Brain simulation & AI

[Guv]

I am half way through a book on perception (A Second Way of Knowing by Edmund Blair Bolles, copyright 1991). It makes some interesting statements about the way the brain works, contrasting it with a computer. It touches a bit on AI. I thought some of you might be interested in a few of the ideas mentioned.

Following are some of the statements I found interesting. Some of the statements are exact quotes, other are paraphrases. I have omitted all sorts of stuff from the book which was written between the statements given below. I have added a few comments of my own.

For several thousand years, philosophers assumed than the brain must somehow store data about whatever is learned. In the jargon of the computer age, there must be an (indexed) data base that preserves what we learn. A later statement says that there is no memory storehouse in the brain — The billions of processors in the brain regularly reprogram themselves --- There is probably no indexer for locating items in this nonexistent storehouse.

Cell assemblies violate two basic features of computers. They change the physical material itself (computer programs do not change the hardware). They involve no software.

There is a description of a research project started in the seventies, whose goal was a computer which would read and understand what it read. They stated that reading and understanding a story is one of the most difficult tasks in the world. There was no description of what criteria would be used to conclude that they had succeeded. They never even started working on their final goal.

They hit an immediate snag when they realized that when humans read, they use a vast number of assumptions based on previous experience. This requires a database far more extensive than what is contained in a dictionary. Furthermore, the "database" changes dynamically. Some examples follow (my own examples: they gave none). The word "squeeze" has a meaning associated with the game of bridge. The dictionary definition is one sentence. In a book on bridge, the term requires almost a page of fairly terse statements. If you look up words like conservative, liberal, moderate the dictionary definitions do not change much with time, but the concepts they invoke do differ quite a bit as time goes by. Furthermore, the dictionary definitions do not invoke the vast number of examples and extra data used by a human brain when encountering such words. A moderate Republican is not much like a moderate democrat or a moderate Muslim or a moderate Chinese communist.

I once worked with some linguists who were writing translation software. Consider the following: The airplane flies like a bird; The fruit flies like a banana. English is one of the worst languages in this respect. In one sentence, "flies" is a verb; In the other it is a noun. When I read one sentence first, the other initially invokes thoughts of apples, oranges, & bananas with little wings. When I read them in reverse order, the second makes me imagine a mechanical device chewing the wings off an airplane. Computer translation programs have a terrible time with stuff like this, and translation is a lot easier than understanding for a computer.

By the late eighties, they ended up being satisfied with computer simulation of a neural network which reacts to a few different smells.

Simulating parallel actions on a serial computer is easy enough, but it slows down the simulation. In some of their latest experiments (in 1990), they simulate a second or two of events among ten thousand cells. It takes the computer all night to do the calculations. If you consider that the brain has billions of cells, even with a faster modern computer the AI boys have got some serious problems.

One simulation program showed some of the brain's most confusing characteristics. The model spontaneously created a six-pulse-per-second theta rhythm. Even more astonishingly, it showed the brain's confusing tendency to respond in different ways to identical inputs.

wow!

<I dont really have any comments on anything, just wanted to get my word in :D>

[HarryW]

May I ask what a six-pulse-per-second theta rhythm is please? Is it like a stable state of oscillation, like in Conway's Game of Life?

[Guv]

I do not know what a theta rhythm is either. I only know it is some jargon that brain specialists use. They wire a person up to one of their devices and say: "Alpha" state or "theta" rhythm or something else.

Cell assemblies violate two basic features of computers. They change the physical material itself (computer programs do not change the hardware). They involve no software.

I was going to say that we (the ".userMethod()") change the hardware (upgrade) as required/desired, but okay, a typical computer during a typical session does not have (significant) hardware changes during that session. I can see this changing in the future even with "Plug N Play" and USB or something similar where the computer decides to activate or add hardware.

As far as the software, I suppose there is some distinction between a brain cell and egg-sperm cells (I don't claim any biological mastery here) but DNA seems to be agreed to be a program or software. The "cell fluid suspension" seems to be the operating system that will execute the instructions of the program. There seems to be a standard instruction set that includes methods like: seek(), add(), divide(), eat(), disposeWaste() in the case of the egg-sperm entities. The first two while separate egg and sperm and the remaining three while together.

I've also heard of some "image" of brain activity during different actions of the body or different types of people (active/inactive people or psycho killers/average folks). The configuration of such an image could be a program or software.

A later statement says that there is no memory storehouse in the brain

I don't understand the author's point. Is the author saying that I don't have a type() method right now as I post or a memory store to remember the vb-world url?

What distinction is the author trying to make?

[Guv]

VirtuallyVB
When he says there is no database in our brain, I do not really understand what he is saying either. It seems to be something like the following.

