If Brains are Computers, Who Designs the Software? - with Daniel Dennett

[@dorianphilotheates3769]

“Science done right is one of the humanities.” That’s an epic quote: have long thought it and never expressed it. Thanks, Professor D.D. (and anonymous high school physics teacher)!

[@christopherellis2663]

Science done right...

[@dorianphilotheates3769]

Christopher Ellis - mea culpa - quite right: “done right”. Thanks, I will edit.

[@hypehuman]

And the humanities done right is one of the sciences! Any field of study can benefit from applying the best practices of both traditions.

[@dorianphilotheates3769]

@@hypehuman - Entirely agree. I have written of my own field, archaeology as: “the most scientific of the humanities, the most humanistic of the sciences.”

[@macysondheim]

No.

[@technics6215]

"Thinking tools" approach/idea is amazing. I never thought about this in that way. Thank you sir!

[@IsabelHernandez-ki8ni]

When he said "the dream of every cell is to divide" is like an extraterrestrial being looking at us from a distant galaxy with a telescope and saying "the dream of every human is to replicate and die"

[@kentonian]

If aliens saw what was happening in developed counties they would say that our goal is to make and use toys to avoid the genetic urge to reproduce. We might be gone in the blink of an eye and the same for the aliens so that we never see each other though 😉

[@randomousjam8590]

Thanks for the great talk Daniel. Two errors I found, anyone please feel free to comment. 1) 1:15:20 "genetic, deep learning algorithms ... sift through data and come up with new ideas", these algorithms do not come up with new ideas, they learn to replicate training labels specified by humans. 2) 8:57 "brains are not serial they're parallel", false, brains are both serial and parallel. For example, the series retina, optic nerve, LGN, V1, etc... is well known.

[@jelliott8424]

Parallel connections can be defined as serial connections running concurrently. A brain simultaneously processes information from multiple streams, even if some interfaces run in 'serial.' I don't know much about genetic algorithms but calling it replication of previous specified labels is just kicking the can down the road. At some point an original 'label' had to be created.

[@ibnseena]

@@jelliott8424 I totally agree on the parallel concretions definition as used by physicists.... Most of parallel circuits have series branches within them but still called and described as parallel type.

[@juhanleemet]

I tend to agree, having studied some GOFAI decades ago. IMO "modern" methods ML and "AI" seem to merely be "trainable classifiers". They make "decisions" based on training, from predefined data sets, by choosing one (or more?) labels from those determined by some algorithms from the training data. IMO they do not "reason" at all, which I thought was a goal of original AI research. Early on, we were hoping to build "intelligent" reasoning machines which we can understand, and where one can explain the reasoning to arrive at their conclusions. ML has no reasoning, and no explanations, merely "because" (philosophy joke?) that is the emergent behaviour from that particular training algorithm and that particular data set.

[@FrancisLewis2000]

I thought the idea with new deep learning was that with enough hidden layers the algorithim will find it's own groups/categories?

[@davidsc4680]

​@@FrancisLewis2000 I think you're correct. The large models used today don't need labels at all. They just come up with patterns, just like biological brains do.

[@bulletboy9748]

This topic just randomly popped in my head and my first reaction was to look it up on here. I'm glad I did.

[@jmoreno600]

If you watch at 1.25 speed Dennett's speech becomes as brisk and lively as it was 20 years ago.

[@Aurealeus]

That's a good idea. I stopped watching/listening to him years ago because his speech often seemed slow and slurry to me and would put me to sleep, so I'll have to try that.

[@zdk1099]

Good recommendation! Thanks!

[@401281]

When he mentioned mindless processes creating things more advanced than themselves it reminded me Stephen Wolfram's study of cellular automata where he demonstrated how simple rules can create very complex systems.

[@perplexedmoth]

Israel Grogin good analogy. Also neural networks are an example of self programming/designing simple systems evolving to do complex tasks.

[@PazLeBon]

we cant even understand photosynthesis :)

[@machine-learning1013]

Yeah come to think of it! I immediately visualized Conway's game of life when reading your comment.

[@brianstevens3858]

+ Medical Cannabis Spain um wtf did you get that idea www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-it-comes-to-photosynthesis-plants-perform-quantum-computation/

[@samsmith1580]

Cellular automata were invented by John Von Newman and the type of cellular automata Wolfram explores were invented by Claude Shannon. But to listen to Wolfram you would think he invented the whole area himself. He reminds me of these people who patent genes with out knowing anything about them in the hope they will get some money in the future from other peoples research. Wolfram has made bold statements with no real proof and no real advancements in mathematics I think really what he is hoping for is that other people in the future will obtain results from this area of mathematics and he can claim credit.

[@retrofuturist7]

I absolutely love your content guys ❤️ Especially this one!!

[@TheRoyalInstitution]

Thanks so much! We're so happy you enjoyed it

[@LemonChieff]

As a computer science student I really appreciate the "evm" english virtual machine comparison because that's pretty much how java works. Jvm knows how to talk to your cpu and the java applet knows how to talk to Jvm, in that way jvm is a "translator" or in other words an interpreter. the further down you go the closer you are to speaking the same language as your cpu, c is compiled to before you send the app (message) to the computer, so it's "translated" before you post the letter and the compiler knows the the address for you. if you go further down to assembler now you're writing a letter that's mostly in computer language and you need to know the addresses before you post the letter. When you compile (translate) to bytecode your computer can understand the information, it knows what to do with it.

[@inyobill]

True enough. I'd quibble with the implication that computers "know" anything. It's all electrons bouncing around wires. We may never know, I expect AI to get good enough to pass the Turing test. Whether the system is "actually" "aware", will be undeterminable.

[@V21IC]

"Jvm 'knows' how to talk to your cpu"🤔 That construct seem to assign intelligence to JVM. Like the java applet, JVM is all code! Code that was 'designed' by man to follow instructions that operates the cpu! The CPU is equally lifeless as the software(written instructions).

[@DilworthJonathon]

@Ralph Macchiato That is the 'real' Turing test! Joshua Bach has some really interesting ideas with regards to AI, should check him out if you've not done so already.

