/lit/ - Literature

>>13482715
How long before Elon goes bald again?

It will never do what they want it to do, because their ontology of consciousness is nonexistent. They are no closer to a real philosophy of mind than we've ever been. The real problem is that they are actually moving us farther away from the possibility of such a philosophy by covering it over with deceptively simple technological jury-rigging.

The most interesting thing they're proposing is basically slaving neurons and neuron clusters to arbitrary prosthetic motor functions and letting the brain "learn" how to manipulate the prosthetic. In the best possible scenario, that's harmless and uninteresting: in principle it's like grafting an extra thumb onto someone's hand and waiting until his adaptive brain develops reverse phantom limb syndrome and learns to control the thumb. Maybe we can even spare or grow the neurons and it would make no difference. More likely however they are going to do irreparable and invisible damage to a holistic system, which they have no interest in understanding as a whole, by attempting to lash new "parts" to it ad hoc. Worse than that, by lashing machines to the brain in the first place you are opening up the contrary possibility: using the machines to control or constrain or impact the brain, again without understanding what it is. If this is somehow normalized, e.g. in the actually childlike retard way Elon "Reddit" Musk thinks it can be done by connecting it to some kind of iPhone cloud algorithm, it could have a lot of unpredictable effects.

At the occult level it also opens the human consciousness up to ahrimanic forces. If there is any credibility to the long-standing theories that there are dark forces trying to manifest technologically in this world, and reduce the supra-mechanical human organism to the level of mere mechanism to prepare the way for this, this would certainly be a good stepping stone to that.

>significantly less invasive
it's shit
still would want to see the paper

>>13482761
thanks for your thoughtful post

>>13482761
You made a lot of random assertions. Why do you think adding parts onto the brain will do "irreparable damage" to it? If the brain can be understood as a material object, which it can, then I don't see why adding parts onto it will cause it damage. That has to be shown with scientific data. And if we take them at their word their experiments with animals have been successful.

>>13483262
>You made a lot of random assertions.
>If the brain can be understood as a material object, which it can,

whether this is true or not, it appears as an unjustified a priori or "random" assertion in your post, which you just criticized doing

have you just internalized "JUSTIFY YOUR ASSERTIONS! JUSTIFY YOUR ASSERTIONS!" as something YOU can say as some kind of powerful rhetorical weapon, but never taken the time to think of how it actually applies to the logical content of the conversation or what you're writing? do you just reach for it because it is positively correlated with "Success" in relatively many "Outcomes," without evaluating its real content, in itself? gee, almost like an algorithm..

>>13482761
cringe

>>13482715
Stemfags get the space junk.

>>13482761
>At the occult level it also opens the human consciousness up to ahrimanic forces. If there is any credibility to the long-standing theories that there are dark forces trying to manifest technologically in this world, and reduce the supra-mechanical human organism to the level of mere mechanism to prepare the way for this, this would certainly be a good stepping stone to that.

absolutely this, people have no idea how evil this is. musk is a retard and is exhibit #1 for what hyper-specialization is doing to us as a species.

>>13483427
based.

>>13483452
hurr durr cringe

>>13482715
Whenever I see future suppositions by Musk I can only think of the ramifications of investor fraud.

>>13482761
t. luddite dilettante who knows jackshit about actual philosophy of mind and scientific systems explaining consciousness

neurobiology, neuroscience, and physics is more than capable of giving definite expositions on consciousness (which is caused by the brain) through their elaborate and intricate investigations of the brain.

but sure, go ahead and keep acting like materialism is wrong. I'm sure you'll go far.

>>13482761
Was lazily nodding along until the last paragraph kek, threw me for a loop.

>>13484842
>our science of the radio explains the signal

retard

>>13484854
see?

that's a fucking 1950s-tier analogy of brain and mind

are you going to start citing Aristotelian physics next?

>>13482715
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/neural-augs-are-hard/

>>13484865
only when you decide to make an argument that isn't an appeal to your calendar

>>13484878
Holy shit rekt

is there anything sadder than a cogsci babby with delusions of grandeur? Probably end up coding gambling apps while still posting online about the triumphant march of le science

>>13484892
laffo

>>13482761
>>13484854
Yup, you smelled from the start like someone believing in souls.

And yes, this device will screw over humanity like the wheel and the engine and everything that separated us from simple monkey life, just like AI will do that at the very end. So what? We will do it anyway. It's not like humanity is choosing it's own path.

>>13484842

>giving definite expositions on consciousness (which is caused by the brain) through their elaborate and intricate investigations of the brain

they admit that they still don't understand shit about how consciousness works, and neither do you

>>13483262
Biological studies are on an infantile level and likely won't move far beyond that. Obviously tacking things onto the brain is a bad idea when you don't even understand its implications even in a general speculative manner.

>>13485268
you couldn't pass a turing test

>>13482715
Elon Musk's Neuralink announcement was nothing.

We've been using multielectrode recordings in rats for a long time now, and it won't be able to help get advanced brain-computer interfaces in the way Elon Musk is promising. The "sewing machine" thread innovation is just being hyped up for more funding. Even if you can measure the activity of a single neuron or a population of multiple ones, it is still extremely computational intensive to distinguish signal from noise given the plasticity of rhythmic behavior. Look up homeostatic plasticity and theta phase precession as examples.

Note, I was able to predict John O'Keefe would win Nobel Prize in Biology. It's more likely this innovation will continue being used on rats, but I doubt it can be done on humans for much success -- and you have to keep in mind, it is invasive.

Still, I personally believe the sacrifice is far too great for what little is gained.

>>13485391
Any readings on this stuff?

>>13482715

i can only speculate like anyone else, but with this technology you're obviously going to see things like bean counters and code monkeys on steroids. perhaps it will help studying with more useful things, since you should be able to read more? i can see certain jobs requiring one of these things in the future, making you even more of a slave and locked down to society. potentially connecting one of those things to the internet opens up a wide range of fuckery that is hard to imagine, but most of it will be bad for the person using it i'm sure, just like how the internet is bad for most people.

his loftier goals, especially about AI seem ridiculous. there is no reason to believe that spirit will be able to attach to a computer in the sense of true AI. because scientism loving fools have disregarded the soul, they've placed consciousness in the place of a living organism's actual essence. they are stupid, and don't realize that consciousness is a process that is intermediate between the senses that the body is capable of and the soul. they might constantly be able to make the process of AI better and better over time, but it is still just a process and not the actual intelligence itself.

you guys also seem to forget that musk is first and foremost a salesman. the game isn't being played on us so called idiots and luddites for acknowledging that souls and ethical problems with technology exist, its you retards that part with your shekels to fund all of his schemes.

>>13485398
One good researcher is Buzsaki. I enjoyed reading his "Rhythms of the Brain". People just cannot understand how computationally intensive the brain is on a mesoscopic scale:

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Mesoscopic_brain_dynamics (good link)

It is just fucking insane.

There will be no "virtual reality that directly interfaces directly with the brain" anytime soon. Stuff like the Singularity are simply lies.

Also, when it comes to higher cognition, strict functional localization is not as good anymore, distributionist computational accounts being better.

>>13484842
>>13485332
We know what is necessary for consciousness but not sufficient. For example, reciprocal and reentrant neural activity between thalamus and cortex is necessary for consciousness, but it is not sufficient.

>>13485427
thank you friend, I always had a feeling this shit is hocus pocus but I'm glad guys in the know can back that intuition up.

>>13485421
good post

From a functionalist perspective any material that is functionally homologous to neural tissue should be integrable with the substrate. The brain is a connective system, and neurons do not know what they are communicating with, but that it "completes the circuit" and receives a reciprocal handshake. Neuroprosthetics can therefore be interposed between the signal chains, relay them, and therefore close the loop.

There's nothing mysterious about it from a mechanical standpoint. It only gets confusing if you add consciousness. Seeing that everything we do is unconscious anyway and "abstracted away" from consciousness, there's nothing wrong in principle with the idea.

Pic related really gets into the nitty gritty of cognitive extendability and substantiates what I have said here.

>>13485442
Yes, it is definitely hocus pocus. Let me tell you something: We have not even reverse engineered crayfish yet. There is an insane amount of complexity even in their relatively simple neural structures. I was involved in some of the most cutting-edge research in Neuroscience, and I can tell you straight off the bat that even reverse engineering models in crayfish in AnimatLab software is not easy. Now rats, which are sacrificed in crazy numbers, are totally beyond our full comprehension too.
Regardless, I had to leave my lab due to trauma of having to decapitate rats and collect their brains. Also, it was very stressful. Entry-level scientists are treated worse than prostitutes.

My knowledge of Neuroscience is not as sharp as it used to be. I did receive my BS and was able to predict one person who became a Nobel Prize winner.

>>13485472
>models in crayfish
models of crayfish*

>>13485472
I imagine, then, that you consider consciousness substrate-dependent? We'll never have a program that is self-aware, and strong AI is bunk?

>>13485427

whole lot of complicated descriptive mathematics here, and zero explanation

>>13485479
To give an idea what I am discussing. We know of the "Default Mode Network" of the brain at a macroscopic scale. It is the functional connectivity at rest. However, at a mesoscopic scale, we have no idea, which would probably be very complex oscillatory and rhythmically speaking.

Okay, this article about spatial memory of rats and how neurons encode it with super complex computations is also good to share to give an idea of what I am talking about:
http://www.buzsakilab.com/content/PDFs/Buzsaki_Moser_NN2013.pdf

What I am trying to say is this:
>a neuron in a circuit can be inhibited which can also be important for temporal window of its overall functional connectivity and how it encodes information, this makes stuff complex activities like theta phase precessions which I recommend looking up
>look up cross-frequency coupling too, it is how even oscillations can interact in a manner that introduces certain novel patterns
>neurons can alter their own firing frequency (homeostatic plasticity)

The brain is super dynamic, super plastic (on both functional and structural levels), and so forth. For this reason, the idea of being even close to reverse engineering a human brain when we can't even do it for crayfish is BULLSHIT.

>>13485528
>>a neuron in a circuit can be inhibited which can also be important for temporal window of its overall functional connectivity and how it encodes information, this makes stuff complex activities like theta phase precessions which I recommend looking up
Let me add why this is important.
It's not just LTP (long-term potentiation) that's important to learning or consolidation of fact, but even inhibition can be important when thought about in a more nuance temporal sense.

>>13482715
Like all new technology, it will be embraced by the best specimens of humanity, despised by lazy oafs who can sense their impending doom, and revered as "magic" by everyone in between.

who else behind the pop culture spotlight is attempting leaps in innovation? no one can predict it for sure but if we learned anything the past 2 decades, it means what he is aiming for is possible and will most likely happen. what other innovations besides faster hardware, platforms and upgrades of what we already have since the 60s? it seems were at the peak before collapse so i admire people like him that strives for another arc. unless the breakaway civ is real and musk is really just a front for what others are doing in private. besides deep military stuff of course.

>>13485528
You're missing the larger point that people aren't interested in crayfish. All these billions of dollars in research grants and tech company investments are interested in the human brain. You seem to be attached to this notion that you need to reverse engineer something to understand it. If that were the case, medical science would still be in the dark ages. We're still discovering new features and properties of relatively simple organs like the heart. You don't need to know everything about a system to work with it. And if the modular hypothesis is true and the brain decomposes into functionally distinct areas, the rest can be treated as a black box and taken for granted for engineering purposes. Anyone who has any experience with engineering is all too familiar with this dynamic.

And let's not overlook the actual state of the art. Brain implants actually exist. They are able to restore hearing and vision in the impaired (crudely, but still markedly).

And what do you think all these tech giants are going to do with all their machine learning and AI facilities? Obviously it will be leveraged to help chip away at the technical difficulties regarding brain machine interfaces.

These ML systems will be able to refine models of the brain in a boot-strapping, self-reinforcing manner.

>>13482761
Based and uɐɯıɹɥɐ-pilled

>>13485586
>best specimens of humanity
>dude app programmers are literally übermensch lmao

>>13485586
yes, those 19th century factory owners truly were demigods among men lol

where do you clowns get this shit?

>>13485732
>where do you clowns get this shit?
History and observation of the present and who holds the most power in the world. Protip: civilization is biased against low IQ people by its nature.

>>13485732
you talk like you dont live in a capitalism

>>13485724
App programmers for the most part just think of the rest of the technology they work with as magic. We're talking about the entrepreneurs who understand it all and hire the programmers among many others to create elaborate, all-encompassing systems of immense structural integrity and creative ingenuity. Individuals that you probably think don't even exist. Musk is a semi-retired casual version of such individuals, which is why he's entered celebrity status in his later years.

>>13485626
>Brain implants actually exist. They are able to restore hearing and vision in the impaired (crudely, but still markedly).
My point is that brain implants that improve memory, alter mental imagery (e.g., virtual interface), strengthen abstract reasoning, or modify other higher-cognition are a near impossibility. Crudely** restoring hearing or vision is not comparable to actually augmenting one's higher-cognitive faculties.
>You don't need to know everything about a system to work with it.
If you want to actually make changes to higher cognitive functions, one needs serious predictive models because there is a very, very delicate balance to the oscillatory and rhythmic behavior on both a small and large scale across the brain. The level of functional plasticity also introduces certain dilemmas as I've explained.

>>13485856
>he doesn't know left-hand path magicians hold the power in the world and use techies as puppets for their plans, keeping them in line with exactly such delusions of grandeur

>>13485877
Musk is also a glorified app programmer. The greatest thing he worked on himself was PayPal, everything else was a matter of management and funding.

>>13482761
Absolutely spot on.

>>13483223

>>13482761
big brain.

>>13482761
>>13485391
/Lit/'s on steroids today.
>>13484840
Finally a fellow financialist on /lit/.