[ExI] Symbol Grounding

Wed Apr 26 23:43:28 UTC 2023

*Think about what are physical objects, ultimately. Physics gives no
answer. It tells us how things behave (i.e. how they function) but never
what they are. The only thing then, that differentiates glutamate from
glycine, is how they behave, and react or relate to Roger things, which are
also defined only by how they behave. Physical objects are only definable
by their functional descriptions and relations. This is why I think
functionalism is so powerful. It's the foundation of everything we can
describe.*

I tried to describe this to Brent many times. But it doesn't go through. I
mentioned even F=ma is just an operational definition that doesn't tell us
what mass is but allows us to re-organize and order object with this
property. I tried to explain that an electron doesn't exist for Physics
(not Giovanni but the science itself) per se but that we know an electron
interacting with a field. We just know of the interaction and in fact it is
all what is needed to describe reality. Maybe all these are too abstract
an example to see the relevance to the material "redness" Brent is looking
for and even less how this is relevant to the Grounding Problem by Gordon
that is just part of the same general fallacy.

So let me be more concrete in terms of the neuroscience of color. First of
all, from all that we know about neuroscience color most certainly doesn't
depend on the presence or concentration of a particular substance such as
glutamate. Most brain phenomena are represented by firing patterns. I don't
know if you know Brent but that memory of your first kiss to that pretty
girl (sorry if I make assumptions about your sexuality but I wanted to find
something we considered memorable) it is simply a particular firing in the
neurons. If we want to go real physical these neurons are not all the same
so some coding of the memory is actually in the physical form of the
neurons for example what are called the spines. Maybe that is the closest
thing we can point out to your "glutamate" that if I understand well is
some physical candidate you are looking for.
The brain indeed changes materially when we learn and create new memories,
new connections are formed. In ANN these are usually fixed as far as I know
even if I think some sophisticated architecture mimick this phenomenon of
creating and destroying connections (you can always "destroy" an ANN
connection by making the weight equal to 0).  So yes, increasing or
decreasing connection is another level of complexity in the brain but in
the end what counts are the connections. Even this business or adding and
destroying connections can be mimicked in an ANN.

Let me continue though in showing all what counts are the connections. If
you don't mind I will change slightly the topic and talk about another
neural phenomenon where we know (up to a point because physiology is a
mess) that the presence of certain material substances is important. The
phenomenon I'm referring to is depression. In particular the idea that
serotonin "modulates" (see here the general terms modulate) mood and we can
intervene using some substance to change serotonin levels in the brain and
therefore affect mood.
>From some website:

It's thought that SSRIs work by increasing serotonin levels in the brain.
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter (a messenger chemical that carries signals
between nerve cells in the brain). It's thought to have a good influence on
mood, emotion and sleep. After carrying a message, serotonin is usually
reabsorbed by the nerve cells (known as "reuptake"). SSRIs work by blocking
("inhibiting") reuptake, meaning more serotonin is available to
pass further messages between nearby nerve cells. It would be too
simplistic to say that depression and related mental health conditions are
caused by low serotonin levels, but a rise in serotonin levels can improve
symptoms and make people more responsive to other types of treatment, such
as CBT.
In this case one can argue that given several patients feel better when
taking SSRI then it shows a material cause for depression, which is an even
more complex neural phenomenon than qualia. This is the closest example I
know to something to that Brent advocates as the source of brain stuff.
But let me point out that even in this case that is the strongest I know
that could support Brent position the functionalist understanding of the
brain still prevails. Few remarks to understand the phenomenon better:
1) It takes a long time after taking SSRI for the brain actually to
respond.
2) The response is universal, some subjects respond very positively, others
not so much, and others even become more depressed.
3) There are many substances that can take this role of SSRI and not just
one in particular.
4) Many side effects.

As we mentioned many times the language of the brain is these neural train
spikes that form a code. The brain sends this info into the axons to
communicate with each other, they are like co-axial cables in a sense. Now
because of some biological limitations or maybe cleverness of design, there
are gaps between the individual axon that protrudes from a neuron and the
dendrite (receiving cable) of another neuron that tries to connect with the
axon of another neuron. At the signal-sending end, there is a synapse,
which is a little bulb that contains small pockets of chemicals that are
released when an electrical signal arrives through the axon.  At the
receiving ends of the gap, there are dendritic synapses and spines. The
neurotransmitters are released by the axon of the neurons that sends the
signal when they receive the electrical impulse, they diffuse in the
biological fluids in the gap and then they interact with the dendritic
synapse by a reverse mechanism where the presence of the chemicals triggers
an electrical impulse that then travels along the dendrite.

