Re: The connectome and uploading

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Samiya, The Christians used to have bumper stickers on their cars asking "What 
Would Jesus Do? WWJD" I always thought the better question would have been, How 
Will Jesus Do It? HWJDI. Meaning the mechanics of it all? 
In a way, by not asking the How questions, I see it as disrespectful of The 
Almighty. Grateful you are, but not curious and not applying one's intellect? 
Too frightened of offending, rather than being draw to the brilliance? 
Sorry, the Kuffar got it right, this time. 


-Original Message-
From: Samiya Illias 
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, Mar 16, 2023 3:14 am
Subject: Re: The connectome and uploading


Faṭara (فَطَرَ) 
وَقَالُوا أَإِذَا كُنَّا عِظَامًا وَرُفَاتًا أَإِنَّا لَمَبْعُوثُونَ خَلْقًا 
جَدِيدًاقُلْ كُونُوا حِجَارَةً أَوْ حَدِيدًاأَوْ خَلْقًا مِّمَّا يَكْبُرُ فِي 
صُدُورِكُمْ فَسَيَقُولُونَ مَن يُعِيدُنَا قُلِ الَّذِي فَطَرَكُمْ أَوَّلَ 
مَرَّةٍ فَسَيُنْغِضُونَ إِلَيْكَ رُءُوسَهُمْ وَيَقُولُونَ مَتَىٰ هُوَ قُلْ 
عَسَىٰ أَن يَكُونَ قَرِيبًايَوْمَ يَدْعُوكُمْ فَتَسْتَجِيبُونَ بِحَمْدِهِ 
وَتَظُنُّونَ إِن لَّبِثْتُمْ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا
And they say, "Is it when we are bones and crumbled particles, will we surely 
(be) resurrected (as) a creation new."Say, "Be stones or iron.Or a creation of 
what (is) great in your breasts." Then they will say, "Who will restore us?" 
Say, "He Who فَطَرَ you (the) first time." Then they will shake at you their 
heads and they say, "When (will) it (be)?" Say, "Perhaps that (it) will be 
soon."(On) the Day He will call you and you will respond with His Praise, and 
you will think, not you had remained except a little (while).[Al-Quran 17:49-52]

Quoted in 
https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2018/04/allah-fatir-of-skies-and-earth.html
 


On 16-Mar-2023, at 12:44 AM, spudboy100 via Everything List 
 wrote:



JC is theologically correct.
Why? Because any resurrection will be quantum.
The information about all things remains in the universe. How do I surmise this?
Physicist, Guilio Prisco & Science Writer, George Musser saw this. Musser's 
2019 article is called Gravit's Residue.Musser-Back in the 1960s, Hermann 
Bondi, A. W. Kenneth Metzner, M. G. J. van der Burg and Rainer Sachs made the 
truly remarkable discovery that space–time far away from any matter has an 
infinite collection of symmetries known as supertranslations…”
A supertranslation, Strominger says (as reported by Musser), adds soft 
particles to spacetime.

“This realisation, in turn, provides a clearer picture of how a seemingly empty 
spacetime that is far from any gravitating bodies can retain a residue of 
gravity’s effects. Plop a soft particle into a vacuum and, though it adds no 
energy, it does contribute its angular momentum and other properties, thereby 
bumping the vacuum to a new version of itself. Strominger realised that if the 
vacuum can assume multiple forms, it will retain an almost homeopathic imprint 
of what passes through it.”

A project like no other, I agree! But our Machine/Human descendants will have 
lots of time to gather up the data. 
Bolonkin, the inventor, also holds with the quantum rez. 

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/07/bolonkin-explores-ultimate-uploading-and-technology.html

Me: So if you're a Christian and you have met favor in The Lords' Eyes, you 
come back electronical.If Samy pleases Allah, bang! Up to Janah he goes!
Is this the only way this could happen? It's the most currently, scientific, 
but this cannot be the last word in astronomy, physics, and computer science.



