fail us, we would change it or abandon it from the map. We think the chances of this are vanishingly small.
2) We can construct enlargements to Math tautologically. I think of this as invention but discovery is OK if it pleases. They are enlargements of the map and not objects in the territory. There is a danger in treating Math objects as part of the territory—an infinite regression of maps of maps of maps.....of territory.
3) The reason we invented Math originally and the reason it maps the territory so well are both because its roots are in the structure of the brain and the brain has evolved to do a good (passable) predictive model of reality (or map of the territory).
Please carry on with your investigation of the subject and post on it again.
Thank you for the invitation. I have lurked for some time but have recently written a few comments and intend to continue.
Expertize: I have worked in medical labs, research (genetic, biochemical, physiological, chemical) labs, computer support and analysis, lab management. I am now retired and on a pension. My hobby is neurobiology theorizing. I have been interested in this all my adult life because I am/was dyslexic.
Critical thinking domains in neurobiology: biological understanding of consciousness, memory, morals, communication.
What do I know: I can contribute a fair amount about how we think as opposed to how we think we think and I can bring a biological perspective to a blog that is heavy on the computer science, physics, economics and math areas. (I am also one of those rare females that do not react negatively to nerds.)
What can I learn: I have never read something by Eliezer and not felt I had learned something.
We have a very long thread about a not very interesting subject, but it has finally made me annoyed. I hope it does not show too much because I accept that being polite is important.
1)Nature or nurture, genetics or environment, is a discredited dichotomy. Both are probably active at the same time for each and every aspect of intelligence (as they would be for any complex trait). Not only is it unlikely to be one or the other, it is unlikely to be x% for one and 1-x% for the other. They are too interwoven and the patterns of interactive too individual and unique to each person’s life to be thought of as two separate influences. Is it nuture or nature? - wrong question.
2)Intelligence as a measure of the worth of a person is not reasonable. We define the worth of a person legally. We say that all people have equal worth. Their intelligence does not change that definition.
3)Measurement of intelligence in the form of IQ scores is not without problems and always needs to be examined to see if it is likely that factors other than ‘g’ have biased the results. It is only theoretically valid within a group and not between groups. Each human group should have an average IQ of 100 by definition.
4)Comparisons between groups never apply to individuals and are therefore useless in judging the potential of a particular person. One has to wonder of what use such group comparisons really are.
5)If it is considered a good idea to try to increase the intelligence of individuals in the society than it is going to be easier and more socially acceptable to use environmental rather than genetic methods. Good nutrition, lack of lead and other poisons, lack of continuous stress, enriched environment, good education and so on will help all, the smart and the not so smart.
6)Dividing a population into two (or a handful of) racial types is simplistic in societies as genetically and ethically diverse as North America or Western Europe.
7)Differences in mean IQ that have been reported (for what they are worth given the points above) are so small compared to the natural range of IQ within groups, that they are of no value other than in arguments about various stereotypes, pro and con. Investigating how genes affect the structure and functioning of the brain and investigating how environmental aspects affect the brain are both reasonable science. They are both likely to give results that are valuable. Comparing the IQ of racial groups is plainly no longer science but racial politics. It is hard to credit, in this day and age, that educated people are so ignorant that they would actually believe that the brain is built and operated without genes or that an organ that functions to perceive and move in the environment is immune to its effects. Give me a break! Anyone who insists that genetics is not important to intelligence has a big ax to grind. Anyone who insists that environment is not important to intelligence also has a big ax to grind. Trust the motives of neither. The PC gang and the racialist/sexist gang are both acting like bullies.
I believe there is more than one type (or cause) of dyslexia. I my case I have difficulty with phonic sounds. I can hear words clearly and I can speak orally with no problem whatsoever. But I cannot identify individual phonemes without great work and practice.
There are two theories that would fit my type of dyslexia. One is that the fast auditory path is not available to me and I must rely on the slow path. As phonemes are of very short duration I do not hear them clearly, but only hear the combinations of several phonemes. The other theory is that there is a lack of connectivity in a particular part of the auditory system and its connection with visual symbols. It is the connection across the brain’s midline that is probably at fault.
Although the literature seems to treat these as two separate theories among many, I tend to think in my case they are related. The way I overcame my inability to read and spell was (1) a kind teacher took my though 6 years of previous readers and spellers in my 7th year in school. He used phonetics (which was not used in my first years) and much practice. (2) I spent time learning the words I needed for exams—about equal to the time I took to learn the subject (3) I started learning the history of words as clues to remembering how they were spelt (4) my husband taught me to read in the Russian alphabet to learn sound-visual paris without hang ups with English spelling (5) I did cryptic crosswords and (6) I wrote and wrote and read and read. It felt from the inside like I was forcing a path around a barrier.