[@maevekirkland9452]

thats how most programming works the compiler for C is itself written in C

[@gooddogtrainingservices5351]

Great analogy. Translating and communicating with dogs is my main job when training them. Fostering the relationship

[@nano7586]

Lately I started to consider the brain as a giant filter/processor that delivers our consciousness (whatever it may be) the best statistical predictions for certain information patterns in this universe. E.g. we tend to predict human beings as being human with near to 100% accuracy, but we are pretty bad at predicting certain other things (like how we are preceived by others, cause we are often diluded due to self-doubt and other things - or e.g. optical illusions, since our brain is trained to expect certain outcomes). So basically all the brain does is it predicts certain events, it recognizes patterns, and it makes all this data somewhat interpretable. We don't know where consciousness itself comes from.. we just know how to deactivate it like a switch, when deactivating certain neurons, but that isn't proof that certain brain regions create it.

[@fillinman1]

His title question reminds me of a similar one. If DNA is written instructions, who is the author? I like your take on the quantum nature of it. Seems like the quantum is the real basis of everything. The Newtonian is like a useful simplification. Ultimately we gotta have an answer to beginning and end.

[@10418]

@@fillinman1 the author may be the “evolution” ?

[@deejannemeiurffnicht1791]

Some good points there I think. Also, adding to something you point to is the fact, or apparence that just as you can develop muscle memory, so, with the brain also we have a parallel to this, which we could call memory memory, or brain muscle memory. An example is the amount of times I have been in meetings, and the person hosting it is so used to pushing a particular agenda, or to clients who say the same thoughtless things, can usually fall into the crpappy useless habit of NOT LISTENING to the person present, and is answering via ''muscle memory'' of the brain in what they have been taught to say and think, based on the common muddle they are daily subjected to. They are actually NOT hearing you, and NOT answering anything you needed to know. remindfs me a bit of how China's power brokers ''listen'' to their people.

[@Dandan-tg6tj]

@@fillinman1 the quantum is also a useful simplification. We are not meant to understand these things and we will never understand them. We humans are built for a purpose and that's it.

[@Dandan-tg6tj]

@@10418 Darwin's evolution? haha.

[@starrmayhem]

A funny little story during my school life. A instructor separated us in to two groups. Told us to tie our legs to other people in the group. Then we will have an extreme edition of a 3 legged race. In practice run, many people had topple over, obviously. The other group's leader told them to synchronize the movements by shouting 1,2 & so on. I simply told mine to keep moving forward & don't fall down. You know what, we across the finish line at same time. The instructor baffled, said cooperation is the key to success & apparently "just do it" also works. The game was outplayed and the monologue was ruined.

[@senatorjosephmccarthy2720]

There were many more factors in play than the few mentioned.

[@fillinman1]

This is apparent with tradesmen. I would always plan carefully. Sometimes best. Others would just start but fail midstream at unforeseen obstacles. Often. Best would briefly survey the task then go, solving problems that came up on the fly and were invariably the fastest. Saw this many times. They intuitively avoided dead stop roadblocks without exactly identifying them beforehand. Now I have a better understanding of this. And I have something to think about. Thanks.

[@timsmith5339]

What a fascinating and informative talk. Early in the lecture he asked the question, 'Are our brains computers?' and even before he answered I was saying, 'Yes! of course they are." I also thought as he continued, that if your definition precludes it from being a computer, it is your definition that needs looking at. I remembered back to when I was an apprentice at Lucas Aerospace in the UK many (many, many) years ago. One item of aviation hydraulic equipment they made was the wing sweep controller for the Panavia Tornado. This was a computer but entirely hydraulic (in its decision making). It took control inputs and sensor readings and calculated the appropriate output. You could not find within it a 'program'. Sure, there would have been a written algorithm during its design. A list if logic statements and tables of data to inform the output, but you would not find a 'program' stored in the unit anywhere. It is still a computer though.

[@JiveDadson]

Was a time not too many decades ago when every computer was a human. The word pre-dates electronic computers.

[@gregor-samsa]

you might not konw it, but this one-line comment was the best ever! As therefore, it is a real transition just in the opposite direction of what he wanted to explain in his whole lecture and therefore a proof of his hypothesis just in one line! Let's continue in broken English. (As I am German): "computer " is a word and a meme that is subject to a shift in meaning, let's call this an effect of evolution, too. In the older sense, it was about the brain's abilities. Today, it's about a network of those non-human computers like those termites. BTW "robot " in an earlier meaning is nothing more than a (human) worker; see the famous play of Karel Čapek R.u.R from 1920! Now we have "artificial intelligence" in four seasons;-) and the quote from Goethe: If you lack the ideas, words come in handy ...

[@iandoyle5017]

@@gregor-samsa you should never exclaim when making a statement. Another point i would raise is i am personally aware of the history of the word "robot" but entirely ignorant of the play you referred to, and finally if you were attempting to imply you had your own thoughts on anything discussed in this lecture, you didnt. Ffs

[@jpdj2715]

The word "computer" is the result of linguistically abrasive cultures of who-cares naivety. From Latin "computare" (to count) proper form would have been "computator".

[@V21IC]

@@jpdj2715 Thus a computer 'calculates' its inputs and give an outputs! A computer does not 'selects' which inputs it wants but what is given. Else, they would be useless a tool to man who have 'designed' them for his aid. A computer do not possess intelligence. Computers are designed to follow the subroutines consisting of algorithms by which they are programmed! Computers are made up of hardware and software. Man design both hardware and software. Humans may still be functional with a brain tumor until a point. What's the equivalent to 'brain tumor' for a computers brain? Which is more resilient to an attack by a virus? The human brain or the computer [brain]?

[@eldontyrell4361]

@@iandoyle5017 lol

[@tousdr]

I love this tempo of talking. Gives importance to the content of the speech. Simple sentences, not too simple and time and pause to digest them. No show. No artificial postures or tones to impress the audience. No flashes. Thanks

[@inyobill]

I am under the impression that Groves was certainly the administrative controller, but the physicists and engineers actually were in control of what got built and how (explicitly, Oppenheimer was in charge of the technical and creative work).

[@juhanleemet]

relates to the conundrum of how do you control or manage poeple smarter than you are? or how we choose specialist professionals?

[@granthurlburt4062]

There's a great TV film about Oppenheimer and Groves. In one scene he says "I played him like a fiddle".

