Obviously, these interesting new neuroscience results should be exciting and disturbing to anyone attempting to build AGI based on the "conventional" perspectives of neuroscience ... but for those of us building AGI based on non-neuroscience-oriented considerations, they're not terribly relevant...
It has been my view since forever that we don't know enough about the brain to meaningfully base our AGI designs on current theories of brain function... these new findings about dendrites validate this view for me, but certainly don't change the situation (i.e. this is not the last major upheaval neuroscience is gonna experience en route to a full understanding of the brain) -- Ben On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 2:13 PM, Colin Hales <[email protected]> wrote: > AGI winter? > > No way! Summer is afoot. :-) > > We just have to step back and question 60 years of presupposition and be > open to the reality of the answer. There's enough evidence now to justify > being deeply suspect of the current approaches. > > Not only is ephaptic coupling (EM field-based neural coupling) the second > kind of brain signalling, a blizzard of DAP (dendritic action potentials) > joins SAP (synaptic action potentials), which is equally capable of > expressing massive quasi-static EM field wave mechanics and its own > ephaptic coupling in neuropil. > > We've been working with only a tiny part of what the brain is doing for > 60+ years. All the projections by Kurzweil? Out by 3 orders of magnitude at > least. > > Dorian and I might have different approaches to how AGI will come about > (his organic, mine inorganic), but we both share a common and simple > principle: the replication of the exact brain physics responsible for brain > signalling. Not computing our way around a model of brain signalling. The > latter is a chip with the physics of a model of the brain, not a chip with > the brain physics in it. Totally different things that a different in a way > that almost entirely neglected by science. > > In my (inorganic) case, it has only been since the noughties that we've > had the tech to put the brain's signalling physics on 3D chips and let it > interact with itself the way it interacts in the brain. We have no excuses > for not doing this any more. We know what that physics is. > > Doing real AGI is a 'CERN-supercollider' scale outcome, but there's no > winter implied in this. All it needs is $ and the will. Dorian is up for > it. I am too. I'm testing the design of such a thing (simulation) as we > speak. If, as I suspect is the case, replicating the brain's signalling > physics is the real answer, then the actual winter (failing for 60+ years > to fully replicate all brain functions responsible for intelligence), may > be seen in hindsight to have been in place all along and only now to have > ended. That era produced all manner of wonderful useful things. But not > AGI. > > All the old EM field guard have died off. E Roy John, Pribram, Freeman. > Sue Pockett has retired. JJ McFaeedn has left the building. I'm 61. Dorian > and I seem to be the only representatives left alive that have the will and > the knowledge to do what is needed: the resurrection of cybernetics as it > was left for dead in the 1950s when computers were invented. That is the > real AGI summer. AGI done without computers. It's been sitting there > waiting all that time. > > Maybe the $ will come. I am self funding but I can only go to phase II. > Phase III (a few years away) needs a bucket o'cash and a chip foundry. I > have the ideas for the necessary robotics nursery and how to test it all. > Maybe out there there's someone else thinking along the same lines. I don't > know. But there's a way forward and it's different. A green field left > fallow by the old cyberneticists. > > So no wintery thoughts, please! :-) > > cheers > colin > > > > > On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 4:31 AM, justcamel <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Another AGI winter? >> >> >> On 14.03.2017 03:11, Colin Hales wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> Over the last 15 years, every 3 years or so we get yet another paper that >> takes us all towards the centralisation of brain signalling on the EM >> fields. Not _away_ from such an idea. _Towards_ that idea. >> >> This is merely the latest in that long vector towards EM fields as >> central to brain operation. >> >> ============================================ >> Moore, J.J., Ravassard, P.M., Ho, D., Acharya, L., Kees, A.L., Vuong, C., >> and Mehta, M.R. (2017). Dynamics of cortical dendritic membrane potential >> and spikes in freely behaving rats. Science. >> earlier Arxiv version >> http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/12/28/096941 >> >> See http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/03/08/s >> cience.aaj1497 >> and commentary >> "Why our brains may be 100 times more powerful than believed" >> here: http://newatlas.com/brains-more-powerful/48357/ >> ==================================================== >> >> Guess what?: 'Dendritic Action Potentials' (DAP) must now become a thing. >> All your simulation packages? Just got old. All your neuromorphic chips? >> Has-beens. >> >> SOMATIC AP is 60 years old. >> DENDRITIC AP now comes home. >> >> Neocortical sub- and suprathreshold dendritic membrane potential (DMP) >> breaking out into localised firing within the dendrite structure. Dendrite >> firing has been observed for a long time, but this is the first time anyone >> has seriously accessed its origins and correlated it with behaviour. >> Collectively the DMP are very strong (as represented by voltage measured in >> tissue: Higher than somatic action potentials!) This is because neural >> tissue is 90% dendritic and there are collosal numbers of post-synaptic >> densities (synapses). >> >> The implication ... you guessed it .... the brain is not a computer >> (analog or digital) but a system of interacting fields who's long-distance >> outward signs ... the tip of the iceberg ... are soma-related action >> potentials. I reckon it's at least 3 orders of magnitude more complex, not >> just two....because it's totally spatialised and interacting at distance at >> near the speed of light. >> >> It is physically impossible for any signals to operate chemically >> (ion-channel ion transport leading to extracellular ion motion = currents) >> on the fast timescales found to actually operate in the dendrites. Ions can >> barely move a nanometer on those timescales. There are NO currents at all! >> No current can possibly be the origin of collective signalling of this kind. >> >> The fields? No problem. Action at a distance. Speed of light. >> Remotely-activated modulation of remote transmembrane fields (in this case >> the post-synaptic density of ion channels, advancing and retarding signal >> events). Easy. Plain old classical physics of the Lorentz force. Field >> systems exactly of the kind I did in my PHD thesis. >> >> And exactly the same thing in my chip design ... what I am experimentally >> working on already ... my proposed system does this naturally. This is >> because I have no neurons in my design. I merely have loci of signalling >> that does the same thing dendrites/soma/axons do. >> >> This seems like a big deal to me. Is that 'ol penny gonna drop this time? >> How much evidence can a system ignore before it goes bang and shifts. >> (Reminds me of a certain political context ... let's not go there) :-) >> >> Back to testing. >> >> cheers >> >> colin >> >> *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> >> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/23508161-fa52c03c> | >> Modify <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> Your Subscription >> <http://www.listbox.com> >> >> >> *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> >> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/11721311-20a65d4a> | >> Modify <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> Your Subscription >> <http://www.listbox.com> >> >> > *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/19237892-5029d625> | > Modify > <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> > Your Subscription <http://www.listbox.com> > -- Ben Goertzel, PhD http://goertzel.org “Our first mothers and fathers … were endowed with intelligence; they saw and instantly they could see far … they succeeded in knowing all that there is in the world. When they looked, instantly they saw all around them, and they contemplated in turn the arch of heaven and the round face of the earth. … Great was their wisdom …. They were able to know all.... But the Creator and the Maker did not hear this with pleasure. … ‘Are they not by nature simple creatures of our making? Must they also be gods? … What if they do not reproduce and multiply?’ Then the Heart of Heaven blew mist into their eyes, which clouded their sight as when a mirror is breathed upon. Their eyes were covered and they could see only what was close, only that was clear to them.” — Popol Vuh (holy book of the ancient Mayas) ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
