<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">I cannot say that I understand Chalmers. But scanning a brain at one point in time tells us little about what changes it will undergo in the next second, much less next week. And a scan of a human brain will show what it is like in the current stimulus environment (likely just sitting and doing little) , not any other environment. And our environment changes from second to second and there is an endless supply of different ones we experience. How many slices will it take to cover even a tiny fraction of them? bill w</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Nov 2, 2025 at 11:32 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Nov 2, 2025, 11:52 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Jason, keep in mind that 'same stimulus, same response' doesn't work. There scores of reasons why not, ; including simple habituation and sensitization (response waning or increasing). How do you map that?</div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I think the failing of behaviorism is it's consideration only if high level inputs and outputs, while ignoring the internal implementation.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">If instead you build a model of the brain based on its connectome and accurately model each neuron in that connectome, you will automatically recreate all the phenomena such as habituation and sensitization.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"> Very general tendencies, perhaps, can be mapped,but the closer you get to predicting specific responses the error rate will increase. And how do you count responses that are the reverse of what you predict?</div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Failures of the model, or limits of prediction induced by thermal noise.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">“The presence of background noise in biological systems implies that no process can depend on requiring more than a certain amount of precision. Beyond a certain point (say, the 10^-10 level on an appropriate scale), uncontrollable fluctuations in background noise will wash out any further precision. This means that if we approximate the state of the system to this level of precision (perhaps a little further to be on the safe side–to the 10^-20 level, for example), then we will be doing as well as the system itself can reliably do. It is true that due to nonlinear effects, this approximation may lead to behavior different from the behavior produced by the system on a given occasion–but it will lead to behavior that the system might have produced, had biological noise been a little different.”</div><div dir="auto">-- David Chalmers in "The Conscious Mind" (1996)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">So - we will never map the brain because its topography, if you will allow the metaphor, is constantly changing. bill w</div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But we can freeze a brain at a point in time and then scan it fully on our own time frame, as we have done already with worms and flies.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Jason </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Nov 1, 2025 at 9:52 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Nov 1, 2025, 9:56 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Given that all of our actions originate in the unconscious mind. there is no way a conscious mind can understand where its ideas and actions come from, much less understand them. </div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Great point!</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"> The conscious mind may think it is in charge but it is just an observer (which nevertheless can understand that a mistake has been made and the idea or action needs redoing.) </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">You want to understand our minds? Make the workings of the unconscious conscious - and that's just a start. Why did the impulse go to point B when it left point A rather than to point C? And then trace all the points in between entering the unconscious and resulting in some idea or action. And explain each one.</div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I have doubts that such a thing is possible from the perspective of the mind in question. Can any brain ever feel and know what each of its neurons is doing? Can those corresponding neurons feel and know what every one of its constituent atoms is doing?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Given Turing universality, it's provable that computer software can't know about its underlying hardware. If our minds are a kind of software which can be simulated by a computer, then this same implication would apply to us. There would be a layer of abstraction of one's underlying implementation which high levels cannot penetrate.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">You can't even get started until you can truly access the unconscious. Give Freud credit- he tried to do this. </div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">He deserves credit for the attempt, but I think there are limits to a mind's ability to introspect.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">"Our thoughts seem to run about in their own space, creating new thoughts and modifying old ones, and we never notice any neurons helping us out! But that is to be expected. We can’t. […]</div><div dir="auto">We should remember that physical law is what
</div><div dir="auto">makes it all happen–way, way down in neural nooks and crannies which are too remote for us to reach with our high-level introspective probes."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">— Douglas Hofstadter in “Gödel, Escher, Bach” (1979)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Jason </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Oct 31, 2025 at 6:35 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 6:17 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" rel="noreferrer noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
<div>On 31/10/2025 21:34, Jason Resch wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 3:16
PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" rel="noreferrer noreferrer noreferrer noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div>On 31/10/2025 12:28, John K Clark wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>We can have a general sort of understanding of how our brain works but t<span class="gmail_default">o</span> have a perfect understanding a part of our brain would have to have a sort of internal map of the entire brain<span class="gmail_default">,</span> and for it to be perfect<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span>there would have to be a one to one correspondence between the map and the territory, but that would be impossible for something that is finite like the number of neurons in the human brain. However it would be possible for a proper subset of something infinite to have a one<span class="gmail_default"> to one</span> correspondence with the entire set; then you could have such a perfect map with a one to one correspondence ...</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
You've completely lost me there, but I have two
observations: There's no such thing as 'perfect
understanding' except as a nebulous theoretical concept,
and I don't think a one-to-one correspondence would be
enough to understand something, or even be a relevant
concept. We use large parts of our brains to process
information from small parts of the world. You need a lot
more than a single neuron to figure out what's going on in
a single neuron.<br>
<br>
Oh, three observations. We don't process data
instantaneously. The same parts of the brain can be used
to process information about something repeatedly over
time, using feedback loops etc.</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Computers and algorithms are constrained by two
resources space (i.e. memory), and time (i.e. CPU cycles). While
some algorithms allow for time/space trade offs to be made in
certain circumstances, in general there is some shortest
description of the brain (in terms of bits) for which no shorter
representation is possible (regardless of how much additional
computation is thrown at it).</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">So while the same brain may compute many times
with the same neurons, this addresses only the time component of
simulating a brain. There is still the matter of space.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Ah, ok. I was talking about understanding the brain, not simulating
it. Modelling something is not the same as understanding it. Yes,
they help each other, but they aren't the same thing.<br></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I think understanding a thing is equivalent to being able to form an accurate mental model of it. With greater levels of understanding corresponding to more accurate models.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">What do you mean by the word understand?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">The analogy here is that a computer with 1 MB of
RAM can't emulate a computer with 1 GB of RAM, even if it's
given 1000X the time to do so. In fact there's no amount of
additional time that will permit the memory deficient computer
to emulate the computer with 1 GB of memory, for the simple
reason that it will run out of variables to represent all the
possible values in the memory addresses of the computer with a
greater memory.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
I'm not sure that this is true. Are you assuming no swap disk, or
other similar non-RAM storage?</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Swap disks are a means to extend available RAM.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div> Because then I'm sure you're right,
but that's a pretty artificial restriction.<br>
The analogy there would be a human with a notepad maybe, or a
database, or a bunch of other humans, an AI, etc.<br>
<br>
So we're back to: A single human brain /on it's own/ can't
understand a human brain in any great detail. Of course.</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I think that was the original question: can any mind ever fully understand its own operation.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Jason </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div> But that's
a pretty artificial restriction.<br>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Ben</pre>
<br>
</div>
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