When an application requires data (say for a spell checker), our current computers have a database with associated indices and programs which retrieve data. I think the author is saying that our brain organization has the database, retrieval mechanism, & programs requiring the data all germixed into the neural network (hardware) in such a way that they cannot be separated from each other.

I agree that windows 98 is on the verge of or is suggestive of software that changes the hardware. At least, we seem to be on the verge of dealing with virtual hardware, which is changed by the software. You mentioned Plug & Play. Also, when our Word Processor "prints" to a Fax program, it seems analogous to replacing the printer with a Fax device. When we create RAM Disks and/or use devices on a network, there is a suggestion of the hardware being changed dynamically.

[Gen-X]

Brain like a computer
I love when I read this statement... that they discovered the human brain functions like a computer... People forget that computers were modelled AFTER the human brain itself and therefor it is the other way around.

All of our advancements in the computer field come as a result of trying to make computers simulate the human brain (neural networks, multi-processors etc)

Brain Storage

The human brain stores information not by "address" as a computer does (A Database Index is bascially a paired sequence of key fields and absolute memory addresses in the storage of where to find those records), but instead it stores patterns.

This is why we have such a vast recollection and also why it can sometimes go wrong... The brain loses the majority of the information and instead stores the most prevalent parts of what we have learned in specific topologies for easy retrieval. That is why people who use "memory techniques" like converting the planet names into an acronym can remember them easier... because they created a pattern.

Harware Changing

VVB, I think you mistake "adding" hardware to actually "changing" it. Basically for computers to do this they require nanotechnology as the human body is not just a storage device but also a living factory that replicates whatever resources it needs to complete its tasks.

Neural pathways are strengthened by the inclusion of chemicals to increase the strength of the bonds such that electrical impulses will travel down them quicker and more easily than those connections which are weak. This is how Neural networks attempt to simulate the brain by altering the strengths (probabilities) of their nodes.

Just like exercising your body causes it to grow muscles, so does exercising your brain cause it to increase its pathways and strengthen bonds. Recent scientific studies have also discovered that neurons are actually CREATED (it was once thought brain cells were never replaced) and that which it appears they don't turn into fully fledged neurons themselves they "attach" themselves to needed areas to create stronger pathways or to "bridge" gaps.

This is why later in life people become more "wise"... becaue these additional neurons bridge gaps between information that previously appeared unrelated but with these new connections an insight is gained into the data that was processed.


There was a thread on here a long time ago about AI and humans being able to create computers that could truely think... I opposed that view then and some of the reasons above are exactly why I did... I don't believe we can create an artificial intelligence that can rival our own for the simple fact we don't even understand our own... let alone create something equal or better than ourselves.

Its a simple principle really but people prefer to believe the light and fluffy fairy tale of one day having Bicentennial Man to talk to ;)

[T-Bo]

Hello Everyone,

I've noticed that a lot of people are trying to create a true AI program that literally thinks for itself, and expecting their AI to be Intelligent the first time they execute their code. This is not a good practice for True AI programming, and is almost impossible, due to the amount of fuzzy variable required as its knowledge database grows during the programming of the code, which trying to code it this way.

AI, just like Humans, should be programmed empty (the knowledge database), while having instincts and abilities (instinct and abilities database's), to 'learn', and associate the newly gained knowledge with other knowledge (visual, audible, emotional, other senses) as it continues learning, just like a baby does from birth.

A Human baby is born with 'inherited' memories and programs (both from DNA and from the mother while in the womb), which allows it to perform instinctive responses to certain situations and influences (if then).

The Human Baby takes what, One to Three years (pending the genetic flaws), of constant data input and association from All of its' input sensors (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, emotions, etc.. associating the sight with the sound that it made at the time it seen and heard it, etc...) before it can even begin intelligently thinking (massive association of memories with memories) with any 'basic' level of understandence (within itself).

The Human Baby 'learns' by repetition and mimicing, for example: it see's someone walking, so it repeatedly tries to mimic what it see's until it itself can walk.

The Human Baby takes a couple of years of 'training' before it can intelligently begin recognizing and interpreting voice commands, and then through a trial and error method (derived from visual association of what it has previously recorded seeing other people do when they were faced with the same voice commands) repeatedly attempts and associates its learning (finding out what it can and can't get away with - child psychology).

The Human Child takes roughly a year (sometimes ten years or more - I still can't spell that good) before it can learn to read and write - memorize symbols, memorize sounds to those symbols, associate symbols to sounds, and then associate those sounds to words and phrases that it has heard before, and then associate those words and phrases to visual (and other sensual) interpretations to give the sentence of what ever it is reading context and meaning - and is also often misinterpreted even as and/or by adults.

A true AI program, in my own opinion, should not be any different.

Concentrate on the 'Learning and Association' functions (mingled with complex nests of IF THEN's), and a creative imagination (constantly running simulations which it gives data to and recieves data from (a separate program which it operates) - knowledge by assumption, and then associating that assumed knowledge with real time facts as it aquires or learns them), and everything else will fall into place as you 'Teach' it.