[@granthurlburt4062]

@@juhanleemet Relates to the question: If you're a highly intelligent person, how do you deal with administrators who are stupidr than you and judge you based on their inadequate understanding? Oppenheimer was denied security clearance by FBI agents (I believe) who put him into simple-minded categories and thought no more about it.

[@wade5941]

I love Daniel Dennett because he makes me think. The more I listen to him the more I realize how much I disagree with what he is saying. At times it even sounds like mush. But, I have no doubt that he is much smarter than me, so I just write it off.

[@MsJavaWolf]

He is also smarter than me, and better trained in philosophy but for almost any philosophical position there are equally smart people in philosophy supporting the opposite view. Since there is no expert consensus in philosophy, I think we shouldn't feel bad for disagreeing with any particular philosopher.

[@ioannisimansola7115]

Excellent thinking. I always say , even with common daily software that this is the case. Each computer's suffers as much as his programmer

[@tombeall1182]

9

[@Rico-Suave_]

I loved Dr. Daniel Dennett, very sad to hear about his passing, I would have loved to meet him, he was my absolute favorite, an intellectual giant, a legend, true sage, heard he was also very kind gentle person, huge loss to civilization, I will watch tons of his lectures in the next few weeks in his memory, I made a playlist of his lectures and interviews for myself to work through, listening to Dr Dennett lectures would be my idea of Heaven 1:14:33

[@makaylahollywood3677]

This gets my attention..makes my brain light up- eyes wide open. Thank you! The programs are downloaded between ages 0- 7 from our parent, teachers, etc.

[@WmTyndale]

You are forgetting about the BIOS. The original was given by God and reproduced.

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

@@WmTyndale Danial Dennet strongly disagrees with you, and so do I! If you believe there is a god despite a complete lack of viable evidence, then your software is millennia out of date, and the data corruption accumulative! You have no evidence for your claim! The time to believe is when there is sufficient evidence, and well, you can pile layer upon layer of bad evidence onto a mountain of bad evidence (mere anecdote and false attribution in god's case), and it will never amount to a single shred of good evidence! No amount of faith based belief can make truth.

[@MrTomb789]

@@WmTyndale Where is God?..

[@adamrifae3627]

Now, where does this software (informations) get stored on molecular level or even subatomically? I mean, informations get processed, and it takes time doing that, sometimes generations of repetition. And since informations get repeated, it must be contained somewhere so it can be involuntarily revoked again and again, regardless of how much time it takes to process or get processed it's still there waiting its turn aimlessly. Hence, an information has no formation until it's processed and in order to process it, it needs processing units and a container (which by themselves are chunks of informations!) that has a direct connectivity feature to the input devices, a priority organiser apparently and hindering walls -so the informations don't float away or however they're behaving-, structurally speaking. such a complex process where does it take a place on the physical plane? or with which plane of the quantum fields does it interact or co-act?

[@mrpoopo2320]

Adam Rifae do you have any concept what you are talking about?

[@adamrifae3627]

i wouldn't speak of it otherwise

[@mrpoopo2320]

@@adamrifae3627 yeah keep on believing that. At least you can convince yourself.

[@adamrifae3627]

MR Poopo believing isn’t a virtue of mine, I’m wondering and asking. if you have no answer nor an argument against what I’m speaking of (regardless of its validity) please don’t get triggered, I‘m not in favour of personalized accusations, thank you kindly

[@isaz2425]

@@adamrifae3627 it's not really my domain, so I could be very wrong but what I heard was that there is short term memory : The neurons are activated repeatedly for some time. and by staying active, they keep the information there. So for this case it's a flux of ions in the neurons, and some exchange of molecules and chemical reactions to transmit it from a neuron to an other one. and then, there is the long term memory, for which some neurons can form new connections with other neurons to change the brain's "network" of neurons. And in this case it would be the positions of cells, more specifically, of the neurons and their axons, and the way they are wired together. in any case it's never subatomic. what happens in our body, is at the atomic scale or higher .

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

I'm so glad the EVM between my ears is working well, up to date and malware free!! I love Daniel Dennet, and everything he has done for this world in educating so many people by explaining intricate scientific and philosophical concepts in ways less learned people can understand, and especially for exposing the foibles of harboring unsubstantiated often dangerous beliefs such as religious fundamentalism.

[@deejannemeiurffnicht1791]

''Malware free''? I doubt that VERY MUCH! The brain, for instance, has been hacked for millenia. religion? Gladiatorial/sports? What has become known as propaganda? Tabloids? And elite-leaning press? Any-leaning press. certain styles of drug communities (they got hacked by initially the U.S. legal/political monster to MAKE IT DANGEROUS.) So it is popously RIDICULOUS to make your point beyond humour.

[@suzieb8366]

Fascinated mindless worker at the bottom learnt so much from this lecture...THANK YOU.

[@zagyex]

for example?

[@morningstar3437]

@@zagyex 😂

[@darkpandemic5802]

i watched this 5 times just because i like him talking

[@250txc]

Certainly glad I ~never had that thought.

[@venturarodriguezvallejo9777]

Not me. Apart the "slow motion" effect, his difficult breath is anguishing.

[@zagyex]

Exaybachay

[@ADHD_guy_reacts]

Explain why.

[@nickbarton3191]

In modern computer software design, not only are there abstractions of the language eg. Java but we've developed design patterns. These are standard design solutions to common problems. One of the main advantages of patterns is not only do we have ready solutions but we can communicate that solution to another engineer with a single phrase thus speeding up the development process. "What you want there is an observer pattern". Naming things is one of the things that makes us human. The speed of advancement depends on it.

[@Jester123ish]

Raymond Tallis' point was that having grown up in modern technological society when we come to try to imagine what the brain is and how it works we readily adopt the model of the computer, that is what is familiar to us. Tallis being a neuroscientist (and a polymath) does not believe that the model is the correct one and that there are many important and profound differences we need to not overlook. But hey, if you mentioned him in another talk we can just ignore all that, right?

[@Oberon4278]

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed in this talk. Apparently the presenter is a philosopher, not a computer scientist or a neuroscientist. So why should we give his opinion any weight? The definition of "computer" that he gives is incomplete and inaccurate. A computer is a well defined machine, and the definition is not "a thing that can process information." I'm disappointed that he didn't even attempt to provide the proper definition of a computer (that is, a Turing machine,) but then again maybe I shouldn't be surprised. After all, if he had, he would have had to explain how the human brain is a Turing machine, and there is very good evidence that it is not. Perhaps he avoided the rigorous definition of "computer" on purpose rather than out of ignorance.

