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random brain in vat

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random brain in vat

Death Monkey
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Posted 11/18/04 - 06:32 AM:	#51
Monroe, Appeal to "inference" is nonreductive. How so? My definition defines one type of emergent property (representation) in terms of other simpler emergent properties (such as information processing). Likewise inference is a component of information processing. The whole idea is a step by step reduction, at each step describing a complex phenomenon in terms of other simpler ones. I don't see what your problem with this is. You are absolutely correct in thinking that a detailed explanation of the mind cannot be found by looking only at overt bodily behavior. That notion of behaviorism was abandoned decades ago. When modern scientists talk about behaviorism, they are talking about all forms of observable behavior, including brain activity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not really... I don't know what scientists you've been talking to. Psychologists and neuroscientists. The people I work with. Banno Very interesting. I had no idea that one could use the term behaviour to refer to physiology. Not exactly an aid to clarity, is it? Why not? Your brain is a part of your body, right? How is what your brain is doing any less an example of behavior than what your right leg is doing? How is behavior such as increased breathing rates or sweating any less a reference to physiology than what your brain is doing? DM
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probeman
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Posted 11/18/04 - 09:25 AM:	#52
Death Monkey wrote: Why not? Your brain is a part of your body, right? How is what your brain is doing any less an example of behavior than what your right leg is doing? How is behavior such as increased breathing rates or sweating any less a reference to physiology than what your brain is doing? DM DM, It does sometimes get frustrating trying to explain basic cognitive science to those who not only refuse to get out of the armchair but also refuse to accept the evolutionary, behavioral and physiological evidence that the brain (and brain functions) have evolved along with the rest of the human body over millions of years. Also that there are precursors or analogues for almost every function of the human body and brain in the animal kingdom. I wonder if it might be worth pointing out that one of the reasons scientists study "lower" forms of life is not just because of the ethics of using human subjects, but also because these forms are often simpler versions of ourselves and can often help shed light on human brain processes that are currently too complex to tackle with human brains. It's almost as though some philosophers only want to consider the human mind as though it magically dropped out of the sky one fine day and fell into our skulls. How nonreductive of them!
Certainty is not a gift to humanity- it is a curse.

Monroe
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Posted 11/18/04 - 01:09 PM:	#53
Death Monkey wrote: How so? My definition defines one type of emergent property (representation) in terms of other simpler emergent properties (such as information processing). Likewise inference is a component of information processing. The whole idea is a step by step reduction, at each step describing a complex phenomenon in terms of other simpler ones. I don't see what your problem with this is. As you seem to be using it, "information processing" just means having different responses to different stimuli. I don't see how this is an inference. Anyway, how does this cover false representation? Why are the vat-brain's "inferences" false, while a normally situated brain's are true? They have the same responses to the same stimuli don't they? Why not? Your brain is a part of your body, right? How is what your brain is doing any less an example of behavior than what your right leg is doing? How is behavior such as increased breathing rates or sweating any less a reference to physiology than what your brain is doing? DM, please. At a time when we still have some old-school behaviorists living among us, it's far too soon to be changing the meaning of such key words. Especially when the doctrine itself is less than a century old.

Death Monkey
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Posted 11/18/04 - 03:58 PM:	#54
Monroe, As you seem to be using it, "information processing" just means having different responses to different stimuli. I don't see how this is an inference. That is not what I mean by information processing. I am using the term according to its scientific definition, as used in computer science, neural network theory, and neuroscience. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_processing Anyway, how does this cover false representation? Why are the vat-brain's "inferences" false, while a normally situated brain's are true? They have the same responses to the same stimuli don't they? The system infers information about Y from X. If the facts about Y which it has inferred are not true, then X is a false representation of Y. Why not? Your brain is a part of your body, right? How is what your brain is doing any less an example of behavior than what your right leg is doing? How is behavior such as increased breathing rates or sweating any less a reference to physiology than what your brain is doing? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DM, please. At a time when we still have some old-school behaviorists living among us, it's far too soon to be changing the meaning of such key words. Especially when the doctrine itself is less than a century old. I don't recall anybody asking for my approval to change the definition. Take it up with the behavioral psychologists. They are the ones who now define it that way. At least, all of them that I have ever met do. In any event, I cannot see any justification for defining "behaviorism" to arbitrarily omit some forms of behavior, such as brain activity, while including others such as respiration rate. The distinction is arbitrary and nonsensical. The original definition of behaviorism was just a bad idea in the first place. Fortunately, scientists have a tendency to learn from their mistakes, and correct them. Even psychologists. DM
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Monroe
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Posted 11/18/04 - 07:09 PM:	#55
Death Monkey wrote: That is not what I mean by information processing. I am using the term according to its scientific definition, as used in computer science, neural network theory, and neuroscience. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_processing The system infers information about Y from X. If the facts about Y which it has inferred are not true, then X is a false representation of Y. The definition given there is problematic. First, how do they define "information"? It's vague. If you click on the link you will see several different senses and not a general definition. Second, the entry specifically says that your definition would ascribe representation to every process in the universe.-- "information processing is the changing (processing) of information in any manner detectible by an observer. As such, it is a process which describes everything which happens (changes) in the universe, from the falling of a rock (a change in position) to the printing of a text file from a digital computer system." Unless you believe the world actually consists in little propositions floating around, this position doesn't look like it will work. The "information" of a system, as defined by wikipedia, doesn't seem to be about things other than itself; i.e. no representational content. It is just the set of facts about the system. "Information processing" is when those facts change over time. I don't recall anybody asking for my approval to change the definition. Take it up with the behavioral psychologists. They are the ones who now define it that way. At least, all of them that I have ever met do. It just causes confusion. There are better available terms, like materialism. In any event, I cannot see any justification for defining "behaviorism" to arbitrarily omit some forms of behavior, such as brain activity, while including others such as respiration rate. The distinction is arbitrary and nonsensical. The original definition of behaviorism was just a bad idea in the first place. Fortunately, scientists have a tendency to learn from their mistakes, and correct them. Even psychologists. Well the original reason was that when we use mental terms in everyday contexts we only see overt bodily behavior, so the terms must be defined in terms of that class of behavior.

Banno
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Posted 11/19/04 - 01:12 AM:	#56
probeman wrote: DM, It does sometimes get frustrating trying to explain basic cognitive science to those who not only refuse to get out of the armchair but also refuse to accept the evolutionary, behavioral and physiological evidence that the brain (and brain functions) have evolved along with the rest of the human body over millions of years. Also that there are precursors or analogues for almost every function of the human body and brain in the animal kingdom. I wonder if it might be worth pointing out that one of the reasons scientists study "lower" forms of life is not just because of the ethics of using human subjects, but also because these forms are often simpler versions of ourselves and can often help shed light on human brain processes that are currently too complex to tackle with human brains. It's almost as though some philosophers only want to consider the human mind as though it magically dropped out of the sky one fine day and fell into our skulls. How nonreductive of them! The usage was very confusing. I appreciate DM attempting to clarify. Now, do you wish to have a civil conversation, or engage in smarmy point-scoring? You choose.
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

probeman
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Posted 11/19/04 - 09:20 AM:	#57
Banno wrote: The usage was very confusing. I appreciate DM attempting to clarify. Now, do you wish to have a civil conversation, or engage in smarmy point-scoring? You choose. As long as you "philosophers" refuse to even consider the evolutionary evidence and instead continue to obsess on semantic hand-wringing, I'll stick with "smarmy point-scoring."
Certainty is not a gift to humanity- it is a curse.

NoSoul
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Posted 11/19/04 - 10:54 AM:	#58
Monroe wrote: 3) Something R represents some object or state of affairs S iff there is a strong correlation between the occurences of R's and S's, and R has been selected in virtue of this to perform a function in a certain system. For example, this theory says that the neural patterns that go off when a frog spots a fly represent the fly being there because of the role these firings play in making the frog get the fly. The functional role is defined by how it was selected: either by God or by an evolutionary process. Theories like these are called 'teleosematic' theories. .... b) Since the brain could randomly come into existence with all its memories implanted, without any evolutionary history, theory 3 is gone if the vat-brain is mentally identical. One objection to your conclusion (b) here is that your "brain in the vat" scenario is based on the replication of "my brain" in a vat. But "my brain" (ostensibly) comes from evolution (or God, take your pick). Or at the very least, your saying that the brain in the vat comes "neither from evolution nor from God" is quite misleading, and definitely unproven. The brain in the vat is clearly a copy of "my" brain -- and my brain was (probably) designed by evolution, or at least by some other deterministic cause. At the very least, you cannot logically claim that the brain in the vat was not designed by a deterministic principle like God or evolution. That's like saying any other engineering feats built from the study of how phenomena operate in nature, are "NOT built by God or evolution." As with the brain in the vat, when you copy and replicate what already exists, you can't assume that what you built as a result of copying/replication is not originally designed by God/nature. That's like saying, "I copied the architectural design scheme of Frank Lloyd Wright, but he didn't make this building, I did." In terms of "efficient cause," this is correct. But you couldn't have built that building without copying Frank Lloyd's Wright's work. So the building doesn't exist without explicitly Wright's "causation." (However, this doesn't strictly resolve whether any deterministic cause -- God, evolution, or anything else -- made the brain-design in the first place. It does resolve that your claim is unsupported, that "Since the brain could randomly come into existence with all its memories implanted, without any evolutionary history, theory 3 is gone if the vat-brain is mentally identical.") Unless you are strictly insistent that the brain came into existence randomly. However, I don't think you made that point very clearly at all. You did not emphasize the "random" part of the brain's creation -- in fact, it seems very absurd to insist that the brain in the vat was created "randomly." I read it, and I bet nearly everyone else read it, as the brain was created by a scientist or whatever -- e.g. nonrandomly -- to purposely exist in a vat, in the way you described. You did not specify that its random creation was a crucial, special consideration. Indeed, the stipulation that the brain-in-the-vat's creation was random would be extremely crucial -- but it would also introduce an extremely unnecessary, obstructing element to your thought experiment. Stipulating that the brain was created literally "randomly" begs many other questions than merely the ones we are seemingly supposed to be addressing here. ******************** Now that I've re-read the original points, I wish I could vote differently in the poll. Monroe's stipulation that the brain was created randomly is so counter-intuitive that it's almost impossible not to overlook it. I, for one, simply assumed that Monroe meant a scientist had built the brain & placed it in a vat, within the past 5 minutes. Monroe's literal meaning, however, seems to be that the brain, well, appeared out of nowhere (thanks to what, quantum uncertainties on an outrageous scale?) and dropped into a vat. That totally defies intuition, so much so that I didn't even consider it when I voted. How could an entire brain have appeared literally randomly, in no time, with no historical development, and no deterministic cause? The insistence upon literal randomness, IMO, renders this thought experiment completely ridiculous.
Firmly tie the mind, resembling a mad elephant, to the strong pillar of its perceptual content, with the rope of contemplative inspection, and gradually tame it with the hook of discrimination. -- Buddhist Handbook, Salamander Press To the poet and sage, all things are friendly and hallowed, all experiences profitable, all days holy, all men divine. - Nietzsche/Emerson

