At a meeting dealing with computer vision that took place this week at the IBM research laboratory in Haifa, Dr. Sharon Alpert presented a Watson-based system that knows how to identify distinct differences in an MRI between two symmetrical organs or between two halves of the same organ, in order to locate cancerous tumors, in this case breast cancer, which until now was only possible through the eyes of the radiologist
There are things that are very easy to explain to a computer - for example differentiating between types of cars or even recognizing faces, but identifying tumors in medical simulations is not easy it turns out.
At a scientific conference that dealt with computer vision and which was held on Sunday this week at the IBM research laboratory in Haifa, researchers from the computer vision group at the IBM research laboratory in Haifa presented a system that allows the computer to overcome many computing problems, and help the radiologist focus on the suspicious areas.
Dr. Sharon Alpert, a researcher in the medical image processing team, explains: "We develop algorithms for computer vision that come to help the radiologist do his job and look for and find tumors or other findings that can be suspicious of any disease in the entire wide range of medical imaging: X-ray, CT, MRI. In addition, we use Watson to extract insight from them in combination with other data such as the patient's medical file, previous studies on the disease, and more, and help the radiologist make better decisions and prevent the miss of tumors at an early stage, which could be critical for the patient."
Minister of Health Litzman promised to shorten the queues for MRI examination and to give the subjects answers within two days. Machines may be obtainable for money and in a short time, but then the lack of specialist radiologists who can decipher the mountains of data produced by each MRI examination will be felt. The training of a radiologist takes many years of studies in medical school and an internship period until he becomes an expert radiologist.
According to Alpert, the radiologists in the emergency rooms see a thousand imaging images per shift, and the chance of missing even with all the professionalism is high, especially towards the end of the shift. "Our goal was to take all the great information and reduce it to a few sentences for him with the relevant picture and show him what the findings are so that he can confirm or deny the suspicion. The computer, through Watson, will give the radiologist a report as if it were another radiologist who forwarded the findings to him.
We tested the system based on data from mammograms of healthy women as well as women who had breast cancer, but this is also true for the brain, kidneys, prostate and more. A doctor would identify a tumor when he compares the suspicious breast to the other breast, even if it is not identical (or a mirror image) to the corresponding organ (try to duplicate half of a person's face and replace them in the image with the other half and you will see that you will not recognize the AB photographed) it is similar enough compared to those of random women.
Our goal is to add the information from both images to help the algorithms find tumors better. There are many works in this field and most of them work with the same methods - if there is symmetry, first of all they remove the symmetry and then try to find a match between the images and make a comparison between similar places in the image.
We tried the same approaches described in the literature and we discovered some chicken and egg problems, we saw that the algorithms that look for symmetry in the brain work well when there are no tumors and work poorly when there are tumors. Not enough because we are looking for the increase.
"The idea was to try a different approach to try to solve this problem. There is a whole branch in the field of computer vision that deals with trying to imitate human action - when a person looks at an image, he does not scan pixel by pixel as a computer does, but the eye is drawn to salient things. There are a lot of studies that deal with teaching the computer how to find and mark the prominent areas in the image that a person would see. We took these methods one step further to solve the symmetry problem. The idea is to take both images and find only the areas that differentiate and are informative as if a person were looking. We used a free internet database of brain tumors. We used Watson to identify what a tumor looks like and what the tissue it is putting pressure on and causing it to not release fluid looks like, two things that stand out to the eye in MRI photographs. If our theory is correct the most prominent areas will always be the tumors. When we used data from marked tumors and ran the algorithm, we discovered that without training the whole computer performed almost as well as algorithms that were required for training in the literature. After training, we increased the detection rate by 16% without adding false alerts."
"We'll take the image and break it down into squares of eight by eight pixels (in mammography we have millions of these), the more important details are the ones that don't repeat themselves. As the small piece of the image repeats itself, it is less and less informative. And so when we have two mammogram images we look at a lot of pieces and we take out the most informative patches and isolate them. "
"We are looking for details that do not repeat themselves and are unique to a certain image. When there is a tumor, most of the surrounding tissue is healthy tissue, but the tumor has areas - especially in its tongue - that are different from the other tissues. In such forms we can, without training, find 'candidates' for visually prominent areas, as if the radiologist had recognized it himself by comparing the images."
At what stage is the development?
Alpert: "Our system is large and consists of many parts. It is not commercial yet. The study was published just a month ago at a medical imaging conference in Germany. At least on the databases and images of the medical database we used it works well. In computer vision there is no absolute situation. You are always striving for more and more data. Mainly in the ghost sector, due to privacy issues, the rate at which we receive data is relatively small, and our algorithms are constantly improving."
"I believe it will reach the hospitals. There is no choice, you listen to the radiologists, the amount of data exceeds what they can go through. An MRI in two days will give a big bang. You can buy the machines, but you need people who know how to decode the crops. Finding an expert radiologist after medical school, after residency who will review all the images is very difficult. I think in the end there will be no choice. These systems exist in a relatively basic form on the market, but doctors do not take advantage of them. Their main problem is the false alarms. The next step must be more intelligent systems that will talk to the doctors in a way they understand and thus be able to improve themselves even if the machine makes a mistake, the doctor can exercise discretion. These systems will be able to increase the productivity of radiologists. There is no escaping it. If we want better medicine, it must be part of the medical service, there is no point in the current situation of waiting months for an examination and two weeks for a diagnosis." Alpert concludes
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- Watson to help the doctor: IBM introduces a data analysis and consultation system for the treatment of cancer patients
- Scientists will use IBM's Watson to automatically analyze scientific papers and chemical formulas to discover drugs
- The mechanism that makes breast cancer cells violent has been discovered
- Towards a breast cancer vaccine
254 תגובות
Life
right….
Miracles
You yourself brought Raphael's constant presence by responding to his words. If you responded once or twice and he continued to ramble, you should have stopped responding to his words a long time ago. You put yourself in a sort of infinite loop. You could spend this time on more productive things.
K.
If you managed to kick the disgusting liar out of here - thank you!!
K. If you read all my comments, you would see that I always spoke about what miracles the retarded child and some other idiot and delusional person would always enter the discussion with curses and slurs and interrupt. There is only one reason for this - they are all spineless and insecure retards who are unable to argue calmly and judiciously because they are afraid that someone will undermine the pillars of lies on which they rely. That's why as soon as you enter a discussion, they all attack you as a group of rabid dogs. Stupid Nissim got all the "compliments" I gave him. I have never met a person so bloated and stupid at the same time. Bye. For now I'm tired of you, but I don't promise not to come back.
Do you still relate to this idiot? Maybe stop feeding him? It's getting boring not to say pathetic.
He doesn't ask interesting and thought-provoking questions, he doesn't understand anything about science and he certainly isn't interested in learning anything about science, he doesn't deserve the attention you give him, just another one who wants to pollute this site, please enough! There are more important/interesting/useful things to deal with.
Raphael
Your reaction to me, like your "correction" to Maya only emphasizes your vileness.
The science you despise so much - tripling life expectancy, among other things.
The Torah - also gave birth to heartless and immoral people, like you.
Understand - everyone can choose their own truth... For this our truths have to be put to the test, and this is something you cannot understand.
We bring you evidence after evidence after evidence that you are wrong. And what are you doing? belittles and blasphemes. You don't make your own arguments or answer awkward questions.
Raphael - maybe you will find the right place to preach your opinions? A site of thinking people is not the place.
Miracles
Tell me, apart from being a scumbag of an anti-Semitic who hates Israel, are you also retarded?
Did you not read my second comment to her?
Raphael
And don't make excuses for me about the "Tree of Knowledge" story... You are so proud of "free will", the ability to distinguish between "good and bad", a quality that, in your opinion, is unique to man. And you blatantly ignore the story that (your) God is punishing each of us for the fact that a couple - who didn't know what was bad (!!!!) ate from the same tree.
And to remind you - God lied in this story, and the snake spoke the truth.
And let's add, that God had to know that this would happen - because Adam and Eve had no choice!!!
Raphael
"Maya
All science is one big bullshit."
And this is after you talked about "openness", but you showed how closed you are...
Dear Nissim,
May I know what in my response to Maya caused you to abandon the path of moderation and pleasantness of walk that is so characteristic of you and befitting you and turn to the path of hatred and profanity?
Maya
What do you expect from a person like Rafael? We ground his head and it must be assumed that the one who did it is the genius Shalita Amnon Yitzhak. What came out at best is a Jerusalem mix. I doubt if Rafael really knows what religion is and he is just a man who has a cap on his head and has a beard like Daesh. The problem with his beard is that it looks like a forest without trees.
Maya
You are right of course. Raphael is a wretched preacher who lacks any integrity.
Raphael
In your answer to Maya you clarified your position. You are a pathological liar and there is no point in talking to you.
Raphael
First, I turned to the miracles and not to you. Second, I really have no problem with someone saying something I consider to be bullshit. I immediately explain to him (and very easily) why he is wrong. Still waiting for such an explanation from the other side. The difference is that I truly believe (with some surface facts) that the world would be a much better place without religion. You see you can't say the same about science. But I really don't want to enter without this endless discussion. I just wanted to say a little something to Nisim.
Maya
Well, I see I made it. I just wanted you to feel a little what it is like for someone else to say about something you value very much "bullshit". You don't have to explain to me how important science is, I know. But you will probably never know how much more important the Torah is.
Well, I'm turning off the transmitters now until Sunday.
Shabbat Shalom and blessed to all Jews.
"All science is one big bullshit"
Raphael,
How can you write such ridiculous nonsense and expect someone to take you seriously?
Are you sure we live in the same world? Is science bullshit? Without science you would still be sitting in a cave.
Your blindness is greater than I thought.
Raphael
You said you have proof that you were once an open person because you repented. Now let's look at your last comment that all science is bullshit and look at the amount of evidence that stands on the side of science (proof number 1: I'm currently writing a response to you on a computer) compared to the amount of evidence that stands on the side of religion (hmmmmm....)
Maya
All science is one big bullshit.
Miracles,
If it was enough for you to learn that eating from the tree of knowledge is punishable by death in order not to continue - it simply means that you did not have the courage to study Torah seriously to understand what it is all about. Instead of learning, you fill yourself with excuses from various excuses to justify your stubbornness.
Miracles
Certainly he did not study Christianity properly. Don't you know the saying: "Know one religion deeply and you are a prisoner, know two and you are free". It's not hard to see that it's all the same bullshit. This is why people who try to "show me the beauty of Judaism" do not get a chance to do so because there is no difference between the "beauty" of Judaism and the "beauty" of any other religion. You have to make this illogical leap of faith in any case (then every religion is as good as it is bad) and I'm not able to do that (and it's a good thing, I think)
Miracles
"Raphael
Explore? I mean, would you be willing to change your views based on the findings of scientists?"
😀
Are you breaking into a network comedy career?
Raphael
The experiment shows that there is no single "I" in the brain. There are many experiments that confirm this conclusion. Dreams also confirm this, also split personality diseases, brain crossing surgeries, and much more.
Don't fight me all the time. Try listening… I never said don't believe in God, but, please, don't get the science wrong.
Raphael
1) When did I speak in the midst of cursing and swearing?
2) When did you speak to the matter?
I respond whenever I get a chance to respond and I don't always have time to look at the site and worry about your well-being (even though you are sure of course that my whole world revolves around it (a rich imagination as we have already mentioned))
Correcting and explaining your mistakes and errors, warning people about your dishonest way of doing things and calling your agendas stupid is not cursing or slander. This is a simple truth.
I'm waiting for the day when you stand by your word* and stop commenting here, since you've already admitted before that there's really no point in you commenting here at all.
*Don't worry I don't really expect this to happen because I understand who the deal is with
Raphael
As usual you avoid an answer. Have you studied many religions in depth, and chose the one that not only makes the most sense, but also explains better than science? And science, there is only one…
Unlike you, I have learned enough from many religions to understand that there is one way to reach the truth - and that is not to be afraid to think that you are wrong. Regarding Judaism - it was enough for me to learn that eating from the tree of knowledge is a sin punishable by death...to this day many ultra-Orthodox think the same.
Raphael,
"For various reasons, I have taken it upon myself to avoid discussing religious issues on this website as much as possible.
But so you don't think I'm avoiding it, so if you want, I'm ready to talk to you about it privately"
If you want, send me an email to:
EhadYadan@mail.com
And maybe we'll have time to talk a little.
one,
What you feel is what your brain tells you is there. including pain. Not only that, but there are those who feel pain for no reason and the doctors don't know how to treat them. In short, you can believe what you want, but you cannot preach to others what to believe, nor deny their belief.