[@skepticalbutopen4620]

Reading Intuition Pumps by Dennett now and watching all his content to reinforce his work.

[@trankt54155]

Right there in that auditorium, extra-terrestials under cloak walked around and laughed to each others about the lifeforms they had created on "Earth" planet.....just like the numerous electromagnetic waves that travels through the space and people sitting there who are totally unaware because they do not have the right sensors to pick up the various frequencies....

[@gerbil61]

That is really no different from the God Hypothesis. It pushes back the problem to an earlier cause : Who created the Aliens/God? Did they create themselves? If so, wouldn't it be simpler to say that we designed ourselves and are 'cloaked' from seeing it?

[@marcosaparecidoferreiradas786]

Valeu!

[@TheNefari]

That was bloody brilliant i keep this app in my necktop^^

[@donchristie420]

Good one,props

[@rogerbeck2085]

Excellent lecture, thanks to you and the people who were involved in making it available on the internet.

[@ryanmurray6784]

I like to keep KZbin on all my devices.

[@dannygjk]

@@rogerbeck2085 Has your intelligence increased to the point that you get why people do that?

[@jpdj2715]

Keep it bloody

[@spnhm34]

It could be argued that internet memes are a form of cultural expression, whether you like them or not. They reinforce shared values, thereby making one group more strongly bonded. It’s simply a larger scale version of making a joke to a group of people sitting around a campfire. The evolutionary advantage of having people on your side should be easy enough to work out

[@juhanleemet]

I disagree somewhat with Dennett when he says memes are created by a "mindless" process. While the actual creation might be random, successful memes do have some "selection" (as he says) perhaps external like "which boats came back", but also cultural. We do not accept ALL memes "just because". We have some choice (insert arguments about "free will" here?) in which memes we like or adopt. We could think of this as possibly a form of "intelligence amplification"? Vague glimmerings of preference are combined in society to choose which memes are acceptable, and then society builds on them, as they form part of the cultural context. The decision making is diffuse and unorganized and bottom-up, but is that totally "mindless"? True there is no "one mind" controlling the process, but perhaps many little minds?

[@edinfific2576]

"We don't believe in an intelligent designer. We believe in an intelligent design by natural selection." kind of summarizes it for me.

[@jmp01a24]

Then you better prepare for a long wait. Just take a look at his tree of life. lol.

[@MarttiSuomivuori]

You are making an important point. A system can behave intelligently, even creatively without being conscious. The power or replication, variation, selective pressure, and time is unbelievable. Our problem is the time span. We cannot understand it.

[@edinfific2576]

I think my comment was misunderstood. I sort of poked fun at the statement. In some ways, it is self-contradictory for an atheist because of the word "believe". At the same time, it recognizes the intelligent design but refuses to acknowledge the intelligent creator, i.e. God, and rather choses to believe in self-creation or deaf, dumb and blind Nature's intelligence, even though the Nature itself is merely a composition of forces set in motion.

[@SimbaWaNyika]

12:40 if your analogy is wrong then your resulting deduction will also be wrong. Centrally planned economies do actually work.

[@mrbeancanman]

Best talk I've heard in a while. Very interesting stuff.

[@rodneykawecki1770]

"Cognitive Cerebral Consciousness". Really like your work, sir. Yes, our brains are not computers but they are computerized. Wow, that one's pretty good! ( Universe Consciousness)

[@justinleemiller]

What a great explainer! Thank you for the upload.

[@ws6002]

Three years too late, but I would suggest the lecturer watch the Feynman lecture, "Los Alamos From Below". Feynman visited Oak Ridge during the Manhatten project and told the engineers and scientists there a lot of information they needed so as design their isotope separation to avoid near critical mass events that could have harmed or killed the Oak Ridge staff.

[@0Metatron]

Another perspective is to think of the brain like a television set. It receives consciousness from the cosmos and interprets it in a way that is practical for human life and operating on a very narrow bandwidth

[@RAIRADIO]

Hinduism 101

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

That's just pseudo-science mumbo jumbo with zero viable evidence to back it up!

[@starfishsystems]

Get back to us when you can test that hypothesis. Bear in mind that it requires multiple extraordinary assumptions, so maybe start working on those first: 1) The existence of some kind of cosmic consciousness, for which there is currently zero evidence. 2) The existence of a very high bandwidth bidirectional signalling medium, currently undetectable, whose signal energy is unaffected by every form of shielding material that humans have ever encountered. 3) The identification of the special property of human brain matter - and all other known neurological structures in other species as well - that can detect and transmit signals across this same medium while not consuming or dissipating measurable energy.

[@Dandan-tg6tj]

@@starfishsystems There's so many things science can't prove. I'm not saying that the brain as a tv set theory is right or wrong but servers work for more users at the same time so it isn't something really unbelievable. And one more thing- science proven facts are changing constantly so I guess science has its limits, after all.

[@Dandan-tg6tj]

@@Bob-of-Zoid How would you know? World isn't as young as science told us it is. It seems like in a distant past we had technology more advanced than we have today and maybe The Great Flood we know about from the Bible might actually been happening for real and maybe more than once. Pseudo science is the science that every 50 years or so is deemed wrong? If so the entire human science is pseudo science, my friend. Do not bow to science as if it was a God. Science, just as the false idols are, is man made so it can't be a God, it can't be absolute.

[@donk.johnson7346]

So are you going to show the diagram in full screen or not?

[@judith8161]

My brain/computer struggles to follow the thinking of this brilliant man, but it's also very fascinated because I always tried to figure out why I don't like computers.

[@Dandan-tg6tj]

Did you ever think that your brain/computer is able to grow new alive cells each second of your life and it is able to make them communicate one with the other and is able to tell them what to do to keep you alive against everything that's against you. Those are infinite more complex to follow than someone else's thinking. We are amazing machines. Imagine our tools of the year 2022 trying to make a board with 80 to 100 billion neurons and this would only be one brain. Imagine those machines trying to build the vast amount of billions of cells that make the human body. Now imagine someone or something programmed this to grow up from two cells. Now THAT is a master program.

