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Rock Auras - Not just for Hippies anymore
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this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
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by that logic our brain is just passing neurotransmitters along.
No, a computer is just boolean logic. I'm not being reductive, that's literally all you need.
When people say that thinking is just complicated enough computation, that's an assumption. A particularly convenient assumption, given all the computers we have lying about.
if we ever emulated the complex interplay of chemicals and electricity in our brains using a computer's boolean logic, wouldn't that be thinking?
A brain is several billion living nerve cells all doing their thing, acting and reacting to one another, concurrently. A computer is only ever doing one task at a time, but at a fast enough pace as to give the illusion of multi-tasking.
Emulating a whole brain (everything, not just simplified neural networks, but the actual nerve cells themselves) is currently far beyond what computers are capable of. More then that, not every natural phenomenon can be described algorithmically! It's entirely possible that consciousness is non-computable.
i know we don't have that technology right now. i see it as very plausible in the future.
thats a hell of an assumption, is thinking the same as consciousness? how would consciousness be non-computable, if our brains are composed of discrete computation units (the neurons)? granted they are very different from computers, but i can see it being emulatable with enough processing power to account for all the variables.
we don't know for a fact only fleshy brains composed of neurons are somehow capable of experiencing it. do we know what consciousness even is?
is that even how we define "thinking" too? why would a theoretical future ai that could theoretically have a logic process like ours not be considered "thinking"?
Yes, it's an assumption to say consciousness is non-computable. But it's also an assumption to say it is computable. Not really a phenomenon we understand.
I agree that fleshy brains are probably not the only things capable of producing consciousness. I think it's actually fairly likely that a machine could be made that reproduces it, I'm just... really skeptical that it's gonna look anything like a Turing machine. It would certainly be convenient if it did.
As to brains being made of discrete units... there's some evidence to suggest it might not be. When you put a person (or any living thing) under general anesthetics, the thing the anesthetics target is microtubules within cells. And microtubules themselves have quantum mechanical properties. They've been shown to er, "do", super-luminescence in lab experiments (I don't understand quantum).
Admittedly, that's a lot of correlation and almost no direct example of causation. But it does suggest there's... something... there that needs more examination and research.
yeah you are right. but "we don't actually know" doesnt make for a fun thought experiment.
i think if we ever figure out a way to emulate a brain, theres no reason it shouldnt look like a turing machine, if thats even possible at all.
id love to see that evidence if you have it. its a subject im interested in.
Here's the super luminescence research paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.01469
although, this PBS youtube video is the summary I actually understand