As with everything in neuroscience, we are still figuring out all the
details but here is a paper (related to the visual cortex so more relevant,
notice the mention of Brent's favorite glutamate) that describes how a
spine and dendritic synapse differ in processing the information received.
Anyway, the bottom line is that because the electrical signal cannot jump
the gap, the signal continues by being "carried" by the neurotransmitters

https://brendabloodgood.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2018_Sancho_Bloodgood-1.pdf

The presence of these chemicals makes things more complicated for sure and
it is not as simple as we claimed before that it is just spiky trains that
matter. One of the main questions in my opinion here is did nature create
these gaps on purpose (maybe the axons could merge and form a long cable
but this was not ideal for some reason) because of some physical limitation
or actually nature used this design because it gives some additional
degrees of freedom to achieve the main goal of the brain that is processing
information and regulating bodily functions and movement.
It is an interesting question and we don't have the answer.

But let's look at what exactly these chemicals do. They are carriers of
information. They don't have any intrinsic quality of redness per se or
sadness or happiness or anger or whatever other sensation or feeling the
neurotransmitter "modulates". Modulate is just a vague general word to say
they have some kind of role in the neural phenomenon. With SSRI for example
we do not produce happiness by the presence of this substance (or
indirectly by allowing more serotonin in the brain) but we try to affect
material things like the presence of serotonin to obtain downstream the
desired effect.

The neurotransmitters carry the information from the train spike by
increasing or decreasing their concentration, they can diffuse in the
intracellular fluids and affect other neurons. It is a more fuzzy and
global way to transmit information than a 1 to 1 signal transmission. It is
almost as if the electrical pulse in a phone call via cable was changed
into a blasting sound in a speaker at regular intervals in the phone cable
and then picked by a microphone that converts back the sound into an
electrical pulse in another cable and so on. Or maybe the conversion is
even crazier like a bunch of chemicals sprayed in the air that some
detectors have to analyze and then convert into some form of electrical
code and so on. It is a crazy way to communicate and it seems very
inefficient. It is possible that this is a feature and not a bug in the
system.
It is something I would like to understand better and not sure current
neuroscience can answer this important question. At first sight, it seems
more like a Golderb Machine that does the job but in a very very
inefficient and redundant way. A lot of biology is like that.

But let's assume there is some hidden and mysterious benefit in using these
chemicals to continue the transfer of information from one neuron to
another (or multiple) all these chemicals do is really transfer the info.
Why do I say so? Because whatever the chemicals do at the level of synapses
in the end we still have a spike trains that is created in the dendrite and
that is what is processed by the neuron in the end.
It is not just a theory we have many applications that use this
understanding of what counts in the brain. I have mentioned the memory
prosthesis by Dr. Berger which is just a digital representation of the
neural connections, as far as I know, it doesn't have any neurotransmitters
in it or anything that emulates their presence. Same with visual cortex
prosthesis. Also, the indirect fact that ANN is able to process information
and in fact, this entire business of LLM can manipulate and process
high-level information (that is one of the most fundamental hallmarks of
humanity, language) with only weights in a matrix that are functional
representations of the strength of the connection between neurons. This
strength doesn't need to be necessarily a single number but it can be also
represented by a function, maybe this is equivalent to what a
neurotransmitter does after all, different responses according to different
levels of concentration of a neurotransmitter but again whatever the
glutamate does its relevance is in the fact that contributes to the signal
been transmitted.

You may ask but wait WHAT IS the signal about, it has to be about something
right? Sure, the signal tells us something is happening somewhere (like in
the case of sensory input), that a particular type of interaction is
happening. This all. What applies to fundamental physics has to apply to
what happens in the brain. We know the world by observing the interactions.
Interactions between what? It doesn't matter and we cannot know because the
only way to know what that thing maybe be is to interact with it. We define
things by the result of the interaction itself.

Giovanni

On Wed, Apr 26, 2023 at 1:45 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Hi Jason,
> Oh, this seems to be a big part of our misunderstanding.
> You said: "Physics gives no answer."
> It would have been true, and more accurate, to have said:  Objective
> observation of physics through our abstract senses, alone, "gives no
> answers." (for the same reason you can't communicate to someone what
> redness is like with only abstract symbols like text)
> You are ignoring the fact that we also have subjective access to physics
> (or maybe you think color qualities are non physical?).  The prediction is
> that glutamate (or something) behaves the way it does, because of the
> subjective quality we can directly experience in consciousness.  If
> experimental physical science that includes subjective access to the same
> demonstrates that it is glutamate = rednerss and glycine = greenness.  Then
> things like this will be saying the same thing.
>
> My redness/glutamate/behavior is the same as your
> glycine/greenness/behavior, both of which we call red.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 26, 2023 at 12:04 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 26, 2023, 12:47 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hi Jason,
>>> OK, let me see if I can summarize what is important in what you are
>>> saying.
>>> We all agree that subjective qualities exist (Thank you Giovani, for
>>> explicitly expressing this in your statement I quoted) we are just making
>>> falsifiable predictions about the nature of those qualities.
>>>
>>> But help me out with something regarding this functional nature of
>>> qualities.  You also said: "consciousness is the verbs not the nouns".  I
>>> would say the virb is "pick" as in pick the strawberry.  The strawberry is
>>> the object or the noun.  I would say the quality is the property of the
>>> noun, which tells us what to pick (the red one) and what not to pick (the
>>> green one).  And whether we use a subjective redness property to represent
>>> the red one, or a subjective grenness property to represent, either way, we
>>> can pick the right one.  But what does any of that function, have to do
>>> with determining what redness is like?  Seems to me, the properties we
>>> represent our knowledge with, is substrate dependent.  If you change it
>>> from glutamate to glycine, it is going to be physically different, and even
>>> though both will allow you to pick the correct strawberry (if you have the
>>> correct dictionary), they are still representing the knowledge with
>>> different physical properties. (or different subjective qualities, if you
>>> must)
>>>
>>
>> Think about what are physical objects, ultimately. Physics gives no
>> answer. It tells us how things behave (i.e. how they function) but never
>> what they are. The only thing then, that differentiates glutamate from
>> glycine, is how they behave, and react or relate to Roger things, which are
>> also defined only by how they behave. Physical objects are only definable
>> by their functional descriptions and relations. This is why I think
>> functionalism is so powerful. It's the foundation of everything we can
>> describe.
>>
>> Jason
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 26, 2023 at 8:50 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Apr 26, 2023, 8:07 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Henry,
>>>>> Welcome to the conversation, it is good to have other people weigh in
>>>>> on this, as required to better understand how everyone currently thinks
>>>>> about what we are.
>>>>> It took me some time to digest what you are saying.  I think I
>>>>> understand, so I want to say it back to you to see if I understand it.
>>>>>
>>>>> First, let me see if I can summarize the primary disagreement in this
>>>>> entire conversation.  It now appears there are some things both camps can
>>>>> now agree on, we  just have differing values about what is important.  I
>>>>> think Giovani captured this brilliantly with:
>>>>>
>>>>> “This is again a demonstration of the validity of the functionalist
>>>>> understanding of brain function. All I [functionalists] care about is
>>>>> the association, not how it feels to have the redness experience but how
>>>>> generalized it is.”
>>>>>
>>>>> So, Henry, you indicated the Perceiving a Strawberry
>>>>> <https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness?chapter=perceiving+a+strawberry&format=360>
>>>>> video was thought provoking.  Perhaps it got you to realize there are
>>>>> qualities or properties of subjective knowledge,  you are just indicating
>>>>> that external consistency in our ability to communicate about the nature of
>>>>> reality out there is more important than any property or type of code any
>>>>> intelligence may be using to represent that knowledge, in their brain.
>>>>>
>>>>> In other words, it seems to me that all the functionalists value is
>>>>> that we can all say: "The Strawberry is Red"  (as portrayed in this image)
>>>>> while some of us value the nature of the knowledge inside the brain, which
>>>>> enables us to all say: "The strawberry is red."
>>>>>
>>>>> [image: The_Strawberry_is_Red_064.jpg]
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Henry, Giovani, and everyone.  Does that capture the differences