[@MikeJovani]

Listening to this in the background I cannot help but picture John C Reilly speaking. Great lecture. :)

[@zerototalenergy150]

Michio Kaku's theory on quantifying consciousness suggests "consciousness is the number of feedback loops required to create a model of your position in space with relation to other organisms and time...."

[@MyMusics101]

Haven't read anything of him, so maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but this seems to be a blatant category error to me. Either the usages of 'number' or 'consciousness' here are extremely far removed from the ordinary ones or that statement does not seem to make sense at a very fundemental level. How could it possibly be sensible to say "For me, currently, consciousness is x" where x is 3 or pi or 12-7i or aleph_0 or any other kind of number?

[@zerototalenergy150]

@@MyMusics101 it is worth while to watch Dr.Michio kaku's presentation on consciousness.... he is internationally well known physicist..(one of the founders of "string theory"...)basically he is saying that there are different levels of consciousness...i.e flower....trees...bacteria.. mouse..monkey...orangutans(not only conscious but self aware ) .human..(consciousness and self awareness..) .

[@V21IC]

@@zerototalenergy150 You know that this assumption is total madness? We can only speak about our individual consciousness/awareness. Flower, trees refer to the plant kingdom which is different from the humanity. If bacteria is a consciousness then what are you when eat vegetables and meat that have bacteria?🤔 What's the difference between a patient in coma and another patient who is unconscious? Can someone who is unconscious be aware of his environment? Can he answer the paramedics or even call 911 for help? Does a plant

[@zerototalenergy150]

@@V21IC create a model of "YOUR" position in space with relation to other organisms and time...."

[@zebaansari]

Reality doesn't exist if it's not measured no consiousness needed just a measurement

[@bobbg9041]

To answer you questions we absorb knowledge and form oppions based on what we've learned and as we age the programming gets more refined untill our head drive starts to fail and go into protection mode. And things don't compute anymore.

[@DamienTTube]

Well that goes for Necktop 1.0 but does the same apply for Necktop 1.5 aka Autistic spectrum version with the ADHD expansion?

[@ianallen738]

I find it amusing, that a man who spent his life understanding language and cognition, is so quick to assume that the people who are on the cutting edge of memetic development online, are somehow an evolutionary dead-end and not, in fact, likely to be the blossom of a new path in life.

[@allypoum]

Daniel Dennett; always brilliant, always entertaining and surprising.

[@vip3rp140]

What about intelligent design influencing culture selection and vice versa ? 53:00 where you try to migrate the one culture or make one superior in a new environment

[@blogblocks8370]

Self preservation, self awareness, and self motivation are the separation from man and computers. If computers are ever programmed or taught those three traits, we will have created a entity competitive against us.

[@MetalFacerRules]

what he meant by we are like computers that we are sharing the same fundamental mathematical calculation processing, input and output and stuff

[@NeilMalthus]

@@MetalFacerRules what he meant by computers are like us is that both are excellent at processing / storing / retrieving data. His big flaw is he ascribes free will to humans and can't see how we evolved the software we run on over millions of years. He's basically a shameless capitalism / religion apologist, ultimately.

[@10418]

@@MetalFacerRules dna: instructions

[@yoshtg]

it depends on how u define "computer" basically consciousness is nothing but the communication between the neurons, right? im no neuroscientist but it would make sense

[@Radgerayden-ist]

YoshTG a computer is let's say a structure or coherent device such that if you input some data x, the state is y, the output is gonna be z every time. That is, it's deterministic. What most detractors of the brain as a computer don't get is this, you could generalize the idea of a computer such that your PC, your cellphone or your brain are specialized cases. We have a very hard time testing this because we cannot fully control the state of a brain, and if we are able to do that I suspect that feat in itself is proof that it is a computer.

[@DelireWeb]

Answer: we did, along a myriad of updates along upgrades (fortunately we're mortals). Many people are filled with bloatware though.

[@trafficjon400]

MEDIA is bloatware.

[@kappius6088]

Excellent lecture, but a miss a final conclusion, I miss something expected to come at the end..

[@buybuydandavis]

"Your necktop" Nice meme there.

[@Lambda_Ovine]

My necktop is very slow... does anyone know where I can upgrade?

[@rhhhX]

Augmentation

[@rfvtgbzhn]

48:28 This is true, but as far as I know, there was no increase after about 1970 and now there is a decline. Also part of he increase is because the American School system is optimized to score good at IQ tests. People are smarter now than 100 years ago in every western country, but the results in the US are exaggerated because of the American believe that you can measure smartness with a single number that can be measured in a short test. The increase is lower than in other states which don't emphasize IQ tests so much, although the average educational level (if measured by other measures than IQ tests) is better in most other western countries than in the US (mainly because the public schools in the US are underfunded, except in very wealthy areas).

[@0Metatron]

Yes like you say maybe people are just taught how to specifically pass IQ tests rather than becoming more intelligent per say

[@SoirEkim]

I do believe our brain is the computing hardware. The software is the data flowing through chemical, electrical and quantum interference signals. Our minds are the result of the software at work. Our soul is the quantum “wave” field that holds our “molecules” together. We are bio-mechanical machines. However, we are so incredibly complex we exhibited free will. Wonderful thoughts.

[@SoirEkim]

Free will to believe what we choose. Enjoy.

[@10418]

@@SoirEkim i don’t really believe in free will, Sadly

[@Zhixalom]

In the time of Alan Turing and during the second world war "a computer" was something you would call a person.

[@V21IC]

But when do we call a computer a person? Calling a person a computer is not to be taken literally. It's only describing that the person is fast/computative as a computer.

[@vtblda]

@@V21IC Not back in those days. During the 30's and the 40's in the past century, those people called computers, limited their lives to compute, as to say: count! Numbers, stars, particles, components, whatever you can think that was accountable, those guys would count it. It is a very simple concept, as a matter of fact.

[@juhanleemet]

@@V21IC by definition a computer is a person or thing that "computes", and the only examples that previously existed were people, such as in the movie "Hidden Figures". In recent times the term has become mostly used for those electronic devices that we use for computing. From original definitions, we might still call the people that operate computers to be "computers", but that could get really confusing, so we differentiate: operators, programmers, analysts, etc.

[@desi76]

The speaker made an observation that intrigues me. He stated that it's possible to benefit from a certain aspect of our nature without understanding how that nature came into being and gave the example of a butterfly with camouflage patterns. This notion can be extended to disease. Presently, we treat "diseases" as if they are bad or harmful, but if we're truly the subject of Biological Evolution then the mutations that are expressed as "diseases" are simply the subtle, biological evolutionary steps towards human betterment. For instance, we may think heart attacks are bad not knowing that they are actually the evolutionary step towards developing a better heart. Or, the elimination of the heart as the fulcrum of the cardiovascular system. Perhaps, as evolutionists we should be thinking twice about treating certain conditions or risk hampering human development?

[@j.christie2594]

Like feet, our feet are not well suited for us. Due to year's centuries of Shoe's.

[@asmrfan6543]

Do you compute things in your brain? Yes? Well, that makes you a computer. Sadly, most of us have so much nonsense in our heads, we can't even recognize this.

[@saosaqii5807]

Well there’s no need to, for most people’s life it’s irrelevant if it is or not but yes it’s a computer A fleshy one

[@MrTomb789]

Thankyou so much Daniel, utterly absorbing....

[@donk1822]

Love this guy, he reminds me of the kind geologist in Big Bang, voice, mannerisms, looks.

[@abcde_fz]

Emotions are interesting things. Before you feel a certain way about something, say some situation, or some person, your brain must go through a process of assessing the situation, or recognizing the person. In it's most fundamental form, it must go through a quantitative process. It has to literally 'place' that situation or person on a scale that runs roughly like this: from disgust, through dislike, or dissatisfaction, to neutrality, or towards satisfaction, maybe preference, then liking, and up to loving. Your brain has to go through a quantitative analysis, (which is almost instantaneous), before it can truly develop an emotional reaction to something. It has to think, before it can feel.

[@World_Theory]

This seems like a beneficial video to watch, for beginners in crafting neural networks. And even a useful thing for the more experienced practitioners, just to get the creative juices going.

[@emo-sup-sock]

This does not even touch the subject of neural networks in the machine learning sense

[@grossherman3841]

The strive forward of the human race is down to communication and education. From learning those same instinctive abilities of our fellow life forms to education of our specific species and then to the ability to communicate that education. The aforesaid is both why and how modern human beings became so dominant.

[@LesleighHart]

Thank you for the upload. A real noodle cruncher.

[@theonescratchwonder6484]

Thank your for archiving videos like this

[@audreymciver3087]

i absoloutly love your videos!

[@tangomuzi]

Great talks however it is hard to follow since camera angle is changing frequently does not give enough time to see/observe/understand the slides.

[@RetsaGames]

Amazing talk. It challenges the way we think of complex systems on the whole

[@dwinsemius]

Your "necktop" throws sentences (ideas) and pictures(one of the ways we remember things) and sounds (a way of encoding and storing words and experiences) around inside itself. The winners are the "you" at the moment.

[@dakrontu]

We wield the paintbrush like Icarus wielded his wings. Let us hope that we fare better.

[@StuntNiteClass]

consciousness explained? well done!!! where's the demonstration model?

[@erictaylor5462]

Before the invention if electronic computers in the 1940's most people compared brains to telegraph systems, but brains aren't really telegraph systems, because they do much more than telegraph systems can do. Now we have brains compared to computers because computers do more than telegraph systems, but they still aren't exactly like brains. You might be able to say that brains are, in fact computers, but you can't say that computers are thinking machines. Both brains and computers can take in and process information, but computers can't think. In the future they may well invent machines that can think, but these machines won't work the way computers work. And we will not experience the "Singularity" until computers can be designed to think.

[@Radgerayden-ist]

Eric Taylor you gotta agree that the modern computer (starting with ones such as ENIAC) are a pivotal point because they're reprogrammable. That's why computer is such an iconical word, I'd say it's the last step. Because there's no need to invent something entirely new, you just make a better computer. Obviously future computers will be different, but I don't see how we need anything radically different than the ability to input software and get results, specially if you consider that self changing software is perfectly possible as it is but not invented yet.

[@xImBeaST12321x]

Are computers thinking agents. Well probably not. But computers can in fact progress and gain information provided a set of rules or a framework. This is what happened to the best chess player in history which is a computer that plays itself repeatedly and learned to beat the engine. Another example is league of legend (or maybe dota2) AI that did the same as the chess ai and became better then the best gamer teams in the world who spend thousands of thousands of hours playing.

[@catStone92]

it's a little more complicated than that both being computers doesn't necessarily mean they're equivalent or that you can substitute one for the other, even if both are turing complete. Remember that the theoretical standard assumes both have infinite memory and instantaneous run time. What that means is that even though both can theoretically do the same thing, some architectures are much more suited for some tasks than others. Think quantum computers vs normal computers. One can't replace the other, they are better suited to some other type of tasks. what we have nowdays with stuff like neural networks is how using the architecture of your regular computers we can have meta programs that somewhat behave like your brain does. So asside from the differences in architecture (which means some computers will do some tasks more efficiently than others) it might very well be posible for computers to think, with the appropriate sofware. They would just work on a different time scale. the more complicated side of the issue is: we don't even know what "thinking" actually means. Where's the line between just computing and thinking? Self-awareness? Because that's something we can't measure.

[@MaxBrix]

Computers don't do much computing. They mainly display and alter files. They should be called electronic filing cabinets. They are capable of computing though. General purpose computing is the same thing regardless of the machine it is done on. You get the same answer whether you compute mechanically, electronically, biologically, you can compute with matchboxes.

[@zagyex]

some say that there are many many problems in mathematics which are not solvable with any computation but perfectly clear for human intuition. That would be a good argument for the case that thinking is more than what algorithms (and so computers of today's sort) will ever be able to do.

[@joaodecarvalho7012]

Is this the same table that Faraday used?

[@TheRoyalInstitution]

Hi! Unfortunately it's not the exact same one - this one was made in about 2007, using sections of the previous bench and keeping consistent with the look and design of the famous original bench!