I still have problems and other symptoms of the conditions: not distinguishing between clockwise and counterclockwise, not hearing the sutile sounds of foreign languages and other English accents, occasionally a lag between knowing that something was said and hearing it, etc.
I should mention that I was never diagnosed because I am old enough that it was not a named condition when I was growing up. I believe it is inherited as I have relatives with similar problems who have been diagnosed, being young than me. I am left-handed and female. I believe that the stats show that is is rarer in females, but more common in lefties.
I hope this is the sort of information that you want. If you want something more scholarly, please visit my site http://janetsplace.charbonniers.org where there is information under the health pages on dyslexia.
I see the differences between this post and the psychological unity of mankind one is akin to two ships passing in the night—not talking about the same thing. In general the arguments do not contradict each other.
I would like to make a few additions:
1) We cannot compare the speed of change in dogs (or pigeons) with that in wild populations. Mongrel and feral dogs are under selection in their normal environment and without control of their breeding therefore they resemble one another much, much more than do pure bred animals. The tame foxes if freed would return fairly quickly to being foxy. Humans on the other hand have continuously changed the environment in which they live (for say 50,000 years). Therefore the selective pressure is not static. So it is not surprising that new genes can arise and flow through populations. Dogs are not relevant here.
2) Genetics is more complex than algebra. In many cases there is an advantage to having two different alleles and both alleles in double dose are disadvantageous. Genes are duplicated (as a mutation) and then one allele can be conserved while another evolves under selective pressure. There are genes that control the use of groups of other genes and mutations in these can effect hundreds of genes. Epigenetic changes to genes can give very complex effects. Environmental control of genetic expression is important. Genetics is probably like an iceberg that we have not glimpsed the complexity of yet.
3) Eliezer was talking about the deep structure of our anatomy and physiology while the 10,000 year explosion book is about fairly surface differences. For example, skin colour is under the control of a small number of genes and responds relatively quickly to differences in environments sunlight (say 20-50,000 years to lighten or darken to ideal when a population moves). But human skin differs in more fundamental ways from that of other animals -amount of hair, sweat glands, amount of fat etc. Human skin is universal while its colour tracks the environment.
So in general there is nothing terribly wrong with either Eliezer’s post or the present one—except nit picking complaints (The dog thing is maybe me nitpicking). They are not opposed unless you have a hangup about whether genetics is important or not.
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I scored 17 - almost exactly normal. My brother was, I am sure, an medium functioning Aspergers and an uncle was a highly functioning one. On the other hand, I do not feel like a ‘normal’. But that feeling is on a different spectrum. On the autism to schizophrenic spectrum, I am normal and feel it.
I have had drinks with friends and friends of friends in bars, pubs and beverage rooms in UK, Canada and US. I am almost 70 years old. I have never asked for a drink, I have never been asked for one. If I saw this happen, I would assume that the asker either wanted to have a favour done for them because they were feeling low or was out of money. I would not suspect that it was some sort of test. I would expect the response to be buying the drink, making a joke about the request or avoiding further conversation (or maybe all of them). I am used to people buying drinks for one another in some situation but not asking for a drink.
In my experience, people are by and large not testing; they have good will towards others; and they like company. This includes Aspergers and NTs. Why start out suspicious?
Voted up. You got away from the bar room chat and said something about the heart of the post. I am sure that many people have their adult lives fenced in by decision about themselves taken in childhood. It is always a good idea to challenge yourself to overcome such fences.
One thing the world has is an abundance of human minds. We actually do not need machines that think like humans—we have humans. What we need is two other things: machines that do thinking that humans find difficult (like the big number crunchers) and one-off machines that are experimental proofs-of-concept for understanding how a human brain works (like Blue Brain). As far as getting the glory for doing what many said was impossible and unveiling a mechanical human-like intelligence, forget the glory because they will just move the goal posts.
I believe that what is needed is to leave sequential operations and learn how to effectively use parallel operations. This would get close to a human intelligence and would also advance the power of computing of a non-human but useful kind.
I think you are so very right about the importance of prediction. !!! And looking forward to later posts.
I thought the session was boring. I think that was at issue was not addressed. Lanier is protecting certain things (at all cost) from the probing light of reductionist science. I started to think that he believed he had a soul while he called others religious. It was like he thought that anyone who believed strongly in anything biggish that was different from what he believed, must be religious. He ended up just sounding like an idiot. Cameron Taylor’s reference to laughter was interesting—it was covering something uncomfortable.