Miracles,
Regarding your conclusions from the experiment, I do not agree that the experiment proves that there is no "I". At least I didn't understand how he proves... and if I'm not there then who are you?
Regarding the findings of scientists. I am always ready to listen and those who listen can also be convinced. Will you ever be willing to seriously study one Torah in order to understand what spiritual treasure your people have been carrying with them for over three thousand years? Or will your prejudices always stop you from doing so?
Regarding the Christians, I already considered it before I repented and came to the conclusion that they are wrong.
Raphael
Are you willing to consider that the Christians are right and that Jesus is indeed the Messiah? Or will you just curse him now, as usual?
Raphael
Explore? I mean, would you be willing to change your opinions based on the findings of scientists?
Raphael
Even in neuroscience we don't know how to explain everything. But, it is possible to conclude from the experiment that there is no "I" in the brain, that is, there is no entity, or process, that is single and conscious. We know that the brain is nothing but a distributed processor, which ultimately activates the muscles.
In the case I described, there are two areas of the brain that interest us - Wernicke's area and Broca's area. The first is on the left side at the back and deals with understanding language, and the second is further forward, also only on the left side - and is responsible for speech. There is also a "track" that connects them that has a complicated name... (arcuate fasciculus). We know this because an injury to any of the three manifests itself in a very distinct way, and is horribly scary...
What the experiment shows is that there are separate language decoding processes for each ear. Our thinking, consciousness, is "all in all" the instructions intended for the lips to speak. That is, thinking is nothing more than "talking to yourself". Not everyone agrees with this idea, but I think it's true for two reasons. The first is that sometimes the lips move when thinking. The second is that sometimes we say things "without thinking".
Raphael,
"In conclusion, you don't know what the material is made of. So we can return to the question from which we started: maybe all materialism is an illusion and there is only spirituality in the world?"
The fact that I do not know what the material is made of does not mean that it does not exist, my senses tell me that it exists and I am sure that if someone hits you with a stick you will also be convinced that the stick is not spiritual but material.
Miracles
that we should continue to explore and not rule out options in advance
Raphael
We don't know how to explain anything in physics today.
What do you think comes from this?
WD what happened? When there are curses and curses only then do you join the Hinga? But when you start talking about it, then you stay silent?
one,
In conclusion, you don't know what the material is made of. So we can return to the question from which we started: "Maybe all materialism is an illusion and there is only spirituality in the world?"
"Quantas??? You must have meant quarks, right? And what do they consist of?"
Wow, you're right, you managed to confuse me.
I told you I'm not a physicist, it seems to me that according to the theory of the meiters every elementary particle is actually a vibration of a tiny string in space, but I can't tell you more than that because I simply don't know.
Nissim, listen, this is very interesting. What is the explanation? (I am listening)
Raphael
We put headphones on a person and tell him to listen to the question in one ear. The question is ambiguous and we expect a certain dispersion of the answers, a dispersion we got in a preliminary experiment that was done without headphones.
In the first stage, you don't play anything in the other ear - and you get the same spread of answers.
In the second step - at the same time, a sentence is played in the other ear, which interprets the question unambiguously.
It turns out that now there is no more ambiguity, and the answers are less scattered.
But when the subject is asked what he heard in the other ear, he insists that he heard nothing.
That is, there is "someone" in the brain who not only heard the sentence in the other ear, he also interpreted it.
How can it be?
Miracles,
1. Put what I answered to "one" in section 2.
2. What will I do if, after everything, I somehow still like you? Well, ask. go for it.
one,
1. Well then you think this way and I think differently. We are both equal 🙂
2. Only those who do not have free choice or who have it and do not use it are actually robots. I have and I use it.
3. Quantums??? You must have meant quarks, right? And what do they consist of?
Raphael
This is where you fell... We claim that we are independent and there is no one operating us. You are the one who claims that our lives depend on the whims of an external entity.
Tell me - may I ask you what your explanation is for an interesting experiment?
Raphael,
"1. So how can you claim that I live in an imaginary world and you don't?'
Sorry for a moment I didn't link, now I understand you.
Hear that's what I think 🙂
"2. So you're actually admitting that you're just a robot that's operated by remote control?'
We are both equally robots, only you are a robot praying to an imaginary entity that does not exist.
"3. You dodge!'
I'm not evasive at all, matter is made up of atoms, and if more deeply then of quanta. Why is this not a good answer? What does God consist of? Than something better?
one,
1. So how can you claim that I live in an imaginary world and you don't?
2. So you are actually admitting that you are just a robot that is operated by remote control?
3. You dodge!
Raphael,
1. Can you prove that you live in reality and not in a dream?
No I can't, and you can't prove the opposite either so we are equal on this issue.
2. Studies prove that you do not have free choice because you receive signals in your brain that dictate what to decide. What will you do with it?
I don't have too much to do with it, if this is reality then it is what it is and I accept it.
3. Can you define what the material consists of?
Matter consists of atoms, and if you want a more in-depth definition, contact a physicist, I'm not the address.
one,
1. Can you prove that you don't live in an imaginary world, meaning that you live in reality and not in a dream?
2. Studies prove that you do not have free choice because you receive signals in your brain that dictate what to decide. What will you do with it?
3. Can you define what the material consists of?
one
I will add to your words. If I stand next to a ventilator I will be spiritual too.
Raphael,
"Maybe you live in an imaginary world and not me?"
The answer is no.
"Here you have already admitted that there is no free choice"
You are taken for bland instead of the main thing, I already flowed with you and said that I accept that there is free choice, I just added and said that it is no different in essence from the choice that every other animal in the world has, and that it is no different in essence from choosing between a banana and an apple.
"So what are you saying? Maybe all materialism is an illusion and there is only spirituality in the world?'
Not a chance.
one,
Maybe you live in an imaginary world and not me?
Here you already admitted that you don't have free choice and everything is an illusion and there was also one clown who reinforced your statement.
So what are you saying? Maybe all materialism is an illusion and there is only spirituality in the world?
Raphael,
With God's help you will come back with a question, don't worry we will help you sober up 🙂
Correction, that you repented.
Raphael, understand that the fact that you repeated the question and you are "firm in your opinion" does not mean that you are right. You just live in an imaginary world that has nothing to do with reality and laugh at everyone from there, it's nice.
It is a pleasure to see how a repentant Jew who stands firm on his opinion puts so many pigeons and Greeks under pressure.
Raphael, it's not like it's such a big loss to the secular world that you left.
Raphael
If Rabbi Yosef Karo had read your words, he would have added at least one more mitzvah to the mitzvah so that your nonsense and nonsense would disappear from the face of the earth. You are not able to reach the level of Elisha ben Abuya. The Rabbi would not let you enter his yeshiva.
Raphael
Now you blame your frustration?
Raphael
Talking to compulsive liars with stupid agendas, who are unable to understand simple sentences in Hebrew or to understand basic logic and who think that if they ignored a claim it means that the claim is not valid or exists, who try to erase people's brains, is an exhausting and frustrating thing. What to do. But even here you manage to make a mistake again when you imagine that someone has gone off the rails. Don't worry it's no surprise to anyone here. We all know that your imagination is the only thing that keeps you going.
It's unbelievable how frustration can derail people completely.
one
just so you know. Karfael says - "For various reasons, I have taken it upon myself to avoid discussing religious issues as much as possible on this website" - the various reasons he means are that he is afraid because he also has no content and even then you will be even more clear how many lies he pours on his keyboard .
In fact, Raphael has already admitted in the past that he is a liar and that there is no point in his comments here, but he thinks that if he returns after another six months, he will catch someone who still hasn't caught his shtick, and that maybe he will succeed in cognitively contaminating some other poor man like him.
Raphael
"I have receipts that I am not a fixed person."
Once again you are wrong, showing your broken and flawed logic. You have receipts that you used to be (about half your life ago) an unfixed person. I wonder what it's really like, that when you were secular you were an open person and not fixed, right?
Today, in all your interactions on the science site, you repeatedly confirm that you are a completely fixed person.
one
Rafael is a liar and rude. He preaches religion without shame. He is "trying" to hide it (not his rudeness...) under the guise of a "scientific conversation".
Raphael is just a cult member trying to sell his wares. Disgust of a person.
one,
For various reasons, I have taken it upon myself to avoid discussing religious issues on this site as much as possible.
But so you don't think I'm avoiding it, if you want I'm ready to talk to you about it privately.
Correction - the thing that convinced you the most.
Raphael,
I can only be impressed by what I see here. So the situation is that we both observe the same world and each of us reaches different conclusions.
So what convinced you the most that God exists and that there are souls? Let's get to the root of the matter.
one,
You are wrong. I have receipts that I am not a fixed person. After 33 years of living as a secular person I realized that I was wrong, I admitted it and also changed my whole lifestyle as a result. What about you?
Raphael,
Is there anything that will convince you that you are wrong? Because it seems that no matter what they show you, you will not be convinced, you have settled, you have decided what the truth is and nothing will move you from that.
I'm right ?
Raphael
I'm sure your children are very proud of you.
Miracles,
If you haven't understood by now then you probably have no choice. Put it to her that you said you have a lot of knowledge, but...
Raphael
Did you call me anti-Semitic? Hate Israel? Has your faith completely screwed up your head? What's happening to you?
Rafael, think for a moment about what you are saying.
Raphael
Yes? Stop asking questions you don't have an answer to? Or maybe stop talking about topics I understand and you don't?
Miracles,
If you have grandchildren and you consider yourself a respectable person then I suggest you start behaving accordingly.
Raphael
And as usual you turned out to be an idiot - the same philosopher who wrote this article believes in the soul 🙂 you are such a fool 🙂
Raphael
I have reserves in a month. I also have grandchildren. Which one of us is Nemosha?
Miracles,
Obviously the thermostat has a mind, so I suggested you ask your car…
Besides, getting down to personal lines with you is a big mitzvah because you are a mature person with a lot of knowledge but with the mentality of a small child, and also terribly rude and arrogant not to mention anti-Semitic and hater of Israel.
post Scriptum. Also the fall of Nemosha
Raphael
I'm afraid you don't know how to read links - so I quoted in full an article by a famous philosopher - what do you think of what he says?
Or will you go down to personal lines again?
An Excerpt From The Conscious Mind, By David Chalmers
Let us consider an information-processing system that is almost maximally simple: a thermostat. Considered as an information-processing device, a thermostat has just three information states (one state leads to cooling, another to heating, and another to no action). So the claim is that to each of these information states, there corresponds a phenomenal state. These three phenomenal states will all be different, and changing the information state will change the phenomenal state. We might ask: What is the character of these phenomenal states? That is, what is it like to be a thermostat?
Certainly it will not be very interesting to be a thermostat. The information processing is so simple that we should expect the corresponding phenomenal states to be equally simple. There will be three primitively different phenomenal states, with no further structure. Perhaps we can think of these states by analogy to our experiences of black, white, and gray: a thermostat can have an all-black phenomenal field, an all-white field, or an all-gray field. But even this is to impute far too much structure to the thermostat's experiences, by suggesting the dimensionality of a visual field, and the relatively rich natures of black, white, and gray. We should really expect something much simpler, for which there is no analog in our experience. We will likely be unable to sympathetically imagine these experiences any better than a blind person can imagine sight, or than a human can imagine what it is like to be a bat; but we can at least intellectually know something about their basic structure.
To make the view seem less crazy, we can think about what might happen to experience as we move down the scale of complexity. We start with the familiar cases of humans, in which very complex information-processing gives rise to our familiar complex experiences. Moving to less complex systems, there does not seem much reason to doubt that dogs are conscious, or even that mice are. Some people have questioned this, but I think this is often due to a conflation of phenomenal consciousness and self-consciousness. Mice may not have much of a sense of self, and may not be given to introspection, but it seems entirely plausible that there is something it is like to be a mouse. Mice perceive their environment via patterns of information flow not unlike those in our own brains, though considerably less complex. The natural hypothesis is that corresponding to the mouse's "perceptual manifold," which we know they have, there is a "phenomenal manifold." The mouse's perceptual manifold is quite rich – a mouse can make many perceptual distinctions – so its phenomenal manifold might also be quite rich. For example, it is plausible that for each distinction that the mouse's visual system can make and use in perceiving the environment, there corresponds a phenomenal distinction. One cannot prove that this is the case, but it seems to be the most natural way to think about the phenomenology of a mouse.
Moving down the scale through lizards and fish to slugs, similar considerations apply. There does not seem to be much reason to suppose that phenomenology should wink out while a reasonably complex perceptual psychology persists... As we move along the scale from fish and slugs through simple neural networks all the way to thermostats, where should consciousness wink out? The phenomenology of fish and slugs will likely not be primitive but relatively complex, reflecting the various distinctions they can make. Before phenomenology winks out altogether, we will presumably get to some sort of maximally simple phenomenology. It seems to me that the most natural place for this to occur is in a system with a corresponding simple "perceptual psychology," such as a thermostat. The thermostat seems to realize the sort of information processing in a fish or a slug stripped down to its simplest form, so perhaps it might also have the corresponding sort of phenomenology in its most stripped-down form. It makes one or two relevant distinctions on which actions depend; to me, at least, it does not seem unreasonable that there might be associated distinctions in experience...
... Some intuitive resistance may come from the fact that there does not seem to be room in a thermostat for someone or something to have the experiences: where in the thermostat can a subject fit? But we should not be looking for a homunculus in physical systems to serve as a subject. The subject is the whole system, or better, is associated with the system in the way that a subject is associated with a brain. The right way to speak about this is tricky. We would not say that my brain has these experiences, strictly speaking, but that I have experiences. However we make sense of this relation, the same will apply to thermostats: strictly speaking it is probably best not to say that the thermostat has the experiences (although I will continue to say this when talking loosely), but that the experiences are associated with the thermostat. We will not find a subject "inside" the thermostat any more that we will find a subject inside a brain...
... A final consideration in favor of simple systems having experience: if experience is truly a fundamental property, it seems natural for it to be widespread. Certainly all the other fundamental properties that we know about occur even in simple systems, and throughout the universe. It would be odd for a fundamental property to be instantiated for the first time only relatively late in the history of the universe, and even then only in occasional complex systems. There is no contradiction in the idea that a fundamental property should be instantiated only occasionally; but the alternative seems more plausible, if other things are equal. If there is experience associated with thermostats, there is probably experience everywhere: wherever there is a causal interaction, there is information, and wherever there is information, there is experience...
David Chalmers is an Australian philosopher specializing in the area of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Consciousness at the Australian National University. He is also Professor of Philosophy at New York University. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Does a thermostat have consciousness?
Posted on December 24, 2012
(the following is a short piece I wrote two years ago in a private blog. I'm making it public and reposting because of similarities to arguments in John Searle's review of Chistof Koch's book in the NYRB. I found Searle's review excellent. Unfortunately, most is behind NYRB firewall)
David Chalmers proposes that consciousness is inherent in informational structures1,2. As a reductionist example, he suggests that a computer, which organizes large quantities of information, or a thermostat, which organizes much smaller quantities, has a measure of consciousness. Some physicists (Penrose, Wheeler) have proposed that when natural phenomena are better understood, 'information' (non-random organization) will be recognized as a principal feature.
Let's think about the thermostat with respect to our ideas about consciousness. The thermostat above works something like this. It has a coiled piece of metal (hidden in the center) which expands with heat. There is a glass vial half-filled with mercury attached to one end of the metal. The vial rotates with temperature changes that cause the metal to expand or contract. When the vial rotates to the left, the mercury goes to the left of the vial, closing a circuit (yellow wires) and turning on the heater (or air conditioner). The 'set point' is controlled with the lever on the right which rotates the metal and glass vial, so it takes a hotter (or colder) temperature to get the glass vial to the level position. The 'computation' is provided by the expansion of metal that, at a certain point, causes the mercury to slide from right to left.
The thermostat has:
Environmental sensors (thermometer – metal that changes size with changes in temperature)
Environmental expectations (set point – temperature at which vial is level)
Computation (expansion of metal until the level set point is reached)
Output (switch is closed, turning on heater or air conditioner)
Seems pretty good. The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that the thermostat does not know that it is a thermostat. It is only an entity in our eyes. What makes it a singular thing, rather than a set of 4 or 20 or 10,000 things which, when we view them, linked together, can be described as one thing? As I see it, it takes an intelligent agent to describe a thermostat as a thermostat, and there is no central entity within the thermostat capable of understanding itself. Another way of saying this is that the thermostat is a process of our brains, not the brain of the thermostat or, more importantly, it is not in any obvious sense, a singular thing in the world. If you were to take it apart and put the pieces on a table, would it still be a thermostat? Would it still be an information processor? If the dissected thermostat is not a thermostat, what makes the assembled thermostat an entity, and what about putting it together makes it gain thermostat-hood and become an information-processing agent?
Another way of saying this is that the thermostat has no self. No inside and no outside. With no inside, it has no inner state. With no inner state it has no drives. It's in no way 'good' for the thermostat if the outside world is cold or hot or exactly at set point. Its behavior is automatic, reflexive — a Rube Goldberg machine, without internal states or drives.
I'm on thin ice considering the thermostat as an information processor. But, in rough outline, if it turns out that information is fundamental to consciousness then we need to consider a central organizer for information and a bounded territory for the information processor.
Considering more complex systems, we must ask what makes an animal or a person bounded? What about a computer? What makes any of these a singular entity rather than a list of things? This may be the crux of the hard problem of consciousness.
—
1Chalmers, DJ "The Puzzle of Conscious Experience". Scientific American (2002)
2Chalmers, DJ "Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness", Explaining Consciousness, The 'Hard Problem'. Cambridge: MIT, 1997. pp. 9-30.
Raphael
I didn't think you would have an answer…. As usual, when the question is difficult for you, you get down to personal lines. I would expect a person who believes in a little more country.
Miracles,
Maybe ask someone who is more at your level?
Why not borrow your car? I am sure she will be happy to cooperate with you.
If not - then try the chimpanzees.
And no, there is no need for you to share with us what they answered you.
Raphael
What does it mean that "the Creator of the world is infinite"? If he knows what I will choose then the choice is not free. Even I, a staunch determinist, do not think it is possible to know what a person will decide in advance fully.
In particular - if God knew in advance that his sons would be adulterers and lie with the daughters of men, then why did he let it happen? Why did he murder millions of babies, when he could have prevented it?
And regarding death - I ask simply - how do you determine death in humans and animals? Is it different, or is it the same?
one,
What answer are you waiting for? I saw that you made a statement and I saw that you were all smiling and satisfied and even stated that you had nothing to add, but I didn't see a question. Well, we will go towards you, did you mean to ask: how do you say that if someone knows what you will decide, then your choice is forced, after all, the Creator of the world knows what you will decide, and yet you say that there is free choice? So my answer is: the Creator is infinite and we are unable to grasp this concept with our minds. Therefore, evidence cannot be brought from the knowledge of the Creator of the world to the knowledge of flesh and blood. So come on please let's land back on the ground.
donates,
At the end of your words you said "it turns out that this free will is not really free and a physical defect in the brain disrupts it completely". Has anyone here ever said otherwise?
Miracles,
If you want to say something about the definition of death, then why not just say it and that's it? If I find it appropriate to respond to this - I will.
one
Did you ever get an answer from him?
Miracles, we are all eagerly awaiting Raphael's answer, if you haven't noticed...
one
Note that determinism does not necessarily mean "predictable". There are many simple physical systems that cannot be predicted, such as the orbits of the planets.
"If I know what you will decide then that means you have no choice but to decide otherwise, meaning you must decide what I know you will decide and it doesn't matter if I know it two seconds before or a millionth of a second before - in this case there is no doubt that it is not a free choice. agreed upon?"
agreed upon! Wait, wait, wait... Isn't that what they say about God?! that he knows the future and knows exactly but exactly what we will decide every moment of our lives until our last day?
I rest my cast 🙂
I have nothing to add, you did the job for me.
Thanks.
Contributes to the discussion
You did contribute! In 1848, an American named Phineas Gage hit a steel bar in the head. The rod penetrated his brain, in the front of the head and exited from the back. The man was miraculously healthy - but the man's behavior changed a lot. His friends said he was just a different person.
Maybe Raphael thinks that the rod made a hole in his soul?
Raphael
The disagreement between us is about the meaning of "consciousness" and the meaning of "judicial system". But you're too full of yourself to see that.
So let me ask you a completely different question - how do you know that an animal is dead? But do you know that a person is dead?
Raphael,
Sometimes we don't have to wait for the experiment because nature performs it for us. You talked about moral decisions, so what better example is there than moral decisions made by a psychopath who has no feelings towards other people?
Brain research clearly shows that the amygdala (a small area of the brain responsible for fear and emotions) is significantly smaller in psychopaths compared to its size in normal people, in addition the level of activity measured in psychopaths is very low. In other words, we have here two clear physiological characteristics in the brain that can be easily measured and allow us to know that the moral level of a certain person is very low.
In 1966, Charles Whitman who was a normative banker and an outstanding Marine massacred 16 people and wounded 32 more, in addition he murdered his wife and mother. In the will he left he wrote "I no longer know myself, I feel like a different person", and asked for his body to be dissected to understand the source of the problem, he knew that something had gone wrong in his mind. His request was granted and it turned out that he had an aggressive brain tumor that damaged the amygdala.
So here is Raphael, as you can see that the structure of the brain dramatically affects the process of making moral decisions, which undermines the argument that moral decisions are the result of "free will". It turns out that this free will is not really free and a physical defect in the brain disrupts it completely.
one,
Regarding the experiment that Nissim mentioned and also confirmed is not controversial (thanks Nissim, what would I do without you) - if I know what you will decide then that means you have no option to decide otherwise, meaning you must decide what I know you will decide and it doesn't matter if I know it both Seconds before or a millionth of a second before - in this case there is no doubt that it is not a free choice. agreed upon?
Regarding the video you sent earlier with the learned "religious Muhammad", in this case it is not about checking signals in the brain before a free decision on an immoral action, but about taking control of the brain by external means in order to force it to perform one action or another. This is not the experiment that will confirm or contradict my assumption, it will only show that it is possible to take control of the brain and force it to do an immoral action *not out of free choice*!
If someone takes my hand and hits someone else's cheek with it - does that mean I committed an immoral act of hitting out of free choice???
I think that if it were possible to do such an experiment that would really test what happens in a person's brain before he makes a decision whether or not to do an immoral act such as stealing completely freely then it would have already been done.
Miracles,
If you call monkeys who separate other monkeys during a fight a court system then no wonder you think your car has self-awareness.
one
Libet's original experiment is indeed controversial, but the later experiments, by Yitzhak Fried, are not subject to any controversy.
I agree with you that humans and animals have the same "free choice". And I think we both think that the phenomenon is due to physical reasons. Just like in the (excellent) video you linked to.
Raphael,
First of all, the experiment that Nissim mentioned (which, again, I remember is a somewhat controversial experiment) shows that it is possible to know in advance what you will choose, about a second or two before you consciously made the decision about it, but it does not say anything about whether that choice was "Forced choice" or choice out of free will.
In the video I linked to earlier, Prof. Haim Sompolinsky talks about the fact that it is possible to influence the choices you make by sending electrical signals to certain parts of the brain with the help of electrodes. It is very possible that we know about areas of the brain related to making moral decisions, and then it is possible to plan an experiment in which people will be asked to perform some immoral action, such as pressing a button that will cause a person in the next room to receive a strong and painful electric shock, and then see if with the help of electrodes connected to a certain area of the brain it is possible to control Making their decision whether to press the button or not. If it is possible to control such a moral decision with the help of electrodes in the brain, this will prove that it is not a choice of free will, but a choice that results from the cold weighing of electrical signals in the brain.
It is certainly possible to think of more experiments of this kind.
one
Get used to it if you are going to correspond with Raphael. That's the most he has to offer.
Raphael
you embarrass me When I read your musings, I am comforted by all that I have done. I didn't kill this boy..
Raphael
My car is smarter than some people I know ….. and they are smarter than you…
Start insulting - it works both ways!
Raphael
Again - apart from stupidity and arrogance you say nothing. Again here is a link - but stupid Raphael doesn't read links...
http://www.livescience.com/18906-chimpanzee-police-aggression.html
Miracles,
Apes have a legal system like your car has self-awareness.
Do me a favor, go to the neighbor's house and ask her if she has some Tanamaka to lend me.
one,
What experiment do you suggest that could confirm or refute my claim?
one
Humans have an interesting mechanism of "giving excuses". It has existed since childhood - ask a child in kindergarten "Why did the cat cross the road", or "Why does the zebra have stripes", and he will always look for an answer in his head. Ask your girl "why didn't you tidy the room" - she will always have an answer :).
There is an explanation for this of course, and it has nothing to do with free choice, and good and bad.
But - someone like Raphael comes along, and excuses human behavior just like that - the man was debating between a good deed and a bad deed, and consciously chose evil - because he is evil.
There is a reason for this too - he must leave room for God. We know that God did not create the universe, or life or consciousness, so we must add "soul". Otherwise what will God do?
On the other hand - Raphael believes that the same wonderful God kills children... and of course there are answers to that....
Raphael,
In short, you are making a claim that has no real basis, neither experimental nor observational, simply because "that's how it seems to you".
Pretty.
Raphael
A "judicial" system exists in the great apes, so it is not a human invention, and there is no need to look back.
On the other hand - there are groups of people to this day who do not have a legal system.
And on the third hand - there is no connection between a legal system and "good" and "bad". The legislature creates laws to guarantee all citizens their rights. The judiciary enforces these laws.
one,
Regarding banana and orange, there is not much to argue that it is a "pre-obligated choice" because there are many studies that prove this. Nissim mentioned one of them.
Regarding choosing between good and bad - I don't know such studies and if my explanations did not convince you then I have nothing more to add.
Raphael
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%99_%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%94
It is likely that there was some kind of legal system sometime before that.
Raphael,
Well then, I think we've stayed with the heart of the matter, what makes you think that choosing between a banana and an orange is a "pre-obligated choice", while the choice whether to grab an apple from a woman's size is a different kind of choice that you call "free choice".
The way I see it in both situations, a set of positive and negative considerations is placed before us and we weigh everything together in our heads and come to a decision.
Should I choose an orange or a banana? We prefer an orange but it will take us time to peel it, it has seeds and our hands will also get dirty with sticky juice. On the other hand, the banana is a little less tasty to us, but it is more accessible, without seeds and also not dirty, so what do we choose?
Should I grab the apple from the woman's hand? We see ourselves as moral people, know that it is forbidden and not nice, and we can also get caught, but on the other hand we are really, really hungry... so what will we decide?
I really don't see a fundamental difference between these two situations, in the case of the woman the moral consideration comes into play, while in the case of the fruits another consideration of getting the hands dirty comes into play. Added is all.
one,
Well then, I think we can already conclude.
You say that any choice, including whether to choose the right or the left banana, is called free choice, so it is the same for humans and animals
And I say that choosing between a right-handed and a left-handed banana is not a free choice, but rather it is forced in advance and it only seems to us that we are choosing, whereas the real free choice is only between good and evil and it is special only to humans because only humans have the concept of evil and this is the main thing that distinguishes humans from animals .
Just curious, does anyone here know when the first testimony or evidence for the existence of a legal system in humans?
Raphael,
Let's leave for a moment the topic of whether I think there is real free choice or it is just an illusion, in my opinion the matter is less relevant for the discussion at the moment, so I will go towards you and let's assume that there is free choice.
So the question is whether there is a difference between the free choice of a person and the free choice of a developed mammal, for example an ape of the chimpanzee type (because a chimpanzee is the closest to us).
Let's start with the fact that when they say "free choice" they don't mean "free choice between good and evil", you decided to attribute it only to this category, and it follows that really only a person has free choice according to this definition.
But I don't agree with your definition, I claim that free choice exists at every crossroads where you have to make a decision, even if it is about choosing a fruit placed in a bowl, whether to take a banana or whether to take an orange. This is also a free choice, and in this sense there is no essential difference between us and the other animals.
one,
Let's get things sorted. I say that humans have free choice, but not always, and you say that there is no free choice at all, neither for humans nor for animals, right? Or have you changed your mind?
Therefore I need to explain why humans have free choice and in which cases. For this purpose I pointed out a fundamental difference between humans and animals (the concept of evil) and you agreed with me.
just what? You say there is no connection between this difference and free choice.
Well, at least we clarified our point of disagreement.
Now in my opinion you are the one who should explain why according to you the one to whom the concept of choosing between good and evil belongs is in the same category as the one to whom no choice between good and evil belongs at all, since for him the concept of "evil" does not exist.
"Because he's hungry."
Also the example I gave you with a hungry homeless man who steals an apple from a lady's hand to eat is an example of free choice even though it has nothing to do with malice, and it is no different than a monkey who chooses to steal a fruit from the hand of another member of the group because he is hungry.
In short, free choice really does not belong only to issues of wickedness.
Raphael,
I will explain to you what your mistake is, your mistake is that you took one feature that is truly unique only to humans, and you decided to associate the subject of free choice with it and only with it.
I claim that free choice exists in every type of choice you make, even when fruits are placed in front of you on the table and you choose one of them, it is a free choice, even when a lion hides in the bushes and a herd of doe pass by and he chooses to chase one of them, or decides not to chase them at all , it is a free choice.
I do not agree with you at all that free choice is only related to the issues of "whether to behave wickedly or not", I claim that it exists in every type of choice, both in us and in all other developed animals.
one,
Beautiful. So you agree with me that wickedness belongs only in humans and not in animals.
So what's left for us?
I say this is what makes the difference about free choice. A person has a dilemma - whether to surrender to his instinct that sometimes pulls him to do something evil and wicked or to overcome the instinct to do evil. Here lies his free choice. Whereas animals do not have such a dilemma and therefore do not actually have a choice. All the actions of the animals are motivated by animal instincts embedded in them.
By the way, there are people who behave like animals, that is, they always act according to the animal instinct embedded in them without asking whether what they are doing is a good deed or a bad deed, and there is a second type of people who call evil good and then again they have no choice between good and evil because For them everything is "good". Both of these types of people do not actually use their free choice.
"enjoy everything" = "enjoy this".
Raphael,
"Is a lion that has eaten a human being a killer lion? Is a monkey that killed and ate another monkey a murderer? Are hyenas who stole from a tiger the prey it hunts thieves?'
Basically the answer is yes.
"Have they done an act of wickedness?"
The answer is no. I interpret the word "wickedness" as causing suffering to another animal or another person for the pleasure of it, while being aware that you are causing him suffering.
Animals such as a lion, a tiger or a cat do not have self-awareness, certainly not at the high level that we have, therefore the question of "evil" is not relevant at all for them and is only relevant for humans.
By the way, the cat plays with the poor mouse, chases it and hits it in order to improve and perfect its hunting skills, and it seems that it even enjoys everything, but it is not aware that it is causing it suffering, so it cannot be defined as evil (the tiger also sometimes brings to its cubs a small goat that is still alive so that they will chase after him and improve their hunting skills, of course this is not done out of malice).
one
I saw the link. It turns out that you can be religious and smart.
What a shame that people like him are not on this site. The worst - it's a stupid religious who thinks he's smart...
Really sucks!
one,
He can say what he wants because there is free choice... 🙂
Raphael, see what a learned religious person says about "free will":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIleVs8VRhE
Raphael
I gave you a simple explanation - and I'll give it again: a neuron fires when the sum of the input signals passes a certain threshold. These signals come from other neurons or sensory cells.
To understand it to the end - you do need an education. And to get an education you need intelligence.... and integrity.
Raphael - do you want to study, or preach?
Raphael
In order to understand, you have to learn, and even a lot when you don't understand anything.
Of course, when you are intellectually lazy (like you) and don't want to learn more, it's easy to make excuses.
Raphael, Rabak, take logic lessons
"It doesn't matter what you think, because according to you, you don't have a free choice to think what you want."
Raphael, how did you come to this unfortunate conclusion?
Raphael,
I'm completely sure of what I'm saying and I don't need to convince myself, I've long since passed this stage. I say this just for the slim chance that maybe some of this will get into your head and you'll start asking yourself real, hard questions about your false belief.
one,
At the beginning you said "I am confident at a very high level of confidence"
Then you said "I don't even have a shadow of a doubt"
Then "this is the truth and it's not going to change"
It seems that you repeat this mantra over and over again to convince yourself that you are sure of what you are saying.
Miracles,
Those who are unable to convince others with a simple explanation because they themselves do not understand what they are saying - send them to read 1700 pages to get out of it.
Raphael,
Yes free choice, not free choice... There is only one truth, and that is that God is an invention of humans. It only exists in your imagination.
Agree or disagree, this is the truth and it is not going to change.
Raphael
Regarding what "I didn't answer you". I'm sorry, but that's the answer I learned in university. I'll say it again - a neuron fires when it receives input above a certain threshold from neurons
others or from sensory cells. The mechanism itself is of course more complex, and is controlled by neurotransmitters, substances that are produced in different cells. Such substances you are probably familiar with are acetylcholine, serotonin, dopamine and histamine.
Maybe you want to know how it "starts". It's complicated, but known. The same worm I was talking about has a total of 302 neurons out of 959 cells (or 1031). We know exactly how each cell develops, and how the signals "start" between them.
A fetus in a woman's womb also develops in a similar way, but, for some reason, it is a little more difficult to study human fetuses...
In any case, you can get an answer to every question in the profession's Bible:
Principles of Neural Science
of - Kandel, Schwartz, Jessell, Siegelbaum and Hudspeth.
Maybe after you read, and understand (!) all 1700 pages, then you will realize that you got a complete answer to your question.
one,
It doesn't matter what you think because according to you you don't have a free choice to think what you want.
Miracles,
So is there free choice for humans or not? Please try to be focused in your answer and answer the matter.
Raphael
As one said, punishment exists in many animals. My cat flicks her kittens when they get too rowdy. When my dog digs under the fence, I just raise my voice at her and she walks away with her tail between her legs.
about crimes Legal punishment has 3 functions. The first is deterrence. Drive too fast - you will pay a fine. Where the law is not enforced, people break the law. And religious people, just like secular people.
The second role is to keep the criminal away from society, in order to protect society.
The third role is to keep the criminal away from society, in order to protect the criminal (revenge...).
Regarding terrorists. Be sure that the pilots who carried out 9/11 are good people who thought they were doing an important act, and likewise the prime minister's killer. They still need to be punished, for the reasons I mentioned.
There are bad people - but there is actually a problem with punishing them - because they have a mental problem!!! Rape for example.
Raphael,
So I was wrong about that (it was of course a wild statistical guess that usually works out) but about God I have not even a shadow of a doubt, he does not exist.
one,
You're right. There is only one truth and unfortunately it is not the one I grew up with.
I was secular for 33 years before I repented...
Raphael,
I understand you, but I do not believe in these things, and moreover I am sure with a very high level of confidence that these things are not true and that God is an invention of humans just like many other legends that we have invented over the generations.
I know this is hard for you to accept but there is only one truth and unfortunately it is not the one you grew up with.
sorry if i bother you
Well, there is food for thought.
From the point of view of Judaism - there is no meaning to the world without free choice, but there is no free choice in anything.
As the Sages said - everything is in the hands of God except the fear of God.
Raphael,
first of all thanks The questions you asked are not simple and are more related to philosophy than to science (I personally am less connected to it, maybe Nissim who did a degree in the philosophy of science would be happy to talk to you about it).
My brain with the education I received learned to define these actions as bad actions. More than that, the chances are that if you had received the same education they received you would probably have been a terrorist too, you had no other choice.
one,
You did answer me. Just a pleasure to chat with you.
But you have to understand that what you say has far-reaching consequences.
If there is no free choice then there is no good and no evil.
It is not possible to say about the terrorists who murdered in Paris that they are bad, it is true that they need to be eliminated in order to protect society, but you cannot hate them because they are robots without free choice, they had no choice. Right?
Raphael,
Okay, you are right and I will answer you, in my personal opinion a person does not have a free choice and the feeling that you decide one way or another consciously is just an illusion, the decision actually stems from a collection of subconscious internal processes that take place in the brain and you are not at all aware of them until they rise and float to the conscious level and then you have Suddenly you feel like you've come to a decision.
Regarding punishment, another reason to punish besides protecting society is corrective punishment for the purpose of learning. Our brain is a dynamic machine that learns quickly from experience, when you catch a thief and give him 10 blows on the hand with a stick as a punishment, then his brain will learn that it is better to avoid it in the future (in the future, when he encounters a similar situation, his mind will have more considerations against the theft than for it).
Hope I answered you.
one,
You say like miracles that there is no difference between the choice of man and the choice of the animal. I understood that.
But why do you avoid saying whether you think a person has free choice or not?
Is man forced in his actions or does he have control over them?
If you answer me that you don't know or are not closed about it or don't want to tell me - I will understand and accept. But don't be like Nisim - don't avoid the clouds.
Raphael,
I'm not saying that we have free choice and I'm not saying that we don't have free choice, I'm just saying that your choice whether to take a box of pickles that is on the shelf in the supermarket is not fundamentally different from the point of view of the mind ("the soul" as you define it) from the choice whether to take a NIS 200 bill that is on the table and does not belong to you. Both choices are a collection of considerations for and against that add up in your mind to the decision whether to do this or that.
I also say that fundamentally there is no difference between a person's choice of how to behave and what to choose and a similar choice of an animal.
one,
The concept of "punish" is associated with free choice, because one cannot punish those who are not responsible for their actions.
Therefore, perhaps you mean to say that he should be imprisoned and isolated from society, not as a punishment but as a protection of society from those who are prone to crime (which is not his fault because he has no free choice). That sounds pretty reasonable.
So in summary - you say that a person does not have a free choice. Am I right?
If I'm right - can it be said that the one who committed a crime (let's say murdering her own head) actually didn't do anything bad because it wasn't done by free choice and he was forced into his actions?
Regarding the example with the wolves, I will respond later because I don't want to confuse joy with joy at this stage.
Raphael,
As I said before, the criminal should in any case be punished in order to protect society (if a person murders, he should not be allowed to walk around freely and murder more people).
Yes, of course this process also occurs in nature, if for example a pack member of inferior status in a pack of wolves tries to mate with a wolf of high status, or eats from the prey before the leader has eaten, then the leader punishes him, he chases him and bites him so that he learns a lesson and understands that this is not the way to behave.
one,
You have already set an example yourself - committing a crime is something that is done by free choice, otherwise the perpetrator cannot be judged and certainly not punished.
Do you think animals also commit crimes that can be judged and punished for them?
Raphael,
I claim that a person has a choice just like any other animal has like a monkey or a cat, only because our brain is bigger and more complex then our choice process is also more complex.
A person must be held responsible and punished if he commits a crime in order to protect society.
I await your example of free will choice in a person.
one,
Yes, I can give an example but you are not ready to accept it yet.
Do I understand from your words that in your opinion there is no free choice at all?
If so - then how can a person be held responsible for his actions?
one
Yes. But you are not built to hear the example.
Apart from your question, I understand that you think that a person has no free choice at all. If so, how can he be held responsible for his actions?
Miracles,
I agree with you and in my opinion it is indeed a classic experiment in this type of cases. Just note that the real worms and the virtual worm must appear as the exact same representation on the screen (for starters even a point that represents the center of gravity of the worm's body, or its head) and then check if an observer from the side is able to tell which representation is the real worm and which representation is the simulation. It is indeed a kind of Turing test.
At the time, I proposed a similar experiment to friends who work on the human brain project, I wrote to them that they get electrical patterns in the simulation like in a real mouse brain, this is nice and shows that the direction is right, but the real test in my opinion will be to connect the mouse brain they built to a robot (real or virtual on the computer) and then give Real mice and the computer mouse have to go through a series of identical tests (mazes and such) and see if an outside examiner is able to tell which mouse is real and which mouse is a computer simulation when both are represented as a dot that moves on the computer screen (again, the Turing test for mice).
one
This is exactly the experiment I want to do with OpenWorm, and also with real worms. You take a worm and give it two sources of food, at equal distances. The experiment is repeated over and over again, with the same worm and with different worms.
Here too - you can do a "Turing test" as you suggested, to see if it is indeed possible to differentiate between a real worm and a simulation.
What I'm trying to understand is whether there is a random component to the "free choice" of the worms. My assumption is that yes, because of an issue called race conditions - because there are processes that run concurrently in an unencrypted system, so we will get different results in each "run".
This could explain, perhaps, what I mentioned earlier, choosing a number between 1 and 100.
There is a deeper argument here, and it is actually my argument (as far as I was able to find out). There are many attempts to simulate human thought with a computer. My claim is that it is not possible and will not be possible. John Searle says something very similar, in the "Chinese Room" experiment, but there is a fundamental difference between us. He says there is no problem in principle to build such a room, and I think there is a problem in principle. My argument comes to explain exactly this problem.
Raphael,
Can you give an example of a decision that stems from free will?
Thanks Nissim.
one
I think you have a slight problem with reading comprehension. This is what I said to Nisim:
"Regarding the question you asked me - the dog does not have free will. ***And most of the decisions of human beings do not come from free will but only the minority of the minority***.”
Note what I said between the asterisks.
Besides, Nissim already mentioned the research that shows beyond any doubt that there are cases in which even a person does not have free choice. His choice is made some time *after* those signals appear in his brain that clearly show what he is about to decide.
Miracles
I have no problem with you not continuing the conversation with me. All in all, I also understand you. You're just stuck and don't know what to say to me. Bye.
Raphael
One gave a nice explanation.
I see no point in continuing the conversation with you. No offense, but you have no desire to understand. In my opinion, the truth scares you.
Raphael,
Let's say there are two rooms, in one of them there are two tables on each of which there is a candy (the same candy) and a child enters the room and chooses whether to approach the candy on the right first or the candy on the left first. In the other room there are two saucers on the right and on the left, and in each one is placed a piece of meat. A dog is brought into a room and he chooses which saucer to go to first.
You see the child and the dog as two dots on your computer screen, and see where each dot faces when you enter the room to the right or left side.
Repeat this experiment 10 times and each time randomly decide which room the dog will be in and which room the child will be in, of course you don't know. Can you guess from just looking at the screen which point is the child and which point is the dog in each of the attempts?
If you cannot distinguish, then how can you determine that one of them has free will and the other does not? Based on what exactly?
Nissim the thoughtful and funny
Although you have a lot of knowledge - but the mentality of a 10-year-old child at most.
Of course I don't find holes in your answer because you simply ignore and don't give me an answer at all.
Regarding the similarity to dogs - if you think you resemble a dog, then speak only for yourself.
Now I will teach you how to give a direct answer.
Regarding your question, which bone will the dog access - I don't know!
how is it?
Raphael
I'm more Jewish than you, so don't worry.
Ok - you put two identical bones in the room, at the same distance from the door and now bring in a dog.
Which bone will he go to first?
one
I think you are right. All I'm trying to say is that consciousness is something completely physical, and that you shouldn't assume that there is anything beyond that. Something beyond that is "soul". Without a soul, religion (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and so on) has no meaning.
I think Raphael avoids thinking about it, because it really scares him. If humans, and Jews in particular, are not fundamentally different from dogs, then where is "in the image of God created them"? Serious problem 🙂
I think the question about the dogs is a good one - it's a thought experiment that really demonstrates what free choice is. And so that you don't attack me again... The idea that the question is based on something in philosophy called Bodan's donkey, but there it means something completely different. And it is also based on OpenWorm, as I mentioned a few days ago.
I mean what you said earlier that awareness helps us better predict the future is actually his main claim.
Maybe in a slightly different wording.
Miracles,
To the best of my memory and understanding, Hawkins claims that the brain is a mechanism whose job is to predict the future (continuously, all the time) and it does this through memories and consciousness. He claims that memories and consciousness are actually synonymous with each other, according to him consciousness (awareness) is actually a collection of memories that we examine over time. The more an animal (mouse, cat, monkey, human) has a more developed cerebral cortex, the more memories it has, and therefore a higher consciousness.
According to him: memories = consciousness, just as a drawing on a computer screen is a collection of pixels.
Raphael,
The brain is the one that makes the decisions, it makes them based on all the inputs that have reached it from the outside world through the various senses. If the inputs from the outside world show the brain that on the right side there is a delicious pistachio ice cream with whipped cream (for example inputs from the eyes) then the brain will make a "decision" to turn right towards the ice cream, because the calories in the ice cream will help it (in its opinion) survive better.
Is this example clear?
Raphael
I answered over and over what you asked. And every time the same answer. It doesn't "see you" and that's why you look for holes in it. and can't find...
Leave it, it's too much for you. Answer me about the dog - does it have free will or not? Maybe someone more ... open ... wants to answer?
Miracles,
Regarding the question you asked me - the dog does not have free will. And most of the decisions of the people do not come from free will but only the minority of the minority. I won't go on because I'm afraid you'll accuse me of trying to convert you.
Miracles,
Good. I realized that I will not get an answer from you to the question I asked.
Raphael
What despair with you 🙂 endless loop? - Exactly!!!! When the loop ends, you return equipment at the BCM. It's not a simple loop, it's a loop of 100 billion neurons, and more than 100 trillion synapses. There are two things here - one is the neural network - which neuron connects to which neuron (or sensory cell or muscle cell). The second is the strength of the connections, that is, what is the sum of the input signals of a certain neuron to cause this neuron to fire. These things determine our memories, and also our behavior.
You wrote "If so - what is that source and how exactly does it decide what to decide for us?" The source does not decide for us. You are mixing things up. The inputs are what we feel - light, sound, heat, touch and chemicals. These inputs, along with our memories determine what we decide.
I explained to you earlier the process by which you choose a number between 1 and 100. The process is also similar in animals - and it can easily be shown experimentally.
You know what - here's a question for you - does a dog have free will?
Miracles
To your question - please explain which word you do not understand in the following sentence: "The source of each signal is another neuron, or sensory cell".
I already explained below but you probably didn't have time to read. Here again is what I don't understand -
If the source is another neuron - then the question is who activates it (infinite loop?).
If the source is a sensory cell - then a sensory cell is a cell that "listens" to what is happening "outside" and feels it (if it is a smell or vibration or light or sound) then you are saying that the one who activates our will and decisions is some external physical source which can be sensed by our senses or even by measuring devices. If so - what is that source and how exactly does it decide what to decide for us?
Remember that it all started when you said that there is a study that shows that there are "signals in the brain that appear right before we decide". So don't explain to me again how the brain works but please focus on the question I asked.
gift,
The fact that the brain is part of a mechanism that helps the animal to survive better is indeed clear and self-evident to anyone who knows a little about the subject of evolution, what is not so trivial is that it does this by constantly trying to predict the future, a fact that not many people have thought about on this idea before Hawkins first came up with it.
gift
In many behavioral problems - you see changes in brain activity as well. Problems like you describe are often the result of a difficult environment, which harmed the development of the soul (it's not a soul...). Don't forget that evolution explains our desire to survive in order to reproduce. The mechanism of human evolution is indeed in trouble - our culture prevails over genetics. And the reason for you is that culture also evolves. If a minority of children has become a dominant fashion in a certain area, as in part of Europe, then there will indeed be a decrease in the birth rate, even though it is "against evolution". This can also result in animals - if a certain type of whale develops a much more effective hunting ability, then it may lead to the extinction of the prey, and subsequently to the extinction of that species of whale (whale hunting is a cultural and not a genetic matter).
Think about what I wrote to Raphael - do you find holes in it? I describe what science has discovered. I don't understand how anyone can think otherwise...
Raphael,
It's really not that complicated, the source of all electrical signals is our senses that receive stimuli from the outside world (eyes, ears, touch...) and turn into electrical pulses that flow to the brain. You stand at a crossroads and there are two signs, one pointing to the right and written on it "Here you get beaten up", and the other pointing to the left and written on it "Here you get ice cream with whipped cream". The signals are received by your eyes and become electrical pulses in the brain, the signals from the left signal cause the group of neurons in your brain that represent the concept of "ice cream" to wake up electrically, and they in turn send electrical signals to your leg muscles that cause them to turn to the left and start walking (because you really like ice cream) .
Raphael
Please explain which word you do not understand in the following sentence: "The source of each letter is another neuron, or sensory cell".
Now I will tell you something else. A baby starts from a fertilized egg. The egg divides into two. Now there are two cells. The two cells divide again and now there are 4 cells. And so on…. In the first stages, the cells are identical - they are so identical, that these cells can separate and each can become a whole and healthy baby (this is true at least up to 8 cells).
At a certain stage, the cells start to differ from each other, blood cells, bone, muscle and neurons for example. Now - we know that consciousness develops along with the increase in the number of neurons. We see that this growth is continuous - there is no sudden jump of "the soul has just entered the brain".
Raphael - the argument of a soul is essential to religion, without a soul we are not fundamentally different from chimpanzees. Do you think your only reason for not agreeing with me is something beyond that? Are you claiming that there is a scientific argument that says I'm wrong (sorry one - "I" represents the opinion of many, many people)?
So - please - what is the argument?
I'll explain again so you don't forget - "the source of each signal is another neuron, or sensory cell". If you think otherwise - then among the 100 billion cells in the brain (one - that's about...) - find me one cell that produces meaningful signals - without input from the environment (light, sound, heat...) - without input from other cells.
good evening
one
I agree with you that it is not trivial to think about it alone. But after I see that the entire mechanism of the animal world on all its systems is to improve survival - the working assumption is that the brain mechanism also works this way, collecting data and building a model for the purpose of survival.
Raphael,
As far as I understand, the mechanism of action of the brain works like this:
The machine called the body perceives the environment through the senses. This is the input.
The machine reacts in a way that will benefit it. This is the output.
A crude example: the body's sensors feel cold - a chain of commands causes the machine to respond by decomposing ATP (a kind of miniature heat bomb) to produce body heat.
A less crude example: the body's sensors feel a loss of balance - a nerve center in the spine (not in the brain) sends an automatic movement of the hands forward, to protect the head from injury. It is an automatic response of the machine.
A more subtle example: the body's sensors bring a flood of information to the brain: suddenly the brain receives a signal from the ears about a loud squeak, a signal through the eyes about a car that has deviated from its path, a quick calculation of the brain draws a collision course that is locked to your location. The brain immediately sends a command and puts all the body's systems into a "sympathetic work plan", which includes acceleration of the heart, release of adrenaline, vigilance - so that you have enough energy to avoid trouble.
And now for the most subtle example: the brain analyzes the dynamics where you live, social dynamics, economic dynamics, and so on. This Kabir systems analysis process gives you an understanding of what is the best step for you - at this moment - the understanding permeates the desire - I want to live well - and therefore you do it. A simple example of this is a three-year-old child who knows when to turn to his mother to ask for something, or when to turn to his father. Even a dog knows which members of the household will play with him, and with whom it is better not to get involved.
By the way, I do not deny the choice and the soul. I don't think it can be ruled out, since there are researchers who do believe in the soul. Apparently there is no contradiction to its existence, and no proof.
If the soul does exist, and the ability to choose does exist, it will only be in the following detail: should I be attentive to my brain, activate it at full capacity, so that information flows to me on how to live correctly.
or abandon myself.
I see that there are people who neglect themselves and I ask myself what is going through them? Is it part of the mechanism of evolution to get rid of unfit individuals? If so, it's a mechanism that's out of control, because it's the academics who produce fewer offspring... and earn less money.
I raise a question, that maybe there is something in man that I don't know the secret mechanism of, that gives man the ability to choose between loving himself, life, the environment. and to abandon everything and commit suicide at a slow pace.
based on what..? Based on nothing. Apart from a collective human feeling that masses of people have about their ability to choose.
And because I believe in the brain's genius ability to produce a formula to produce a choice, and if it did succeed in producing it - then that is the glory of its creation.
I hope that science has not yet said the last word here.
Miracles
I will elaborate the question a little more -
If the source is another neuron - then the question is who activates it.
If the source is a sensory cell - then a sensory cell is a cell that "listens" to what is happening "outside" and feels it (if it is a smell or vibration or light or sound) then you are saying that the one who activates our will and decisions is some external physical source which can be sensed by our senses or even by measuring devices. If so - what is that source and how exactly does it decide what to decide for us?
Miracles,
You are the one who puts religion and faith in every response. And you repeatedly and repeatedly explain explanations that go round and round and do not answer my question which is formulated in the most clear way possible - what is the source of the signals that reach our brain according to the same study you mentioned and make us decide what we decide?
If you have an answer then I'd love to learn from you and if you don't then just say you don't know. There is no shame in not knowing.
Raphael
I will explain to you again and again and again - but because it is against your religious belief you are unable to understand. The source of each signal is another neuron, or sensory cell. All neurons of their kind are built in the same way.
It's a rough explanation, but it's basically true. I asked you if you have information about neurons that work differently - and you probably don't.
Raphael - you want to study then happily. If you want to preach to me, then I don't have time for that.
Miracles, Raphael
You both got on my nerves. Stop talking and being ticks. You won't get to heaven and you won't eat whale meat.
Miracles
You simply avoid answering me what is the source of the signals that reach our brain according to the same study you mentioned and decide for us what to decide before we know what we want to decide. Just dodge!
Raphael
"decides for us" - is that like saying who "sees for us"? You are very locked in the concept that there is an "I" separate from our body, and do not want to understand that there is no such thing.
The neurons in the brain are always running, like a computer program running all the time. The activity lasts for a long time. If I tell you "choose a number between 1 and 100", I can in principle track all the signals, starting with photons that leave the screen and enter your eyes, become pulses in the retina, move along the optic nerve, through the chiasma, to the hindbrain, through the different areas of the brain, And finally along the nerves towards your fingers - and you type the number you chose for me.
Practically - we do not have the ability to measure the signal in every neuron, but in the scans you can clearly see the flow of the signals I described. The same Dr. Fried that I told about, knows how to insert a signal into specific neurons and restore memories to people whose brains have been damaged.
Your decision depends on the input and your state of mind at that moment. There is no (scientific) reason to think otherwise.
Raphael - Do you have information that says there are neurons in the brain that are not fully controlled by the signals that enter them? Understand - for a soul to affect a body - there must be an interface between them. And the body also affects the soul, right? Assume pain. So how is it possible to completely prevent pain with chemicals?
Try to think of some quality of the soul that cannot be controlled from the outside, or that cannot be biologically explained. And again - think of a person without any language. Do you think he has no soul?
Rafael, I don't understand your questions
There is a crack that activates them
it is known
Rafael, I don't understand your questions
There is a crack that activates them
it is known
Miracles,
You wrote that there is a study that shows that there are "signals in the brain that appear right before we decide". I asked what is the source of those signals? You answered "The source of the signals is of course other signals". I asked what is the source of the other signals? And now you answer "Each signal originates from another neuron or sensory cell. And each signal reaches other neurons or muscle cells."
Am I to understand that what you are saying is that the one who decides for us what to choose is some kind of sensory cell? Which sensor cell exactly? And what exactly does he feel before he decides for us what to decide? (I deliberately do not say "or another neuron" because the question will immediately be asked who activates that other neuron...)
Raphael
It is not fundamentally different from a computer.
Raphael
The neurons are mainly connected to each other, and some are connected to the senses. And of course there are some that are connected to the muscles.
Therefore - each signal originates from another neuron or sensory cell. And each signal reaches other neurons or muscle cells.
Again - they never discovered a neuron that works differently.
Miracles,
I asked you what is the source of the signals that reach the brain and determine our decisions before we decide and you said that their source is other signals. What is the source of the other signals? Who activates our brain and makes us decide what he wants?
Miracles, before you preach to others about a way of life, you should pay attention once to the way you express yourself here towards others.
Yes, I know you always have excuses, but after all, you talk badly and insult people.
Raphael
The source of the signals is of course other signals. Pay attention - you will not find a single signal in the brain, that is, you will not find a single neuron that produces a signal, without suitable signals at its input. A neuron is like an electric circuit, as soon as it has enough input signals - you will get an output signal.
According to those who believe in the soul, there must be at least one neuron in the brain that fires without input signals. If you find one like that - you have proven that there is something that might be the soul.
We know many areas in the brain, and know that man continues to live without areas but. We even know that a person can continue to function without half a brain! Moreover - we know people whose brains are split in two, and each has their own "free will". For example - ask him if he believes in God - one side will answer yes and one side will answer no.
Even some animals) have morals, and according to religious people they have no soul, so here is an observation that shows that there is morality without a soul (according to you 🙂 ). Of course you have the right to say that the researchers are lying, but studies have been peer-reviewed, and then the burden of proof is on you...
According to you, nothing is lost in killing. After all, the soul doesn't die with the body, right? In my opinion - after killing there is only a rotting lump of flesh, and life has been completely stopped. Life is a process and not a collection of atoms. This process disappears at death. Be precise - life is a collection of processes, and most of them stop at death.
Our brain has a huge variety of processes, and we know how to control many of them with the help of electrical and chemical signals. An example you also know - alcohol can turn a moderate person into a violent person. Drugs, and physical damage to the brain, can change a person's behavior and character.
Emotions are also processes - and we know (partially today) how to control them. I can make you laugh and feel happy with very simple chemicals. I can make you feel anger, love, pain, and so on, and also stop those feelings.
Our thinking is like a "voice in our head", right? We feel that there is someone who thinks. But think of a person who has no language - no language, not even sign language (Raphael, in what language does a deaf-mute person think who has only learned sign language?). This person is very different from us, and there are problems he cannot solve. For example - he will not be able to tell if two school classes have the same number of children, even though he sees the students in both classes.
Raphael - I don't expect you to even try to understand. In my opinion, you are an arrogant and repulsive person, and a long way from you. But, there are other readers here who might be interested.
Father, can you please release my comment that has been waiting here for a long time?
Miracles,
As far as I know and remember, Jeff Hawkins talks about the brain as one whole entity whose job is to predict the future. According to him, this whole is based on memories and consciousness (self-awareness) which he claims are actually two synonymous names describing the same mechanism, without consciousness (meaning without memories) the future cannot be predicted.
Therefore, it is easier for a monkey (including a human) with a high consciousness to make predictions of the future because its cerebral cortex includes more memories (which is actually consciousness) compared to an ant that has no memories (and therefore no consciousness) and therefore acts more based on instincts.
Miracles,
As far as I remember Jeff Hawkins talks about the brain as one complete complex whose job is to predict the future, this complex is based first and foremost on memories and consciousness (self-awareness) which according to him are basically synonyms of each other, without consciousness it is difficult to predict the future.
Therefore, it is easier for a monkey (including a person) who has self-awareness to make predictions of the future because his cerebral cortex includes memories (which is actually consciousness) compared to an ant which has no memories (and therefore no consciousness) and it acts more based on instincts.
Miracles
I went through the last comments and saw that you really miss me.
As a matter of fact -
You wrote that there is a study that shows that there are "signals in the brain that appear right before we decide". What is the source of those signals?
Also - if everything is physical and we are actually just a mass of particles arranged in one way or another, then what is the need for morality? Why is it forbidden to kill? After all, when you kill someone, nothing is actually lost, all the particles are still there.
What happens when we hurt someone with offensive statements? Who was actually hurt? The particles? Who feels sorrow and pain?
Who laughs when we tell a joke? The particles? and so'…
one
I wasn't talking about the role of the brain. I'm talking about consciousness. And if we're talking, then the idea of "predicting the future", as far as I know, is Jeff Hawkins'.
gift,
Forgive me, but I don't think it's that trivial to understand that the brain is basically a model that constantly tries to predict the future, it's not that obvious to someone who doesn't know the subject and hasn't heard lectures on this matter.
For many people it is also not obvious that there are different levels of awareness, they think that only humans are aware of themselves and all other animals are without any awareness, as if it exists or does not exist and there is no middle ground.
Miracles,
What is so hard to understand? I didn't ask you to provide sources for any claim, all I asked was that you don't write "My claim is..." when in fact you are quoting someone else's claim.
I can't explain it simpler than that.
gift
I guess every religious scientist believes that humans have a soul, and therefore free choice. I know a very famous brain surgeon named Mel Cheatham. He is very old and is busy bringing treatments, in his field, to third world countries. He does so for religious reasons.
There is a well-known Australian philosopher who was a student of Daniel Dennett. He is not religious, but certainly calls himself a dualist. His name is David Chalmers.
Let's say I ask you to pick a number between 1 and 1000. Today, I can't accurately predict your choice. But - I think if we perform statistics, we will find that the distribution is not uniform. And I also think that in the future we will be able to know in advance what you will choose, or at least what mechanism you use to choose.
Just like with my car...
Note that determinism does not mean that it is possible to know what will actually happen. I'll give you a simple example (one - I apologize but I don't remember who first gave the example - let's say from Fred Egan).
Suppose two billiard balls touch each other. A third ball moves perpendicular to the center line of the balls, towards the point of contact. What will happen when the moving ball hits the two stationary balls? The answer is surprising, you can't know 🙂
I agree with Nisim that these claims (that the brain collects data constitutes and builds a model for the future) are simple and logical.
Perhaps the first person who thought of them was a genius revolutionary, but today, with our current perception of reality, this is a necessary claim.
A cat's brain is the same, but we have more ability to go into details and analyze them, and that's the whole difference. On the other hand, the cat has an advantage: sneak up on a cat dozing on the tree, grab it to put it in the box: it will scratch you and threaten you, but fight back, push it in, close the box and put it in the ground. Count to five and now open: the cat is back to sleep!
Miracles, are there renowned scientists who claim the ability to choose?
one
I apologize that you have changed not my native language. And again - do you have anything to say? Do you have a response to the claims I mentioned?
By the way, there is no logic in citing a source for the claim "there is unconscious continuity". Many people have written about it, such as Dawkins, Darwin, Dent, Dobzhansky, Hofstadter, Fried, Nagel, Lem, Searle, Ulm, and many other good and wonderful people.
In an academic paper I would indeed indicate sources for my arguments, but I do not know how to find the source for the claim itself.
All in all, I tried to clarify what I was wondering to someone who asked. If you have nothing to add to the discussion, then please, enough with the personal attacks. This is not the first time you have done this.
Treat the content and not the form, if you can. The intention here is to have an interesting discussion, and I, at least, find no interest in your aggression.
Miracles,
Earlier you made a passing comment, you often confuse in your messages between "if" and "am". These are two different words and they don't have the same meaning, you should work on it a bit. You meant to say "I agree ***with*** this claim". The word "if" is used only if it is a condition "if there are clouds, there is a chance of rain" (the rain depends on the clouds).
I'm not competing with anyone and I'm not trying to bash, it's a shame it's hard for you to receive legitimate criticism. I'm just looking for fairness in a dialogue with people. Wouldn't it seem strange to you if someone wrote in the forum "I claim that bacteria cause diseases", or "I claim that the earth is round", as if he was the one who discovered it?
If you cite claims of smart people who discovered important things, give them the credit they deserve and don't say "I claim that...", because that's not really your claim. This is their claim and you are just repeating it.
that's it.
one
There is a claim that says there are commenters who really have nothing to say, and I agree with this claim.
Are you trying to compete with Rafael?
Miracles, so maybe you need to work on the wording of your messages a bit. Because when you start a sentence with the words "My claim is... I claim that...", an impression is made on the person reading your message as if you are presenting an argument that is original to you and you were the first to think of it.
I would phrase things a little differently (for example "There is a claim that I agree with and according to..." or "Awareness is not just zero or one...").
one
Where I have original claims it is in a slightly different area, and I have already written about it before. Maybe, that's why Raphael is so rude to me….
one
The claims are old. I also gave a source (in response to Shay). For me, the claim is self-evident, and I don't understand how it is possible to think otherwise.
I also don't understand what you're trying to say, other than hitting...
"My claim is different - I claim that there is a continuity of consciousness. Consciousness is a collection of processes in the central nervous system, which simulates the environment, and its role is to predict the future... Insects, for example, have more consciousness... Fish have a little more consciousness, reptiles even more, and mammals and birds much more."
Just for the record, these two ideas of different levels of consciousness (low, high and all the intermediate levels in between) and of a brain whose job is actually to simulate the environment and predict the future in order to help the animal survive better, are familiar and well-known ideas that I have personally heard in several lectures on the subject of the brain .
Surely there is no one here who can take credit for these ideas.
gift
Roger Penrose does argue that a quantum mechanism is needed to explain consciousness. I don't think so, because I think the complexity of the brain (at the level of neurons) is enough to explain everything.
I completely agree that not everything is predetermined! The behavior of my car is not predetermined either. But note four things.
The first - in simple cases, the behavior depends on the input and the current state. If we are in the same situation with the same input, we will get the same result. The car is an example of this.
The second - in complex systems, we will not be able to know the current state, and/or the input. Think about flipping a coin. In principle, this is a deterministic process, but in practice it appears to be random.
The third is that a deterministic system does not mean that its future state can be calculated. For example - the orbits of the planets cannot be calculated accurately.
Four - it is very possible that there is true randomness in nature, and perhaps it has an effect on our brains as well.
Now I read that you say that the decision experience is due to signals in the brain. interesting…
I started reading the research… thanks.
I appreciate that there is nothing that is not physical.
But I'm not sure it's written in advance, like in classical physics. Perhaps it works on quanta that are not expected, producing results that were not initially determined.
I am curious to scientifically understand our experience of choice. Is it really an illusion? And also what is the purpose of this selection mechanism.
gift
There is a very famous study by Benjamin Libet, but there are debates about its meaning.
but! There is a study by a doctor I happen to be working with this week, named Yitzhak Fried. An amazing man - here is a link to one of his studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3052770
He is an Israeli doctor, with whom I work in the US - just to upset our Raphael.
gift
Indeed, there is serious research that shows that "we" do not decide 🙂
Research has shown that there are signals in the brain that appear right before we make a decision. If you want, I'll find a link to (my) research tonight.
Do you think there is something inside us that is not physical?
Miracles,
Read. Nice story.
I agree with the point you made: the zygote cell has no more consciousness than the bacterium. Or at least in algae, which is a eukaryote.
And yet, when I talk about the difference between a machine and an emotion, I say that even if we create Gervis ("Iron Man") or any other machine that will conduct a reasonable dialogue with us, after all we will know that it consists of formulas and calculations, and we can conclude and say that there is no "someone ”, but it all boils down to a cluster of electrical pulses.
So… I know it's very similar to the human brain. It is also electric pulses. But overall, we all seem to think we are "someone".
Does anyone here think not?
It is difficult to solve it with a wave of the hand and say: we are a sophisticated machine.
Because the machine, as far as we understand it, lacks the basic ability to say: "I decided".
Are you claiming that a human being does not have the ability to decide, to choose...?
I have no proof that I really decide, and choose, but most of us think we do choose. And serious scientific research is needed to decide on the matter.
gift
My claim is different - I claim that there is a continuity of consciousness. Consciousness is a collection of processes in the central nervous system, which simulates the environment, and its role is to predict the future. The simplest thermostat has a very low level of consciousness - it "knows" what the desired temperature is, what the temperature is in the environment, and controls a heat/cold source to bring the measured temperature closer to the desired temperature. A bacterium has more "processes" - it knows how to recognize food and stay away from poisons and maybe even enemies (I don't understand much about bacteria). A virus, on the other hand, has no consciousness, has no processes and does not react to the environment.
Insects, for example, have more consciousness. They feel hunger, sexual attraction, fear, light and so on. But - they don't feel pain, for example. Fish have slightly more consciousness, reptiles even more, and mammals and birds much more.
Now - let's look at it along another axis - the timeline. A person begins as a fertilized egg, if the level of consciousness of a bacterium (approx..). If the fetus develops, the level of consciousness rises, and it even continues to rise after birth for a period of maybe even a few years.
And unfortunately - for some of us the level of consciousness begins to decrease as we grow older, and for all of us consciousness stops almost completely when we die (the moment of death is a legal concept, not a biological one).
You are describing thinking and feelings and it is a problematic concept. They are difficult to define. We know that animals also think and feel (love, anger, pain, jealousy, longing, pity, revenge, suspicion, pleasure and so on). We also know how to control thinking and emotions using chemicals and electricity. Therefore, in my opinion, these are phenomena that are part of consciousness, they are part of the same scope that I briefly described, and they are physical/chemical/biological phenomena, like anything else.
If you want a short and interesting story - then read here - http://junkerhq.net/MGS2/MarkIII.html
I hope this shows you that our sense of what consciousness is is complex and misunderstood.
Strong,
The truth is that there is no other explanation. Your car's behavior is quite familiar and quite human. I guess she is afraid that the mechanics will disassemble her engine and hurt her. You know how it is with the mechanics...
Miracles
If I understand your claim correctly: if we perfect the car more and more... one day there will be someone inside who will feel experiences.
At the moment the mechanic is not someone. It doesn't really matter to her if she takes you home, or makes a mistake in applying. She has no experience.
I, on the other hand, am someone who feels... and thinks... and is angry and loves...
Miracles
Indeed, what is amazing about Raphael is that over time he manages to become more and more stupid and cowardly.
Raphael
I'm glad your stupidity fills you with so much joy of life. At least you have one thing in life to fall for.
Raphael
What explanation other than self-awareness do you have for the fact that my car makes noises all the time but when I get to the garage it's suddenly quiet and the mechanics tell me there's no problem?
I can't anymore. People see me sitting in front of the screen and laughing. What will I tell them? That there is someone who claims that his car has self-awareness and says that anyone who disagrees with him has a low IQ?
Nissim, you need a psychiatric evaluation urgently. I hope your medical insurance covers severe cases like yours.
walking dead
It always seems to me that Raphael has reached the bottom, but I am surprised every time again 🙂
It's amazing how much religion can lower the level of intelligence...
WD So go look for a site where there are some cars that agree to talkback with you
Raphael
Nissim's car today is already able to make decisions better than you. Nissim's car in 15 years will be able to think more than you (although of course it's not a big challenge).
WD Go tell that to Nissim's car, maybe she'll listen to you.
Raphael
The fact that someone else also says another person (and even a professor) does not mean that the saying has a foundation. It just means that someone other than you is saying something without foundation. I understand that appealing to authority is very trendy for you, but in the world of what is right and what is wrong, it has no meaning. I don't even have the strength to go into the number of failures in this work of your dear Yakir Shoshani, mainly because you will say that it is too long and it is difficult for you to read so much, but his claim boils down to saying that I want to claim this and that my claim will be true, there is no basis for it.
If you ever want to go back to trying to figure out what a physical law is, I'd also be willing to maybe show you the errors of a loved one.
(Of course this will not happen because for you independent thinking is scary)
Raphael
You are a miserable, vile and stupid person. I have no more to add.
one
There are no salaries in the project. This is an academic research project. My workplace is at UCLA, so I have access to what I want, in the field that interests me.
Watson is a computer that knows how to search a database and answer questions about this database. His software does not know how to answer the question "Are you hot?" The worm does, and so does the car.
I'll say it again, to my understanding there is a range of awareness. There are people who are very low in the range. For example - humans have a temperature regulation mechanism. But, for a person in full earth, this mechanism is paralyzed.
If we want to define a threshold in the range, and say that only above this threshold there are ads - then please. But, then we also need to offer a test for this threshold. Number of neurons? Turing test?
Theory of mind?
In my personal opinion, awareness is a collection of processes that simulate the environment to predict the future - with the aim of helping survival. Auto, worm and man have such processes, but I think Watson does not.
Miracles,
What I said, dear professor Shoshani also says http://odyssey.org.il/209313 who is not suspected of being one of those who say Amen to what the preacher says.
Besides, it's better to torture Amen in churches in the Land of Israel than to be anti-Semitic and fall into a frenzy in America's dying exile.
Miracles,
You said earlier "there is a project I am involved in, called Open Worm". Do you get paid for your work on this project? Or did you mean to say that you downloaded to your computer their free kit that can be downloaded from the project website that allows anyone to play with the worm's code and perform various experiments?
You also did not address my questions regarding your conscious car, you said that you do not understand what is in the worm that is not in the car. As someone who has been dealing with the subject of the brain for so many years, do you really not understand the difference between a (modest) neuron network like a worm has, and the computer chips that exist in your car?
You also didn't explain to me why you claim your car has awareness but Watson, which has a thousand times greater computing power, doesn't, could you please explain that?
I am not involved in WATSON, but in two other things. In big data analytics I carry out projects that can be said to be research only not at the university but in combination. In addition, I am a young doctoral student working in the industry on electricity and electronics. I became interested in WATSON, because I saw the strength of the mathematics of neural networks which is in a completely different mathematical direction from my natural direction, but closer to our form of sensing.
one
I am interested in the subject of "free choice", and am trying to come up with experiments that can be done with the real worms, and the software that simulates them, in order to understand the origin of the phenomenon. The project is not yet at an appropriate stage, so in the meantime I raise questions and receive answers... I know a little about the subject from several directions and I try to combine ideas and knowledge (what little I have...) from different fields.
"There is a project I'm involved in, called Open Worm. Here they are trying to simulate each cell in a simple worm called C. elegans"
May I ask how you are involved in the project and what is your current contribution there?
"Again - I didn't understand what's in the worm that isn't in the car. The worm's brain has 302 neurons... that's it. A new car has a lot of calculating power, and I really don't understand how you decide that one is aware and one is not.'
Nissim, for some reason you continue to be dumbfounded, the worm in question has 302 nerve cells that are connected to each other, remind me how many nerve cells your wonderful car has? So you really don't understand what a worm or a cat has that a car doesn't have?
And if your car has ads, why do you claim that the Watson computer does not? After all, it has a thousand times greater calculation power, so why doesn't it have awareness and your car does? What does he not have and your car has?
(PS - I think you are the only one here who claims that the worm has consciousness, most people estimate that a much larger and more developed brain is needed in order for consciousness to form in it, a worm's brain does not even come close to the necessary minimum level)
Ori
I meant Del Watson hardware, which is standard processors. I do not underestimate IBM for a moment! 🙂
But, the distance to the computer is still enormous. There is a project I am involved in, called Open Worm. Here they try to simulate each cell in a simple worm called C. elegans. At first, all you want is for the worm to crawl. There are a total of 95 muscle cells and 302 "brain" cells. The project, in which man years have been invested, has not yet reached this initial stage, and not because they are not trying. It's just complicated.