[@TarisRedwing]

This makes me realize a few things. 1. Man we must have been dumb back in the day and through sheer luck and animal survival instinct to run away from anything that just killed the guy next to you. 2. Wow lots of us must have died through trial an error. 3. We over wrote our own animistic "software" to become aware free thinking and able to invent everything up to this day. Pretty good video that gets the brain churning. Also Necktop is funny lol

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

Plenty of really dumb people being born each day, and dying by by trial and error instead of thinking things through first.

[@AngadSingh-bv7vn]

An important distinction to make @34:00 during the lecture when Dennet says it doesn't feel like anything to be a termite colony or anything to be like the seattle seahawks and just the same it doesn't feel like anything to be a brain or have one. (I'm fine with that) but then he continues to say that, it seems that there is something like being a brain (conciousness) and therefore it must be an illusion (that conciousness is an illusion). BUT there is an alternative..... that conciousness is not what it means to be a brain or have a brain but a computational process that occurs in parallel to running the muscles and heart etc. that follows a deterministic chain of events but nonetheless gives rise to the feeling of feeling anything at all. Sam Harris,--conciousness cannot be an illusion because it is nonsensical to claim that you aren't experiencing anything at all, anything you (or any silicon based structure) can say about the world is known through interaction with and collection of information about the environment and that is what conciousness is ---experiencing the world outside and the pinging of neuronal activity inside your brain, only doing something with the information can result in experience and experiencing is doing something with information.

[@GrahamPorter1]

To me there has to be a deeper mystery to consciousness than this opinion gives credit to. I personally found Roger Penrose's insights into the non-computational nature of consciousness as evidenced by its effects in quantum mechanical experiments to offer some real depth of insight into this subject.

[@kentonian]

Yes that’s the fuel for religion. You can want all you like but there will always be something that cannot be explained. By imagine there are more level of reality(eg spiritual). You just move the goal post with no evidence.

[@Theroadneverending]

Mind blowing to see we are just neurons working together at the fundamental level

[@scottcupp8129]

It really is. Thing of it is, there are just so many of them working together on this fundamental level. Perfect synchronicity. When you think about it, our brain processes information and translates that information in to something useful. So yes, the brain is essentially a computer.

[@Simon-xi8tb]

There is not a single neuroscientist or any other scientist that can explain how do you get experience out of neural activity. So i dont think we are just neurons at the fundamental level, there is something much deeper at work here. But it requiers expanding your mind a bit..

[@jiohdi]

funny thing is that humans, specifically accountants, were the original computers. The machines were called computers when they became useful enough to be accountant like.

[@iainhobbs3024]

We do need to see the slides the lecturer is referring to.

[@fredferd2649]

Yes. Evolution.

[@Ludifant]

This title seems a dangerous question, in that it is obviously the wrong one. It skips over the part where we need determin if there really needs to be a "who" or even define what we mean by a "who". And if there can not be such a thing as self-designing software. This is from 2017. Two years into the neural network revolution (GANs), which hasn´t gained the notoriaty that it enjoys now. But way after fractails and chaos theory, way after the game of life by conway. These days with self-supervised learning systems, simulated life in many forms, studies of strange attractors and emergence, the title of this lecture seems a throwback to a few decades ago, when one might still make a case for intelligent design. Luckily the speaker addresses this right at the start. (3:00)

[@sekito2125]

So, basically, by defining "computer" in a completely unconventional vague and all-encompassing way, he proves the brain is a "computer". how revolutionary. I quote: "make an architecture out of these different, unruly, clueless, little, multi-armed, blind cells" yes, that certainly sound like "computers" people can really prove anything these days

[@theblueflame2221]

@@beowulf_of_wall_st You see that more and more in society how words have their definitions changed so incompetents, lunatics and malefactors can have their swindles and harmful ideas injected into the public sphere. With then of course the dire phyiscal consequences soon afterwards.

[@theblueflame2221]

@@beowulf_of_wall_st Delusional being the key word.

[@Rico-Suave_]

Watched all of it 1:16:06 , absolutely brilliant ❤

[@MarttiSuomivuori]

I remember trying to read his first book after having seen his interview in Playboy. The name of the book was 'Consciousness Explained'. After having got halfway through and Dennet still wondering about ´how the presence of consciousness could be verified, I threw the book in the garbage. After Dennet had met Dawkins, he became much more coherent as the concept of 'Neural Darwinism' proved to be a useful tool. The brain is not a computer like the ones people make. It does compute, simulate, steer, learn, remember and evaluate among other things. It also creates the world we live in, for each and every one of us, in private. The world it creates -or the worlds- are the only ones we have access to. Nothing exists to us unless our brain makes an image of it. This is the key.

[@kregorovillupo3625]

@Nim Boo "In laymans terms; God is alive and for ever the sole Creator of the Universe which is his creation and from which He is seperate." In layman terms, prove it.

[@venturarodriguezvallejo9777]

You can be right... But because your conclusion, we can be lead to Solipsism, wich being irrefutable, is not demonstrable, either.

[@kregorovillupo3625]

@@venturarodriguezvallejo9777 Yes, i can't really prove that everything exists. But if i can't assume that, as you note, i can't do anything to know reality. What i can do is assume that other people (and reality) exists, because pragmatically it seems to be so. This isn't at all applyable to a god: it's presence isn't obvious to me as it is of other people. If you want to stretch the concept of evidence so far to conclude that reality isn't real, you have evidence that "all that is" is your mind alone, no god there. Instead, if you want to pragmatically assume reality is real, we can explore it, and there's no evidence of a god there either. If you want to have faith in a god, you don't need and don't want evidence.

[@venturarodriguezvallejo9777]

@@kregorovillupo3625 Agree with you. Very well structured answer. (BTW.: I'm an agnostic in the sense I DON'T KNOW if something we call "God" exists or not. Both believers and atheists have not give me so far well reasoned arguments to tip my opinion to one side or the opposite. The very concept behind the term "God" is quite a fuzzy one so, even for talking about it we have to define it first far more accurately than we can, I'm afraid).

