No they aren’t. Can directly cite some MIT papers on this subject but I’m going to ask you point blank to see if you’re actually just bullshitting yourself.
What signals do axons carry from one place to another? Do they vary in amplitude? Do they vary in time? Is there such a thing as “infinite resolution” in a noisy analog system or not?
If a system has finite resolution, does that mean or not mean a digital equivalent exists?
If you have a digital system that produces the same truth table as another digital system, can you say those systems are functionally the same?
If a digital system has higher discrete resolution than an analog system, and produces the same outputs as the analog system to within the effective resolution allowed by noise, can you say those systems are functionally the same?
You should be able to answer these questions. Once you answer them all, you will either (a) concede that I’m right, the brain’s a computational system that it is possible to emulate to the same effective resolution as the real system. (b) have some novel insight that you can share with me as to why (a) isn’t true.
It actually turns out that this is a well established area of science. Those experts…some of whom have high credentials…who claim otherwise are just wrong, in the same way all the scientists arguing against relativity were just wrong. You’ll see. (or refuse to do the work like Tripler)
Could you provide a few links to posts where I am “following you around”? (Protip: posts where I am simply in the same thread as you and replying to someone else don’t count.)
It’s a persuasive argument, actually. Each question I asked has a single accepted answer by the community. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to figure out the answer if wolfpup even passed signals and systems or the equivalent course.
Stephen Kosslyn here argues that mental image processing involves the visual cortex, which is at odds with syntactic-representational model. Kosslyn is one of a number of opponents of CTM. Many others are dipshit philosophers but Kosslyn does real empirical work. Many of his conclusions are wrong, but it pains me greatly to have you on my side for the wrong reasons. Please side with Kosslyn and others like him and discredit them with your supportive idiotic bloviations. Please don’t be on my side.
Seems like circular reasoning since you’re making the unwarranted assumption that brain functions are digital. Regardless, a functionalist view is a philosophical precept that tells us nothing at all about how the brain actually works. Perhaps you believe that a Boeing 747 is functionally a sparrow, but it isn’t. FTR, I believe the brain can eventually be fully emulated with artificial digital systems, but that’s an opinion and not a fact. And if/when we do, we still won’t fully understand how the brain works, although you apparently already do, in keeping with knowing everything, Dunning-Kruger style.
Of course! Signals and Systems 101 and all of cognitive science is solved! How very SamuelA! What a total fucking dipshit moron!
I don’t see answers to these questions. I see a false claim that all of cognitive science is solved but not answers that prove that you enough know enough to have a meaningful dialogue. I am not claiming to have solved it, if you had bothered to look up the answers, you’d realize there’s not actually much wiggle room left for the idea that the brain is not a computational system.
An impulse with pulse edges and timing in a domain with noise can be discretized digitally with a numerical time resolution that need only be better than than SNR of the brain. (signal to noise ratio)
Perform this simple mental experiment. What if you could cut every axon and replace it with a system that digitizes the signal at the first node of ranvier and reinjects the signal, after a delay that is a discrete number of ticks from a digital system, at the last node of ranvier before the next synapse.
I am telling you there is firm, near absolute certainty mathematical proof that this experiment would produce the same outcome, so long as the clock resolution of this digital system is higher than the SNR of the system it emulates.
Similarly, if you think about it, each time a synapse receives an impulse, a certain amount of membrane charge is added or subtracted. This is an analog voltage but it has finite resolution. So you could in fact secretly replace (if you could do so, this is a thought experiment) each synapse with a digital counter, and that counter’s numerical resolution need be no better than the SNR of that analog voltage.
Again, we’re damn certain this is going to work.
Now, yes, there’s other stuff neuroscience keeps finding. Other cells seem to be able to cleanup neurotransmitters and may be part of computation. There are concentration gradients of various hormones and modulation molecules.
There’s long term changes to each synapse.
But you can trivially see, if you actually break the problem down, that you could in fact build a system that emulates a brain and responds to short term impulses in the exact same way as the original brain. It will work. Hormones and long term changes and long distance concentration gradients are all slow - you can in fact build a system that gives the same responses in the short term.
But again, just call me an idiot, whatever. I am well aware it’s more complex, but also know that *all *analog systems can be replaced with a digital equivalent, you just have to discretize to above the SNR. This is a very well known principle in some fields…guess not yours. There are theories that maybe the brain is storing data in fragile q-bits or something, but these theories are probably wrong.
Assuming no quantum magic, the evidence is actually conclusive that you can emulate any and all systems the brain uses with digital equivalents. You can think of those digital equivalents as a very large truth table (since at a certain level they are), thus the brain is a computational system.
On the off chance you still don’t know how that works, I’d like to point out that this is the Pit. You seem very confused about how things work here. If you want to have reasoned discussion here, please go to GD. Finally, it’s your dumbass idea, you’re the one that has to prove it. If you’d like to try again in GD, let’s have a go, you eugenics-minded freak.
Eugenics? Where did that come from? I don’t remember supporting eugenics anywhere but maybe I forgot. Up to 1700 posts here.
I mean eugenics is certainly correct as an idea. We practice it all the time with animals and selective breeding. It obviously works. It’s just unethical to do to people and also if you were going to do it, you’d need to go by inner traits, not things that don’t depend on genes like a person’s religion. We could totally do eugenics today using DNA tests, sterilizing those who aren’t good, and it would work, though awfully slowly…
And yes, if I *didn’t *mention Eugenics before this post, then yeah, you’re just pitting yourself.
I think we already had a lecture on evaluation of hypotheses.
a. Hypothesis 1 : I found the button for ignore and used it, I’m just manually choosing to read your posts
b. Hypothesis 2 : the “ignore list” is written down somewhere.
Now, based on all the posts I have made, you should be intelligent enough to see which hypothesis has more evidence. I mention finding the button in one of the posts above.
This is why you’re on the ignore list, because you’re too stupid, lol. You just pitted yourself…again.
Guess it doesn’t take much brainpower to be a running coach, eh?
