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Human intelligence and learning.

Started by Pharaoh Cat, November 23, 2011, 11:00:02 AM

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Tank

Quote from: Pharaoh Cat on November 23, 2011, 06:12:41 PM
Quote from: Tank on November 23, 2011, 05:49:21 PM
A lot of the so-called 'junk' DNA does not code for proteins but cellular behaviour.

Interesting!  I didn't know that!  Time to do some googling.  ;)

Quote from: Tank on November 23, 2011, 05:49:21 PM
It's important to recognise human ego plays a huge roll in anthropomorphizing the way the brain works. Throughout history the brain has been likened to humanity's highest level of technology. In the Victorian era there were many mechanical analogies to brain operation. The fact is that we don't understand exactly how the brain works so any analogy of its operation is by definition incomplete and flawed.

Oh, you and I are in violent agreement there.  :)

Quote from: Tank on November 23, 2011, 05:49:21 PM
Nural networks that can self program in a black box situation come out with identical responses but when opened up are wired differently. Simple rules, applied repetativly often create vastly different outcomes. As you know twenty binary choices can give a million possible combinational outcomes. The human brain has billions of nurons each with hundreds of connections, the possible wiring patterns are practically limitless, yet we all walk by putting one foot in front of the other and then into a controlled fall stopped by the other foot. And none of us can walk when we are born. But a baby Gnu can get up virtually instantly and run to keep up with it's mother. Its cerebelum is already pretty much wired up, in a black box sense, in the womb.

So you're indeed saying it's the cerebellum (not the cerebrum) that's wired, say, for the rules of language.  OK.  If the wiring is somehow defined by the shape of the network, the pattern of connections, then the shape of the network, the pattern of connections, is the software, the encoded rules.  OK.  I'll buy that if and when someone seriously presents it as a testable hypothesis, tests it, and gets confirming results.  I want someone to say out loud, "See that shape?  See that pattern?  That's a language rule.  Let me show you the data that makes me say that."

We can't just hand-wave away the encoded rules.  The neurologist tells us, "the brain is hard-wired for X."  Fine, my dear neurologist - isolate X in the shape or pattern of connections.  Or at least ask the question and look for the answer.  Assume the encoded rules are in there somewhere (because they damn well have to be) and search for them.

You're asking the wrong question (assuming I understand the question you're asking  :D ).

We know a lot about how the brain works through brain damage and unfortunate circumstances and animal experiments. There was a french feral child Victor of Aveyron who never learned to speak and never could be taught to speak. The reason for his inability to speak is now attributed to the lack of language reinforcement.

I'm not saying the cerebellum contains the rules for language, but the basic phonetic building blocks and a behaviour to reinforce (learn) how to build those blocks into a language.

There is no detailed initial structure in the cerebrum to support complex behaviours, billions on neurons die off and leave behind the reinforced pathways. This is the point of the mouse whisker experiment. It's why people born blind can't benefit from having their sight restored in later life because the basic support structure in the brain was never created in the first place.

The other thing is that you will never be able to test human subjects in the way that would be ethically acceptable for a neurologist.

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Pharaoh Cat

Tank, Davin, my question for each of you is: Are you a proponent of emergentism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism

I ask because emergentism seems the only serious alternative to what I'm saying.  If we can't point to the meta-rules then they must be emergent - and hell, maybe they are.  I tend to have a blind spot around emergentism.  It just never occurs to me.
"The Logic Elf rewards anyone who thinks logically."  (Jill)

Davin

I'm a proponent of not being proponent of anything that one doesn't understand and doesn't have the evidence to back it up. Even if that means that one doesn't accept anything.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Tank

I don't tend to be a proponent of anything in particular. I tend to read a lot of science stuff and it generally fits together, until it doesn't, and then one has to re-evaluate one's current understanding. Emergentism is just another piece of the puzzle that over time will become better understood or dismissed if something better comes alone. Having a 'faith' like adherence to any one particular scientific viewpoint is stupid in the extreme as it closes one's mind to other possibilities. To quote Richard Dawkins "By all means keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out."

However I do think the scientific method in general is the least worst way of discovering how the universe actually works as it generally creates models that when acted upon produce the results expected.

A recent example of scientific 'faith' was the reaction to the apparent discovery that neutrinos could have travelled faster than light. This wasn't some back yard experiment run by a bunch of scientific wannabes, it was a multi-million dollar experiment run by respected scientist with decades of experience in the area of study. Yet the reaction of far too many scientists was "Fuck off, that's rubbish!". The universal reaction should have been, "Interesting! Let's have a close look at this.". Which goes to show that scientists are human too  ;D
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

xSilverPhinx

#19
Quote from: Tank on November 23, 2011, 08:55:17 PM
A recent example of scientific 'faith' was the reaction to the apparent discovery that neutrinos could have travelled faster than light. This wasn't some back yard experiment run by a bunch of scientific wannabes, it was a multi-million dollar experiment run by respected scientist with decades of experience in the area of study. Yet the reaction of far too many scientists was "Fuck off, that's rubbish!". The universal reaction should have been, "Interesting! Let's have a close look at this.". Which goes to show that scientists are human too  ;D

Which is why science is superior for finding out about how the universe works. Religious faith, if it has it's place,  is a whole different thing altogether.

Edit: I didn't really pay attention to what you wrote above that:

QuoteHowever I do think the scientific method in general is the least worst way of discovering how the universe actually works as it generally creates models that when acted upon produce the results expected.