Banno
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Posted 11/19/04 - 12:07 PM:	#59
probeman wrote: As long as you "philosophers" refuse to even consider the evolutionary evidence and instead continue to obsess on semantic hand-wringing, I'll stick with "smarmy point-scoring." Thank you for referring to me as a “philosopher”. But you make too many assumptions. As it happens, I do have some interest and understanding of paleoanthropology. If you wish to present an argument using evolution then do so, rather than your simple interjections. The argument to hand was one of clarity of expression. I have not been involved in previous discussions, as it appears that you have; Might I suggest that you keep your baggage to yourself. Then the thread might be able to keep to the task.
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

probeman
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Posted 11/19/04 - 12:21 PM:	#60
Banno wrote: Thank you for referring to me as a “philosopher”. But you make too many assumptions. As it happens, I do have some interest and understanding of paleoanthropology. If you wish to present an argument using evolution then do so, rather than your simple interjections. The argument to hand was one of clarity of expression. I have not been involved in previous discussions, as it appears that you have; Might I suggest that you keep your baggage to yourself. Then the thread might be able to keep to the task. Based on my experience, this thread will go nowhere simply because many "philosophers" refuse to consider any evidence at all. They want a purely "armchair" derived intuitive explanation or none at all. But if you would like to consider an evolutionary explanation for free will, you should read Dennett's "Freedom Evolves." As an anthropologist, you might find his "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" more readable and interesting though. In the meantime here is a crude attempt of a slightly edited explanation that I posted earlier that you may have missed. There are very intuitive and mysterious notions of "self", "choice" and "reasons" that all humans, but especially philosophers seems to draw upon. I will attempt to begin to illustrate how Dennett might start to deflate our notions of these items by showing how "proto-self", "proto-choice" and "proto-reasons" could have come about. From there we can move on to more complex manifestations of these notions and eventually arrive at what we humans all seem to share and proclaim to be utterly confounded by how they could have occurred naturalistically. I am reminded of the scene in Sherlock Holmes where he presents to Watson a conclusion (I think it was not to buy South African gold shares) based on an initial observation and Watson claims to be utterly confounded as to how he arrived at the conclusion so accurately. Holmes says that once he presents the intervening steps Watson will no doubt exclaim "How absurdly simple" and of course Watson does just that after Holmes obliges. We used to have such an analogous situation in biological evolution. How, could something as perfectly designed as the human body come to be through simple and blind algorithmic merely chemical processes? Today we know. In a similar manner, I think we can all agree that a pebble has no self, no choices, no reasons. No "freedom." And more importantly no need for them. Yet, even a simple amoeba has a number of degrees of freedom (at least from an engineering standpoint). It can move, retract or it can engulf. This process may be no more complicated that a light switch (actually it's a quite complicated chemical reaction even at this primitive level), but there can be little doubt that it's continued ability to replicate depends greatly on whether it retracts or engulfs at the appropriate moments. It's continued existence and more importantly it's offspring's future existence depends on these simple and limited but real "choices." Dennett puts it this way (paraphrased from Consciousness Explained): [INDENT]“In the beginning, there were no reasons: there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing had so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all. This is because there was nothing that actually had “interests.” But after a while there emerged simple replicators. Though they had no inkling of their interests and it would be proper to say they indeed had no interests, we, looking back from our “god-like” perspective can assign them certain interests by defining them an “interest” in self-replication. Of course their replication didn't really matter to anyone and really made no difference whether they replicated or not (though perhaps we might be grateful they did replicate), but we can say that if these simple replicators are to survive and replicate in the face of increasing entropy (disorder), their immediate environment must be conducive to replication at least some of the time. To put it anthropomorphically: if these simple replicators want to replicate they should “hope and strive” to avoid “bad” things and seek “good” things. The “good” for such an entity (by our non-teleological definition) is to, however primitively, avoid it’s dissolution and decomposition. This is the simple replicator’s “point of view” if you will. In this “point of view” there are three kinds of world events: the favorable, the unfavorable and the neutral. Any behavior, even simple chemical causes, of these simple replicators that improves it’s replication, is a reason or interest in our limited sense, however “unself” recognized that behavior might be to the organism itself. Now as soon as something is in the business of (preserving) self-replication, boundaries start to become important. Simply because if you are preserving your replicating self, you don’t want to waste your energy on preserving the rest of the universe. So you need to draw a line. The replicator becomes, in a word, “selfish”. Obviously this primordial “selfishness” does not have most of the variety and breadth of human selfishness, but this "selfishness" is distinctly different from non-life. A piece of granite can in no sense imaginable, be said have an interest in where it’s boundaries are. Nothing “works” to protect a fracture boundary, no mechanism pushes the boundary back to preserve itself. All things biological have the imperative- “me against the world”. Not just ingestion and excretion, respiration and transpiration but also other processes."[/INDENT] Now what does it mean to say something biological has choices? It has nothing to do with indeterminism or determinism, it depends on whether there are steps that an organism can take, based on information from the environment, in time to avoid the potential harm or seek the potential benefit. There are only two requirements for a meaningful choice: information and a path for the information to guide. Now the choices that a parasitic cell or redwood trees make in this effort to survive and replicate don't seem all that clever (though they've been around far longer than we have), it takes some effort to see this as an "intentional stance" as Dennett would say. The more recognizable decisions made in real time by more salient individuals had to await the arrival of locomotion. Sure we could generously grant that trees can "decide" that spring has come and it's time to blossom or that clams can "decide" to shut tight when they sense an alarming bump, but these are such rudimentary options that they resemble a simple switch turned on or off. But even a simple switch, turned on or off by some environmental change, denotes that "degree of freedom" that I mentioned earlier. Think of the male turkey that starts his dance of courtship when presented with the wooden head of a female turkey (even when the wooden head is minus the body!). Stupid turkey! But wait, even human males show marked physiological changes when shown pornography, even though it's just colored ink and paper! But of course, we human males "know" that it's just a picture, nothing more. But then, why do we males respond so markedly to just colored ink and paper? I digress. Dennett's point is that even a simple switch (on/off or multiple choice) can be linked to other switches in series or parallel, and in arrays that proliferate and combine both sorts of links to create immeasurable degrees of freedom where the issues of control become complex and non-linear. What sort of information ought to modulate passage through this array of forking paths in a multi-dimensional space of possibilities? In short, a brain. A brain with sensory inputs and motor outputs is a localized device for mining the environment for information that can be refined into anticipated outcomes (sometime called scenario spinning) that can be used to modulate choices. Dennett points out: [INDENT]"Of course speed is of the essence, since the environment is always changing and teeming with competitors, but so is accuracy (since among the competitors options are such tactics as camouflage), and so thrift (since everything costs something and has to pay for itself in the long run). "[/INDENT] These evolutionary conditions generate trade-offs, "with a premium on swift, high fidelity, high-relevance sensory attention." The fact that it's an evolutionary arms race promises that each species will ignore what it can afford to, which is a gamble on whether a previously innocuous variable suddenly takes on fatal implications. The upshot of an environment with some unanticipatable but relevant novelties poses a critical tradeoff for a certain class of adaptions. Will the evolutionary "investment" cost for a particular innovation within a species, payoff by the ability to "learn?" This is not an evolutionary "no-brainer"! The evolutionary overhead of "exapting" existing hard-wired brain features, to permit switching networks to be re-designable in real time (during the individual's lifetime), so that it can adjust control functions in response to new sensory information is non-trivial. Such fancy mechanisms will only "pay for themselves" if there are enough occasions for learning. Use it or lose it is the evolutionary motto. I'll leave it here for now and continue if you are still interested.
Certainty is not a gift to humanity- it is a curse.

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