The Human Brain Is Incapable Of Volition Or Free Will

Discussion in 'Alternative Theories' started by Steve Klinko, May 10, 2021.

  1. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I agree. But I am beginning to think that GPT3 is becoming self-aware, because it is more than a Turing machine.

    I'd like to continue this but, this is really off-topic and I don't want to be reported for trolling.
    Can we continue this in Science and Society: "Do machines already exceed human intelligence?"
     
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  3. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    But it isn't.

    I do not agree that discussing the presumed mechanistic basis for self awareness in a thread about free will is off topic.
     
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  5. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    The OP asks about the human brain, not the AI brain.
    Have a look at "Do machines already exceed human intelligence". There is already quite a bit in GPT intelligence.
     
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  7. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    Right, and there's a case being made here that the brain is purely mechanistic, algorithmic, hence the discussion will embrace Turing machines and algorithms which are mechanistic, nothing even remotely "off topic" about this.
     
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    This was becoming a discussion about AI . That's all I am saying.

    I've learned my lesson about a discussion of tangentially related subjects. But if you know something about the human brain in relation to volitional actions, I'm interested.
    Actually we have a very good idea of how neurons function. It is one of the hard facts. They process elctro-chemical data in accordance with science.

    What we do not know is how an entire system of trillions of electrochemical processors and synapses produces a conscious experience.
     
  9. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    This is a huge oversimplification even misrepresentation of this subject, look:

    and

    This is from a 2019 Science Daily report - here.

    So you really can't make the claim that the brain can be modelled as a Turing machine or is a Turing machine when we don't have any idea if even a single neuron can be adequately modelled as a Turing machine.
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2021
  10. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    Actually things are even worse, I'm now reading that it is not neurons at all that are the seat of the "processing" but the dendrites, these may be more relevant than previously thought and the neurons less relevant than previously thought...
     
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I didn't say that brains are Turing machines. You must read more carefully. I said that the MT in the neurons are electrochemical processors and therefore are biological Turing mechanisms.

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    Three examples of Turing patterns

    But that article is just citing generalities, it does not say that each neuron contains a collection of as many as 1000 synapses which are the terminal ends of the internal Turing processors inside the neuronal cells and its dendrites. See below why this better understanding of the complexity also leads to an appreciation of the much greater complications in catalogueing than was previously assumed.

    Number of synapses in the neocortex

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    .....much more
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purkinje_cell

    The brain may have as many as a trillion electrochemical processors, which each may fill a specific function when called upon.
     
  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly, I have 100+ pages devoted to this very problem. You are beginning to catch on ......

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    In fact, it is not even the dendrites that are the actual processors, dendrites are more like wires in an electrical network, and inside the dendrites reside the trillions of actual electrochemical processors, which are self-assembling coiled nano-scale tubes consisting of just 2 tubulins (a dimer) and terminate at the synapses.

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    To the mods, this is the only post I shall make about microtubules in this thread. But it was in direct response to a inquiry about the capabilities of the human brain. All further discussions of MT will be in the thread that addresses the nature and function of MT.
     

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