>>>>> between the substrate independent, and substrate dependent camps?
>>>>> We all agree on the facts portrayed in this image, we are just valuing
>>>>> different parts of it, and some of us want to ignore other parts of it.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Functionalism doesn't deny the existence of qualia. As far as I know
>>>> only eliminative materialism goes thet far.
>>>>
>>>> Functionalism is just one among many theories in philosophy of mind
>>>> that attempts to explain what underlies consciousness (and qualia).
>>>>
>>>> Functionalism says consciousness is the verbs not the nouns, that make
>>>> a mind. A human mind is what the human brain does: it's set of actions and
>>>> behaviors, not what it's constitutional elements happen to be. So long as
>>>> the causal organization between the minds elements is preserved, it makes
>>>> no difference what the elements are or are made of.
>>>>
>>>> That's all functionalism says.
>>>>
>>>> Functionalism makes no denials of the reality of consciousness or
>>>> qualia, nor does it make any statements regarding their value.
>>>>
>>>> Jason
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 9:45 PM Henry Rivera via extropy-chat <
>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I really liked that video about the red strawberries. It's
>>>>>> thought-provoking. I'm curious to get Brent's response. Maybe color is the
>>>>>> wrong simple example to use for communicating about qualia. It worked well
>>>>>> enough until we realized color perception is a subjective contextual
>>>>>> process that did not evolve to favor reflecting (consensus) reality.
>>>>>> Perceived color constancy is more important, that is, has been more
>>>>>> adaptive for us. How about them apples... or strawberries.
>>>>>> To quote my late friend and rapper Sean Byrne: "Nothing exists
>>>>>> except for your perception, the pain of the past only serves as a lesson."
>>>>>> -Henry
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Apr 24, 2023 at 7:00 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Jason,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Mon, Apr 24, 2023 at 3:09 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>>>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> as in say the strawberry is red, but it would answer the question:
>>>>>>>>> "What is redness like for you." differently.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I don't see why they would answer this question differently if
>>>>>>>> everything got inverted, including all emotional associations. If you
>>>>>>>> changed only the word, but left the emotional associations as they were,
>>>>>>>> then you could perhaps get different descriptions.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm skipping a bunch of stuff that I think is less important, and
>>>>>>> focusing on what I think is most important, but if I skip over something
>>>>>>> important, don't let me brush over it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Giovani, evidently you think even a person engineered to have red /
>>>>>>> green qualia inversion, you would consider them to be indistinguishable,
>>>>>>> and that the quality difference of the subjective knowledge wouldn't matter?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It sounds like Jason at least thinks the two would be qualitatively
>>>>>>> different, and this difference is important, if you are asking what his
>>>>>>> redness is like for each of them.  Jason just has a problem with how we
>>>>>>> would know, or how he would report that.  For the moment, can we just say
>>>>>>> we are God, for a bit.  And we can know if the redness is now greenness,
>>>>>>> even though the person wouldn't know, since all of his memories and
>>>>>>> references have been remapped.
>>>>>>> The prediction is the future, we will be able to read people's
>>>>>>> minds, and objectively observe whether it is Jason's redness, or Jason's
>>>>>>> greenness, via neural ponytails, or whatever.
>>>>>>> The critically important part is we need to focus on only the
>>>>>>> important thing, the quality of the redness.  Not what the person thinks
>>>>>>> that quality is called, whether he is lying or whatever.  Let's only focus
>>>>>>> on the quality of the redness experiences.  Would God say that quality has
>>>>>>> changed or not, regardless of what the person says.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So, again, if you engineered someone to be a qualia invert.  God
>>>>>>> could honestly tell those two people that one's redness was like the
>>>>>>> other's grenness.
>>>>>>> And even though they would function differently, when asked what is
>>>>>>> redness like for you, they would know, since God told them, that their
>>>>>>> redness was like the other's greenness, so despite them being otherwise
>>>>>>> identical, they were qualitatively different.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So, would you agree that the quality of their consciousness is
>>>>>>> dependent on what their redness is like, and if one redness quality is like
>>>>>>> the other's greenness, that would be important and objectively observable?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
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