Oh well, worth seconding ;D
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Pharaoh Cat

Tank, Davin - Thanks.  I see where you're coming from now.  Basically, "Follow the evidence."

I may have a different philosophy of science.  Certainly following the evidence is something the scientist must do.  Wherever the evidence leads, the scientist must follow, pet theories be damned.  Great discoveries arise from this approach.  I happen to think there's also another approach that also can work and often does: starting from the intuitive conviction that something must be true, one frames a testable hypothesis that actionably interprets the intuitive conviction, and then one tests the hypothesis via experiment.

If one is merely an armchair observer, like myself, yet one has an intuitive conviction that something must be true, one can only hope and patiently or impatiently wait for someone in a position to run an experiment to come along, someone who shares one's intuitive conviction and is ready and able to frame a testable hypothesis and then run the experiment.

One of my meta-convictions is this: some answers will never present themselves to us if we restrict ourselves to sifting the evidence before us; rather, some answers will only present themselves to us if we first ask the questions to which they are the answers, and then actively seek to explore those questions experimentally.  Sometimes we have to ask questions the existing data doesn't force us to ask.  Sometimes we have to make intuitive leaps and design experiments to test the hypotheses our leaps suggest.

The proposition, "mind has meta-rules," seems to me to be self-evidently true.  Another proposition, "every quality adhering to a process must either have been nascent before the process began or else must be emergent from within the process itself," seems also (to me) to be self-evidently true.  Meta-rules, then, must either be nascent in the brain, and thus amenable to being pointed to, or else must be emergent from within the process of thought.  Which is the case?  Philosophers are asking that question and I applaud them for it.  I want scientists to ask it also - because scientists are in a position to answer it.
 
"The Logic Elf rewards anyone who thinks logically."  (Jill)

Davin

Quote from: Pharaoh Cat on November 24, 2011, 10:46:32 AM
Tank, Davin - Thanks.  I see where you're coming from now.  Basically, "Follow the evidence."

I may have a different philosophy of science.  Certainly following the evidence is something the scientist must do.  Wherever the evidence leads, the scientist must follow, pet theories be damned.  Great discoveries arise from this approach.  I happen to think there's also another approach that also can work and often does: starting from the intuitive conviction that something must be true, one frames a testable hypothesis that actionably interprets the intuitive conviction, and then one tests the hypothesis via experiment.
I don't see how one is restricted to accepting that something must be true before framing a testable hypothesis. But I do see how accepting that something must be true before testing, often leads to confirmation bias.

Quote from: Pharaoh CatIf one is merely an armchair observer, like myself, yet one has an intuitive conviction that something must be true, one can only hope and patiently or impatiently wait for someone in a position to run an experiment to come along, someone who shares one's intuitive conviction and is ready and able to frame a testable hypothesis and then run the experiment.
I don't see how this is, in any way, useful.

Quote from: Pharaoh CatOne of my meta-convictions is this: some answers will never present themselves to us if we restrict ourselves to sifting the evidence before us; rather, some answers will only present themselves to us if we first ask the questions to which they are the answers, and then actively seek to explore those questions experimentally.  Sometimes we have to ask questions the existing data doesn't force us to ask.  Sometimes we have to make intuitive leaps and design experiments to test the hypotheses our leaps suggest.

The proposition, "mind has meta-rules," seems to me to be self-evidently true.  Another proposition, "every quality adhering to a process must either have been nascent before the process began or else must be emergent from within the process itself," seems also (to me) to be self-evidently true.  Meta-rules, then, must either be nascent in the brain, and thus amenable to being pointed to, or else must be emergent from within the process of thought.  Which is the case?  Philosophers are asking that question and I applaud them for it.  I want scientists to ask it also - because scientists are in a position to answer it.
It comes down to my not seeing any utility in accepting that an intuition is true before confirming it. There is nothing requiring that one accept a specific answer to a question before one asks the question. But there are many reasons that we shouldn't accept a specific answer to a question before we have the data to back up the answer.

It seems to me, that you're implying that in order to ask a question, one must accept an answer before the data comes in. I don't see this to be the case.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

xSilverPhinx

#22
Quote from: Pharaoh Cat on November 23, 2011, 06:43:49 PM
Quote from: Davin on November 23, 2011, 06:02:32 PM
I've done many complicated things without the use of software, like a mechanical arm that will perform complicated movements on it's own.

Cool!  Can the arm make decisions?

I think I see what you mean by emulating hardware.  My father used to program room-sized computers in the very early days, when processes we moderns would use software for, were hard-wired.  Still, in that case, we could point to the wires and say, "See these wires?  These wires make the computer do X.  These other wires make it do Y."

We have to be able to point to something and say, "See this?  This makes the brain do X."  Maybe we'll be pointing to a set of chemicals that get excreted by one cell and absorbed by another, similar to how ant colonies govern themselves.  Maybe we'll be pointing to "junk" DNA that isn't junk after all.  Maybe we'll be pointing to patterns of connection.

I don't mean to be a jargon purist :P, but the correct term there is 'secrete', at least for communication chemicals such as neurotransmissors. Maybe it could be said that the neurons of some people excrete things, and many unpleasant nicknames could be thought up to describe them (can brains with excrements be creative?).

:D

Just nuances of language that could get an old lady to give you a crooked look ;)
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey