An Existential Crisis in Neuroscience

[RHC]

We’re mapping the brain in amazing detail—but our brain can’t understand the picture. 

http://nautil.us/issue/94/evolving/an-existential-crisis-in-neuroscience-rp

[Rober...@msn.com]

Here is why the material brain can never understand the material brain [quoted from the interview]

" ". . . . maybe there’s something fundamental about that idea: that no machine can have an output more sophisticated than itself,” Lichtman said. “What a car does is trivial compared to its engineering. What a human brain does is trivial compared to its engineering. Which is the great irony here. We have this false belief there’s nothing in the universe that humans can’t understand because we have infinite intelligence." "

[RHC]

Yeah thats an interesting quote.  Its jam packed with unexplained and probably unexamined assumptions.  The word sophistication is the weasel word here.  He can change the meaning as needed to fit objections.  And that in turn allows him to do the magic trick of substituting brain for car and then tell himself he actually explained something.  I agree with the last sentence though irrespective of how he got there.

[Brad Walker]

A computer can house the entire schematic for all integrated circuits for its CPU, motherboard, and addons cards. It can also house the source code for its operating system and all applications. It's possible for a machine to describe itself, but not necessary.

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

The human mind cannot fully understand itself because it's not a machine, i.e. an object which can be exhaustively studied . But that's also true of literally every-thing, from a 'grain of sand' to the human mind to the entire cosmos. It's also true of what we call "machines" or "technology", which is why we need to remember that technology is an Art and therefore can actualize just as many beautiful or nightmarish worlds as the human Imagination can muster. That is something we need to remember quickly in the era of AI.

"techne is the name not only for the activities and skills of the craftsman, but also for the arts of the mind and the fine arts" -Heidegger  

[Rober...@msn.com]

Brad wrote

A computer can house the entire schematic for all integrated circuits for its CPU  . . . . . It's possible for a machine to describe itself,  

Me:

This is not the same thing as the brain being able to understand itself.

I used to run computer diagnostic programs on the computer being diagnosed.

It was an amazing capability, but nothing approaching recursive self-knowledge.

The computer can be understood only by an entity that is not the computer.

Likewise with the brain.  JBS Haldane said,

“If materialism is true, it seems to me we cannot know that it is true. If my opinions are the result of the chemical processes going on in my brain, they are determined by chemistry, not the laws of logic.”

The more I reflect on that, the more insightful his comment is seen to be.

.

[Brad Walker]

Time will tell if AGI can accomplish recursive self-improvement, which requires self-understanding.

[Brad Walker]

The difficulty of understanding a brain lies in its non-linearity, not fundamentally the number of composed entities.

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

Why does it require "self-understanding"? Humans instinctually "self-improve" without anything close to an exhaustive understanding of themselves.