Donald Hoffman - Computational Theory of Mind

Does the mind work like a computer? Are mental processes the product of computation in that information processing is the essence of mind or consciousness?
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[@Drigger95]

Incredible!!

[@bodbn]

Amazing stuff.

[@muskduh]

thanks for the video

[@vertisync]

Beautiful

[@yosaakshi]

" ANYTHING WHICH WORKS , IS TRUTH "....

[@livjensen8462]

If our thoughts can be downloaded, can they also be downloaded and transformed into other individuals' brains (thought control / manipulation of other people's thoughts)?

[@GMUStudentDesign]

Thank you for posting this! Has anyone been able to find Donald Hoffman's Consciousness and Cognition published proof please?

[@yarisikder]

Yeah it's called The scrambling theorem: A simple proof of the logical possibility of spectrum inversion

[@jesselopes5196]

Just because we don't understand how consciousness could be explained functionally doesn't mean it's not functional - it could just mean we haven't found the mechanism yet (this btw is Chomsky's position)

[@khanjare]

Well, explaining consciousness functionally DOES NOT make consciousness a function or a group of functions. That would be just a teleological take on the issue nothing more. A simple example would be like this: If a tree can give fruits then it is a fruit tree that is what its function and that's what makes it a fruit tree. We now how exactly the tree gives fruits BUT we do not understand the experience and the perspective of being a tree by just defining it with its function.

[@jesselopes5196]

@@khanjare yeah no one denies that - that's not the point - the point is that we know, for example, that colors are a function of retinal cones and subsequent processing in LGN - but there's nothing like that for consciousness - if there were, Hoffman couldn't make the point he's making - but I'm saying he's jumping the gun by saying that's not in the offing

[@khanjare]

@@jesselopes5196 Well I agree with you on topics like sight, perception etc. they are functions. Consciousness is being aware of these functions and itself can not be a function since above all functions. Although it may be partly or mostly made of sub functions, that I may agree with. In short, I go with the "Consciousness can include but not limited to functions" statement

[@jesselopes5196]

@@khanjare The idea that consciousness is above all functions because it is aware of the outputs of certain functions is nonsense - every Turing machine can be 'aware' of the results of its subroutines (its functions) - that's just a fact, which Putnam pointed out 60 years ago

[@reesevirgin2105]

Could consciousness functionally exist in a the fourth dimension? Is computational theory limited to three dimensional (+time) physics?

[@reallyidrathernot.134]

I can't find the bloody article he's talking about at 5:45. Someone link me i'm losing my mind

[@brunosoares3155]

@@brucewayne6676 where is that from? I need to use that amd make a citations and I cannot find the full article anywhere

[@billniko9310]

If “symbol x” input,then “symbol y” output.

[@user-nh7nb8pr3f]

The one thing anyone might fear is to have failures in experiencing qualia. What can cause the failures? Example: a husband thinks he has lean abs, then walks in front of the mirror and sees a belly materialize. Then he goes to his wife and says: ‘where did that come from?’ Wife: “Oh honey, that’s always been there.” Husband: “Why didn’t you tell me? You talked like everything was okay.” Wife: “Oh, every wife says that. It’s a part of growing old in an interface in qualia space.”

[@SoB_626]

That's what I thought...

[@jean-pierredevent970]

All matter is inanimate but if 3755 electrons in a brain jump over 10 synaptic clefts and then turn around fast 20 times left and then 15 time right then stop for 2 seconds, consciousness suddenly emerges and the electrons feel a bit drunk but happy. Nothing was hidden however in the electrons or atoms before they did that or you would have panpsychism.

[@AnthonyFransella]

Even if your mind were purely mechanistic and you duplicated it in a computer it'd immediately be different than you due to it's different environment, the choices it faces, etc. The idea that "you" would be in a computer is silly. It'd just be something/one very much like you.

[@Senazi08a]

What Mr Hoffman does not tell us is: 1. why consciousness coming from scull? why a hand, leg, finger, heart, stomach or any other part of body exept the brain give arise to consciousness? 2. why and how consciousness "this consciouss agents as he mention" arise in first place?

[@cmacmenow]

Have a look at Sir Roger Penrose’s Orch OR theory of consciousness which debunks the computational model.

[@darrelllatham6086]

I was going to you BUT you just spoiled it for me.......

[@jirijelinek2038]

If your model doesn’t represent reality correctly then whatever you prove/disprove within the model doesn’t prove/disprove anything within reality.

[@nicholassteel5529]

No one ever will....

[@YitroBenAvraham]

I want to see him interview Dr Gerald Schroeder or any learned Rabbi.

[@ThalesPo]

[RESOLVED] At 2:10 I would like to know why it fails. People have disagreed with me that consciousness is entirely mathematically encodable, but they just fail to explain me what is the part that is not encodable, and how can it not be encodable. Are you saying that it's just random? If someone cared to explain that to me it would be nice.

