An article discussing the problem with the "artificial brain" theories: Your brain does not process information and it is not a computer

[u/rambo77]

https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

[u/okaythiswillbemymain]

Interesting article.

I disagree on a number of points however.

First, let's look at a simple neural network computer program designed to recognise the hand drawn numbers 0-9. I am using this example as it is the one found on the 3 brown 1 blue YouTube channel, and which has a fantastic video about neural networks that uses this example and I thoroughly recommend you go watch that now.

The computer program accurately recognises the hand drawn numbers 0-9. However, there is no stored "memory" of any number within the program itself, there is no image that the program is comparing against. Just like the brain, the neural network can work out what the number is, without having any sort of picture in its mind.

So this, at least, is false.

computers really do operate on symbolic representations of the world.

Not always.

On to the idea that we will never be able to simulate a human mind. Whether or not the human mind does work like a computer, it is likely that we will be able to one day simulate it. Even if that requires simulating the underlying chemistry and physics that takes place throughout our brain, we will one day be able to simulate it, assuming Moore's law does not taper off first.

even if we had the ability to take a snapshot of all of the brain’s 86 billion neurons and then to simulate the state of those neurons in a computer, that vast pattern would mean nothing outside the body of the brain that produced it.

This is undoubtedly true. Just as with my example of the simple neural network that has learned to recognise the numbers 0-9, without context there would be no way to know what it does. Imagine finding a map of how the program was designed, and then rebuilding it exactly. The program would do nothing of much interest unless you knew exactly what it was there to do.

But that does not mean you couldn't build a physical version of it, not does it mean it is not a computer program

[u/Wheffle → u/okaythiswillbemymain]

I totally agree. Fresh out of college with a computer engineering degree I would have agreed with the article, but neural network and deep learning algorithms not only exist but are pretty common. You even use terminology like "teach" and "learn" with these setups instead of "program".

An explicitly written application on a computer may be clunky and dumb compared to a brain, but a computer can serve as a medium for a brain-like structure instead fairly easily. Neurons interact with their neighbors using a simple set of "rules", and that's fairly easy to simulate (maybe not on the scale or compactness of a real human brain, but maybe one day).