Just like most simple (and complex) voice recognition programs require someone to teach them, etc...


The main problem we face, however, is a lack of Memory, and CPU power, to handle this degree of AI.

Cheers :)

[simonm]

A belief pattern approach:

I believe that beliefs are patterns in the mind that compete for resource (attention) in an attempt to reinforce themselves and become better established.

Hence, the more established beliefs will be more successful at competing with other (less well established) beliefs to interpret incomming information in a manor that perpetuates their own existance.

I believe that an AI program based on the above principles will be a good attempt at replicating human intelligence.

[T-Bo]

I agree about the beliefs, but that is a more overall definition. To be more analytical for programming purposes:

What causes someone to believe more towards one side than the other side? There are always three sides (catagories) to every notion (the subject) also: Favores it, Opposes it, Neutral.

The persons mind (subconcious, unconcious, etc), lists all the notions associated memories which it has within its own database (and all associated contex's) and their respective priorities pertaining to the subject at hand (the subject being the belief), and then weighs the associations priorities to determin which catagory the beliefe currently falls within. If the majority of the associations priorities favor the subject at hand then the person (or ai) is more apt to 'believe' or support the notion. And, because of other fluidic priorities which influences the present mind set and conditions, these beliefs are apt to change between catagories (highest priorities first, priority change). And, as the persons (or ai's) knowledge in about the subject increases, so does their prioritization (which determins their current state of belief in the subject). Deeply complex if-then's.

But yes, I agree with you, they compete for attention, through methods of prioritizing and factualizing the associated data.

:)

_________________________
T-Bo
Vis Stu 6.0 SP5
Win-ME

[kedaman]

An old thread!

[T-Bo]

Hi kedaman,

Any sugestions for new threads?

[kedaman]

Yeah, "what is artificial intelligence" but i think we already had one and it prooved we have a ambiguety

[T-Bo]

lol ... so, did the answer to the question "what is artificial intelligence?" state something like:

Artificial is simulated/non-natural, and intelligence is the accumulation of knowledge of a recognizable and logic pattern? -- fake knowledge... :)

Sorry, I couldn't resist. lol

:)

So do you have any good idea's of how to design the assumption functions? Or do you believe that there is a better method?

Thanks,

T-Bo

[kedaman]

yeah, why do you need artificial intelligence, when you have real?

[T-Bo]

There are many reasons, such as:

- To better understand the real,
- Psychiatric research,
- Mear Entertainment,
- Competitiveness on demand,
- Industrial 24 hr thinkers,
- More logical and analytically correct simulation outputs,
- Intelligent Home Securities,
- Friends for people who are shy, or other wise reclused,
- the list goes on....

:)

[kedaman]

you want to replace humans?

[parksie]

I'd replace us...

[kedaman]

now your p get's replaced
:parksie: :parksie: :parksie:

[T-Bo]

no, I wouldn't replace us. But, I would use it to enhance us.

I think that true AI's could produce more accurate and less flawed engineering designs and inventions because of the less amount of mental distractions which humans face second to second.

[kedaman]

doesn't that outclassify from artificial intelligence?

[HarryW]

Wow, this one's back from the dead. So, anybody know what a theta rhythm is yet?

[T-Bo]

In that context, Alpha, Betha, Delta, Gamma, and Theta waves are brain waves - electrical impulses, varing in frequency pending the carrier. They can be observed using an EKG (or EGG) machine at most hospitals.

:)

[kedaman]

oh, sounds pretty cool :)

[HarryW]

So what's a 6-pulse-per-second theta rhythm, or whatever it was, then? More to the point, why is it significant?

[T-Bo]

Although I must admit that I did not read that book, if I am understanding it correctly, a six-pulse-per-second-Theta rythem is an electrical signal of six hertz, designated as a theta brain wave (because of its sineosudal characteristics - i.e. sine wave, box wave, saw tooth wave, etc... what ever type of wave it is).

As to its significance, I don't know what the books significance of it is for, but, for AI reasons, it can be deciphered and demodulated from its amplitude and frequency modulated state and converted into digital code, --- and that digital code can then be painfully mapped by a computer, and associated with a knowledge database of sorts, which allows a computer to 'read your thoughts', literally.

(Mind Reading computers can be found on the internet, as well as government installations).

But, to do this with any accuracy, and to do this without it appearing as garbaged and jumbled random thoughts, the computer must monitor, decipher, demodulate, translate, associate, and recombine all the various brain waves generated, at the same time.

It is getting late, and I need to get up in less than six hours and go to work, so please accept my appologies, I really must be going. I hope that this answered your questions though, and I will try and monitor and continue the discusions tomorrow if you like.

Thanks, :)