[@tbayley6]

ThalesPo If it was encoded, there would be a correlation between the code and the conscious experience. What people don't accept is that this correlation is an identity. There are apparently some formal disproofs of this identity, though I'm sure they are disputed. The two things are so wildly different to us - the map vs territory issue - and at the very least we need to highlight the territory, lest it fade away into eliminativism. Also, coders spend a lot of time with their heads in an abstract world, and have a hard time interacting socially, particularly with the opposite sex, so that's not a direction we want to go in - i was a coder for 30 years so I should know! Joking aside, rash people tend to make exuberant claims on the basis of 'a little knowledge' - wiser people know how easy it is to miss the point.

[@ThalesPo]

Tom Bayley So you're agreeing with me that it is mathematically describable?

[@tbayley6]

I'm saying it's a rookie mistake to look for absolute certainty. As soon as you reach it, something else appears which reveals that your domain of enquiry is too narrow.

[@ThalesPo]

Tom Bayley I'm not certain. Human level intelligence is not capable of achieving certainty about this issue. But anyways, what are the formal disproofs of this identity that you mentioned?

[@tbayley6]

Hoffmann says in this video he has refuted it, but I haven't seen that, and I probably wouldn't understand it anyway. There's also Saul Kripke's argument: arigiddesignator.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/kripkes-refutation-of-identity-theory/ But the main point I think is that any identity theory is going to be unsatisfactory to us, because it won't be explanatory in the direction we're interested in. For example, consider that the experience of taste is fully describable according to some model. So for a particular set of inputs you can predict a particular taste. However, how do you predict the inputs from the taste, without exhaustively having all the experiences first and matching them to the inputs? What seems to be missing is an orderly description of the actual experiences that would allow that kind of simplification. For example we now know what colours we will see when we look at light of different wavelengths. But if we didn't first know the wavelengths and seen the results, how would we know that red is a longer wavelength than blue? And if we'd never seen a spectrum what is there in the experience of each colour that tells us how it should be ordered? A good explanatory model should be able to predict results based simply on inputs. But we know nothing 'real' about the actual results of perception unless we have looked.

[@ObeySilence]

What means mind? What is a mind? I dont get it.

[@maxjacobs807]

Think of the brain as the physical system containing the mind. The mind is the product of all the neurons working together. The mind processes inputs collected by our senses.

[@nicholassteel5529]

I said something last year....use all your empirical science to examine my body/brain etc and then tell me what I said ....

[@pitrolla]

If a person's mind can be uploaded to a computer so that the computer behaves the same...then that is a 'copy' of you no? If the copy is conscious then there is two of you?

[@Dr_MKUltra]

Sven Degroeve for the first nanosecond that person is you, once your experiences differ from the copy, they in essence become a unique individual.

[@simonhibbs887]

I just read the paper he talks about where he refuted functionalism. I disagree. I'll try to summarise succinctly. Hoffman proposes that for any functionalist explanation of a set of experiences, he can suppose the existence of a scrambling function that transposes those experiences. That's not a good formal description of his thesis, but close enough. Go read it. My objection is that he can suppose the existence of whatever function he likes, but that doesn't make the existence of such a function possible. It's quite trivial to suppose the existence of a function that would actually be impossible to implement in reality. In order to prove his point, Hoffman would need to demonstrate the existence of such a function.

[@Joshua-dc1bs]

Simon Hibbs Hey, can you link me the article? I'd like to read it too. Cheers.

[@brunosoares3155]

Do you have the link to that article?

[@wulphstein]

If the devil was a C++ program. Lol

[@gregoryarutyunyan5361]

C++ suits devil well)

[@Germany388]

Bladerunner 2049

[@wulphstein]

Without miracles! Lol

[@jenidu9642]

People think way to hard about consiousness, as if its some special function lol

[@prestonpittman717]

Can man compulate something that God designed for man to commune directly with Him with? Consciousness,... or, the Spirit of every man is the only way we are able to even approach our Creator! For man to believe he might use his own construct,... like some ladder that takes us up to some hight that we might see God,... or not see Him, is really silly!

[@0113Naruto]

His theory on objective reality is most likely true.

[@ThePitchblue]

his voice reminds me of Ted Bundy's.

[@Warwipf]

I don't know how people would rather think CToM is correct over Connectionism.

[@The_Original_Hybrid]

I don't know how you can even think those two things are mutually exclusive.

[@Ruhan885]

Quantum theory of identity says if A==B then A IS B. Even in the classical world.

[@elqsabe1]

Ok ,now what about all the chemical process on our mind? How to reproduce all the process of the neurons ? He is missing some chemestry !

[@strauss7151]

Consciousness is computational. Get over it. There is no magic behind it.

[@SPACETIMECREATOR]

The analytical mind consists of volumes of continuous force of recognition status, that formalizes the mind and brain open frequencies ,this allows information to come in from data processing computer graphing energy electrical intelligence systems ,and having the process of informative information that the cycle division high rises to consciousness levels of its creation of self vibration signals turning us into satellites of full communication of air waving energy patterns of electronic information,that will send all line section of systems to higher harmonic Matrix energy magnetic magnesium forcing circulation systems !!

[@glenemma1]

Are you sure.