IBM made a quarter of a billion identical neurons. Great - but in a real world of 302 different cells, it turns out to be much more complex...
I enjoyed chatting with you. There aren't many islands of wisdom in the country and Daan is one of them.
Watson's software is based on neural networks that are used for machine learning and what is known as "natural language". It performs data mining in its vast databases, and analytics of the material (big data analytics) in a manner similar to what the ORACLE company intends to perform in cyberspace in another article that appears on the website. He performs program pattern matching (pattern recognition) and probabilistic hypotheses regarding the correct answer in the case of Jeffery, and in the case of matching articles on topics relevant to a particular researcher - in an old article that appeared here, and computer vision and pattern recognition in the case of the physician's assistant.
In the latter case it is a sensation very similar to ours, in the first and second cases it is a relatively similar insight to ours on a simpler level. After that, IBM developed a cognitive chip that includes 250,000,000 neurons for my memory - I don't want to commit. The next generation of Watson systems may also contain cognitive chips. why? Because training the neurons takes tens of minutes on a home computer, and on the hardware (chip) it will probably take the blink of an eye. I suggest not to underestimate the revolution happening at IBM.
Those who read the science review from 2000 understand that in all fields there are discoveries at an exponential speed compared to the 20th century at the same time that there is Daesh and Hezbollah.
https://i.imgur.com/iWKad22.jpg
Ori
Our thoughts are much closer than you think 🙂 Only – leave poor Watson aside – Watson is a classic computer as I'm typing on it right now. Watson's hardware is not based on neural networks. There are Power processors (which are RISC processors) and a lot of memory.
You can look at the brain as a machine based on two processors, with a single memory space. One processor is sequential and slow and expresses our thinking in language. We use it to do math, play chess, and so on. When a young pilot flies - he uses this processor (works according to procedures, thinks about the next step and so on). The second processor expresses intuition - associative thinking. When you walk down the street and see a familiar person, whom you haven't seen in years - it's the processor that performs the identification. A veteran pilot uses this processor and "flys naturally".
The term "self-aware" is problematic. If the worm is self-aware, so is the car. And if the worm is not aware - then who is? insect? reptile? mice? Monkeys? How do you know who is self-aware or not?
They say that there is a level of awareness, called theory of mind, and you become aware that others are aware... But, how is it different from a fighter plane, which not only knows that there is another plane in the sky - it also knows whether the other plane knows about it or not?
Again - I did not understand what is in the worm that is not in the car. The worm's brain has 302 neurons... that's it. A new car has a lot of computing power, and I really don't understand how you decide that one is aware and one is not.
let me tell you something Our brain has dozens of areas, each area responsible for a different role. There is one area that is responsible for speech, and there is another area that is responsible for language. In particular - there are different areas for nouns and verbs. So - what exactly is "consciousness" here?
Miracles I go along with your line of thought for a moment (not all the time).
A car may or may not have consciousness, and so does a worm. The computational tool (similar to the Kabbalistic concept) in the service of that consciousness, the body/mind is very simple in a worm, does not exist in a car and is more complex in you. If there is a similar consciousness in all of us separate from the brain as you perceive it, it cannot be self-aware with such a primitive computational tool. You will have to put it in a more sophisticated calculation tool for it to manifest itself. In this case: if we open a computational tool that is sufficiently sophisticated than our brain, what will prevent that external consciousness from entering it.
Alternatively, according to your perception, there is an absolute fixed and unchangeable scope of awareness: car/worm/man and Watson according to you has no awareness at all. If you allow try to challenge your perception.
Biological evolution brought us as a body from the worm, we duplicated the same basic DNA. And it changed nothing more than the amount and order of synapses in the brain. This is what the scientists are doing with Watson and other computers that include neurons in software or hardware or "natural language". The moment they land on sufficient quantity and organization, they will be able to develop a computational tool that will be aware of itself. It's nice that we haven't insulted each other yet and I respect you and you me in the meantime.
Raphael
What did I say that was wrong in your opinion? We are talking science here, and not sitting in a yeshiva and saying "amen" to what the preacher says.
You think I'm wrong - then look where. I didn't say a single unfounded sentence.
walking death, I used to be a fox (in one of my previous incarnations) and believe me I didn't have the same level of awareness as I have today.
According to what do people here determine that a person has a higher level of awareness than a fox?
Miracles
If Raphael doesn't just throw out words without foundation, he will have to never comment here.
Miracles, it seems to me that the one who throws words without foundation is you. Ask even your car.
"The worm has a total of hundreds of nerve cells"
Miracles, and how many nerve cells does your car have? How many synaptic connections are there between them, and does it have more consciousness than an expert system that you claim is "the opposite of consciousness and has no thinking"?
Listen, I think it's amazing that a man who claims to be an expert on the subject of the mind claims that his car has consciousness. I just suggest you don't tell your co-workers about it, I don't know how they will take it.
Raphael
Don't just throw out words without foundation.
Ori
Expert systems are the opposite of consciousness - there is no thinking in them. Watson is also generally a powerful classical computer, and not related to the matter.
Now - explain to me how a worm has more consciousness than a car.
The tool of consciousness is more developed in the worm than in the vehicle, and in you more than in the worm I suppose.
Without advanced computational and sensing tools consciousness cannot be advanced.
We are probably missing parts of the puzzle of consciousness, and there is another way, but expert systems that advise us are a step on the way. They solve complicated problems - usually sensing, but also more complicated solutions such as neural networks and fuzzy logic.
The day they will be able to formulate theoretical sentences, I think they will have consciousness. In my opinion, it would be possible to apply such a mathematical thing. The next step will be for them to solve theoretical sentences by themselves and that will make me a little sad.
There is no doubt that IBM has an advantage over others in the application and WATSON, is a strong cognitive commercial application with many applications.
The cognitive chips are also a clear direction.
All this should not interfere in my opinion for those who believe in a superfluous soul, and that it is something sacred. I kind of believe it. I am also ready to live in peace with atheists - because we have science and culture in common, I hope, against darkness and ignorance.
one
I really mean what I say. You cut a fox, but what do you say about a worm? She has a central nervous system, she recognizes her own kind, is hungry, moves away from danger...
If a worm has no consciousness, then how do you define the boundary between having consciousness and not having consciousness?
And if a hand worm has consciousness - why doesn't my car have one? The worm has hundreds of nerve cells in total.
I responded to the miracles and I am happy that the orphaned article gets 18 talkbacks.
I agree with one. I very much respect both opinions expressed here.
I am a bit unusual person. Believe in a supreme being (God), and together with that we can investigate everything in scientific theories of matter. That is: in my estimation consciousness will gradually develop and even hypothetically pass us by.
Nissim, it looks like you're just being lazy.
There is a certain possible range of awareness levels that can range from a certain minimum (for example the awareness level of a fox, cat or even a mouse) to a high awareness level of a human, or even an alien with a more developed brain whose awareness level is higher than ours.
Saying that your car has awareness just because it reacts to things is ridiculous, because you know it doesn't have a nervous system even at a minimal level capable of creating some kind of awareness.
Otto's level of "awareness" is a round zero and I'm pretty sure it's clear to you as well, so it's not clear why you still claim such a thing.
rival
What is "real awareness"? Eitan wrote beautifully, and explained that there is a range of awareness. And one explained that even a single person has different levels of awareness - which, by the way, can also fade back to nothing.
Eitan, but this is exactly what I wrote, read it again:
"Even a baby who has just been born and whose brain has not yet developed is still not aware of itself in the first stages, self-awareness begins to appear slowly, getting stronger day by day... Self-awareness will slowly begin to appear in them. At first with a low intensity, almost imperceptible (like the self-awareness that exists in a chimpanzee, elephant, or dolphin) and slowly it will begin to increase until it reaches the level of awareness of a person, and then overtakes it.'
How did you understand that I am talking about a binary self-awareness of zero or one? After all, I wrote exactly the opposite, I wrote that between a state of unconsciousness and a state of human awareness there is a very wide range of intermediate possibilities.
one
Awareness is not binary.
Ads have different levels.
The awareness of a wise person is different from the awareness of a stupid person.
The awareness of an adult is different from the awareness of a baby.
The awareness of a chimpanzee is different from the awareness of a dog.
Quantifying the level of awareness is already more difficult.
No one claims that a bacterium has consciousness and few would argue that it only has consciousness.
As you go up the phylogenetic ladder, the question becomes more difficult.
You can look at awareness as a pile of sand and ask: how many grains of sand can be removed from the pile before it stops being a pile.
Regarding self-awareness.
If man is built only of matter, then at what point will the machines that man will build have self-awareness as well.
But since man also consists of a spiritual part and self-awareness depends on him, then there will never be self-awareness for a machine.
Miracles speak of real awareness, not just reactions and indications.
My car is also aware of itself - it complains when it's hot, when it's cold, when it runs out of gas, when the speed is too high, and so on.
Uri, it is clear that a very large part of the actions we perform occur unconsciously, even our conscious decisions begin unconsciously "below the surface" until they seep up towards our conscious part, there is no disagreement between us here.
I was only referring to the part of your words that talked about self-awareness of a computer.
Correction I meant "Uri, who did you respond to?"
"I don't think so"
One, who did you respond to? According to your words, it seems that you quite agree with what I wrote.
Deep blue is also a regular computer.
The neural network I use is in software and available to anyone. There is a Matlab neural networks toolbox package Matlab machine learning and statistics toolbox and Microsoft provides free distribution and even supports the AZURE package for programming in the .NET language. The current generation of students leaves the university in part with the understanding that the distance from the singular point of Kurzwil is not so far.
I don't think so. If you enter the subject of machine learning, you will see that you are a lot of machine.
Your unconscious decision-making is statistical, and all your senses probably work in a similar way to IBM's cognitive chips, which will begin to enter laptops and make the computer interface intuitive and with facial movements, speech.
When you see a member of the opposite sex, and without risking sexual harassment, you unconsciously perform pattern recognition on him and compare his body and face to the model you have in mind.
A large part of us is a machine, with neurons, and a large part of the algorithms we perform in our heads are statistical.
I have a pattern recognition school. Every time I want to perform a human operation on an array of sensors of a certain type, I install a neural network - which replaces the people I don't have to place in each sensor. And the neural network does a good job at all - I'm sorry to say.
Nissim probably meant IBM's "deep blue" computer.
Uri, I think that a computer that will be aware of itself is only a matter of time, in my opinion no more than a few decades. Regarding "I believe that he is not yet aware of himself like we are" this is true, but even a newborn baby whose brain has not yet developed is still not aware of himself in the first stages, his self-awareness begins to appear slowly, grows stronger day by day until suddenly it "exists" and can To say that the child is already aware of himself (I think that language has a central role here, it is the one that allows us the special ability to "talk to ourselves" inside our heads with the help of words, I am not sure that this is possible without language).
In my opinion, we will also see a similar process among computers and neural networks (like the cognitive chip you mentioned), the more powerful and more complex these computers and neural networks will be, the more slowly self-awareness will begin to appear in them. At first with a low intensity, almost imperceptible (like the self-awareness that exists in a chimpanzee, or an elephant, or a dolphin) and slowly it will begin to increase until it reaches the level of awareness of a person, and then overtakes it.
Ori
What are you talking about? Watson does not play chess, and certainly does not win "cognitively". It's a classic computer, very powerful. Developed with the goal of winning at trivia, Watson intelligently searches a large database. An impressive achievement, but there is no "thinking" here.
Maybe you should read the page you linked to?
Good. I believe that he is still not as self-aware as we are.
It is useful to explain to those who are not familiar what it is (a computer system) or more precisely who Watson is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)
WATSON is a software + conventional hardware computer system that beat the Jeopardy trivia game.
This system detects behavior that is cautiously called - outwardly similar to human behavior with human inferences.
In my opinion, IBM is closer than most of the public imagines to parts of a very successful cognitive concept, and as mentioned also developed a cognitive chip that includes 250 million (?) neurons. In terms of hardware, operations that take 20 minutes on a laptop are performed in the blink of an eye.
Ray Kurzweil's vision of the singularity seems closer, even though we may not yet know all the elements of consciousness.
We developed the logical computer - which is the computer nowadays. Cognitive and machine learning features are now being developed for computers, but that word is misleading. In my opinion, the human also performs machine learning. If Watson can cognitively beat anyone at chess, and win a multi-topic trivia quiz, when will we be sure that he is still not self-aware, just because statistical formulas make up his consciousness? Maybe even with us the machine makes statistical cognitive inferences.