[@kregorovillupo3625]

@@venturarodriguezvallejo9777 I've only tried to be clear, english isn't my first language and i had to learn it by my own. I'm glad you liked it. I use for me the label of Agnostic Atheist, because i use definition of the two words out of the "layman" use. Agnostic is a declaratio on knowledge, Atheist is a declaration on faith (or lack of, in this case). If at the question "Do you believe in god?" you answer "No", you are atheist. If at the question "Describe me your god" you answer "I've no sufficent elements to do it adequately", you're agnostic. This defines 4 major kind of stance on spirituality, see if you recognize yourself into one: Gnostic Theist: "I believe in god, and he's jhahwheh/allah/brama/manitù/whatever" Agnostic Theist: "I believe there's something there, but i can't describe what it is" Agnostic Atheist: "I don't believe a god exists, because every description provided left me unconvinced" Gnostic Atheist: "I can't believe your god exist, because [insert reasons here, like "his description is logically inconsistent, so he can't logically exist"]"

[@geoffseyon3264]

It is a great exercise to think about how the “unintelligent” assembly of documents and human knowledge over the past 30 years of building the internet has now led it to become the “intelligence” for platforms like GPT. Very stimulating and provocative talk from quite a while back but quite relevant today in our age of unintelligent “transformers”.

[@joebrooks990]

What would happen if we used a software that acted on the Mandelbrot set in a Turing system to rectify the top down hierarchy problem that organic brains struggle with? I’m heavily invested in making a synthetic, organic supercomputer with a QPU.

[@Grizabeebles]

Consider the Halting Problem and Gödel's Incompleteness theorem for a second. It is logically proven that no system of formal axioms can prove its own consistency. It's a fundamental shortcoming baked into logic itself. It's got nothing to do with the hardware involved.

[@happygilmore9148]

The brain is like a computer, however the nervous system is what drastically influences how the many functions of the brain reacts to and stored information. The muscles are also store houses for memory and experiences as well. The nerve endings connects to the ligaments and tendons which ultimately influence the actions of the muscles. It's all very neat and satisfying to learn more about.

[@juhanleemet]

I think you are wrong so called "muscle memory" is likely in the cerebellum and maybe partially the spinal cord, but not the muscles themselves.

[@iiiDartsiii]

omg Darwin is still alive :O

[@erichschinzel6486]

Hmmmm

[@newforestpixie5297]

“ 6 million years “ ...the Doctor has enjoyed 6 million Beers for sure 😃

[@Sentientism]

The sense that "I feel too special to 'just be physics' has a lot to answer for". Once we get over our anthropocentric arrogance, things become much clearer - and maybe even more awesome than the "magic" some others prefer.

[@GodwynDi]

I think anyone who says that is a lot less impressed by physics than they should be.

[@Sentientism]

@@GodwynDi Indeed!

[@yoshtg]

if you look at twitch chat when 20,000 people are watching a stream and around 100 of them are typing in the chat at the same time the chat also kinda behaves like a brain. and the memes that result out of it which often come seemingly out of nowhere can be compared to what richard dawkings ment when he used the term meme

[@oldman9924]

I know where meme's come from, aliens

[@oauabei]

i like the idea: words are semi-autonomous informational structures. glad i discovered this lecture

[@sasonilha3988]

wise man. .. and here I was thinking all this time that 'philosophy' is a mere mumbo jumbo, convinced I was based on not very good high school teacher ... but this here is something completely different. ... it's like a creation of a way and through a rough forest; when you see it. you use it for it's been done well. ! hm

[@lenn939]

That’s exactly what philosophy is supposed to be. Just clear, rational thinking.

[@lesliekilgore648]

my necktop (love the word BTW!) thoroughly enjoyed that EVM.

[@johndearden7931]

What is intelligence? A number of years ago I decided to test mine by seeing if I qualified for MENSA. I took the test and a week or so later I was pleased to see I was in the top 2% . Great I thought and I was so proud. Then over the next few months all I received from MENSA were monthly publications that contained nothing more than tests and puzzles. Before I joined I thought that I could perhaps team up with a mathematics genius in order to calculate a perfect system on roulette for example. I came away with the conclusion that MENSA was just a group of people tricking people into thinking they were clever. After all there was the yearly membership fee and no mechanism for merging these minds in order to create/improve/invent things of any use.

[@zagyex]

Something to think of, and it is paradoxical: How hard is it to define those simple rules that lead to growing complexity of arrangement in matter in a self-replicating manner? We certainly didn't manage to define such laws yet. And we saw it happen only once- as there is no evidence yet that life has emerged more than once in the universe. But here is the most disturbing bit: Imagine the early self-replicating arrangement of matter in the early times - it was some really basic stuff like amino acids or whatnot. Later some bacteria or some other simple stuff. You would imagine that you need very many head starts to reach something like the human brain. But there were no head starts - only one. And those 'simple' rules, say algorithms were not only able to create basic stuff then halt. We see no instances of self replication UP TO a certain complexity than stop. But no, the simple rules were so good for the first try that there is no stopping. It must mean that those "simple rules" are extremely powerful.

[@mrj3nk044]

There is a difference between how an entity is formed and what is an entity. An entity may hold a certain attribute pertaining to its formation history, but this is not the same thing as the entity itself. A computer has a different formation history as a brain. A brain must learn to count before it can count and must switch itself on to do so. A computer comes ready made to count and cannot switch itself on before it can start counting. A brain is not a computer.

[@petermatthiesen8288]

Wrong. A computer does not come ready to count. It needs a program. Like our brain does. "Switch itself on" Wrong. Its mother does that. The brain IS a computer. There is hardly any difference.

[@mrj3nk044]

@@petermatthiesen8288 If there is any difference then they arent the same. Hardly any difference implies a difference. An entity with attributes {1,2,3} is not the same entity with attributes {2,3,4} despite both holding similar attributes, namely {2,3}.

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

@@petermatthiesen8288 Programming, conditioning, learning. Learning, conditioning, programming.

[@GorVala]

This guy is awsome, Daniel is funny if you pay attention. Super smart show to watch

[@stevesteady603]

The natural selection of dank memes

[@irinamalkina6224]

04:34 How could a slow mindless process build a thing that could build a thing that a slow mindless process couldn't build on its 13:30

[@arminkleinemas128]

the alan turing joke reminds me about a other joke the cooking recept for a cake First you have to make a univers then wait around 14 billion years then harvest grain, breeding cows milking patorization . . .. . you get the point ^^

[@YagamiKou]

as subnautica once said "your species still see's a difference between biology and technology?" they are 2 different sides of a spectrum where the biggest difference is just complexity and eventually a difference in the *scale* of complexity becomes a difference in the *kind* of complexity