-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Cc: te...@telmomenezes.net 
Sent: Wed, Mar 15, 2023 1:46 pm
Subject: Re: The connectome and uploading

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 11:01 AM John Clark  wrote:


> It might affect you. 

I don't think so, but because it involves consciousness I'll never be able to 
prove it, i'll never be able to prove anything about consciousness. But I'm 
confident that if something acts just like me then it will be me.  

> Do you plan to freeze your brain?

Yes, I've already paid the $80,000 bill to do so. 

 > Do you have a clause to only resuscitate to biological substrates?

No, and it would not make any difference even if I did because it would not be 
followed. I'm not at all sure cryonics will work at all because I'm not sure my 
brain really will remain at liquid nitrogen temperatures until the singularity, 
and even if it is I'm not at all sure anybody will think I'm worth reviving, 
but I think my chances are infinitely better than if my brain is burned up in a 
furnace or eaten by worms. If I am lucky enough to be brought back I'm certain 
it will be as an upload, nobody will want somebody as stupid as me (relative to 
the average citizen living at that time) wasting resources in the physical 
world.   
John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
9cv
yft
pii 



 





You can i

Re: The connectome and uploading

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

I will dig up something later. I don't know if it suffices for you, but suspect 
whatever I supply it will be peer-review, but never good enough for you. :-D


-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Cc: stath...@gmail.com 
Sent: Wed, Mar 15, 2023 4:15 pm
Subject: Re: The connectome and uploading



On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 3:31 PM spudboy100 via Everything List 
 wrote:


> Just as Neuro-guys explan human consciousness

Nonsense, the Neuro-guys are able to do no such thing and I am quite certain 
the electronics guys won't be able to explain consciousness either, other than 
by proposing the axiom that it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way 
data feels when it is being processed intelligently. And it is now much more 
obvious than it was even 2 months ago that the electronics guys CAN explain 
intelligence.


> If we don't know what, we will soon.

Nope

> UNLESS you hold that consciousness is a Mystery? 

The trouble is even if you find out that X causes consciousness the next 
obvious question is what causes X. There are only 2 possibilities, an iterative 
chain of "what" or "how" or "why" questions either goes on forever, like a 
Matryoshka doll or an onion with an infinite number of layers, or it ends with 
a brute fact, an event without a cause.
John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolisn6z


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Re: The connectome and uploading

[Samiya Illias]

Faṭara (فَطَرَ) 

وَقَالُوا أَإِذَا كُنَّا عِظَامًا وَرُفَاتًا أَإِنَّا لَمَبْعُوثُونَ خَلْقًا 
جَدِيدًا
قُلْ كُونُوا حِجَارَةً أَوْ حَدِيدًا
أَوْ خَلْقًا مِّمَّا يَكْبُرُ فِي صُدُورِكُمْ فَسَيَقُولُونَ مَن يُعِيدُنَا 
قُلِ الَّذِي فَطَرَكُمْ أَوَّلَ مَرَّةٍ فَسَيُنْغِضُونَ إِلَيْكَ رُءُوسَهُمْ 
وَيَقُولُونَ مَتَىٰ هُوَ قُلْ عَسَىٰ أَن يَكُونَ قَرِيبًا
يَوْمَ يَدْعُوكُمْ فَتَسْتَجِيبُونَ بِحَمْدِهِ وَتَظُنُّونَ إِن لَّبِثْتُمْ 
إِلَّا قَلِيلًا

And they say, "Is it when we are bones and crumbled particles, will we surely 
(be) resurrected (as) a creation new."
Say, "Be stones or iron.
Or a creation of what (is) great in your breasts." Then they will say, "Who 
will restore us?" Say, "He Who فَطَرَ you (the) first time." Then they will 
shake at you their heads and they say, "When (will) it (be)?" Say, "Perhaps 
that (it) will be soon."
(On) the Day He will call you and you will respond with His Praise, and you 
will think, not you had remained except a little (while).
[Al-Quran 17:49-52]

Quoted in 
https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2018/04/allah-fatir-of-skies-and-earth.html
 


> On 16-Mar-2023, at 12:44 AM, spudboy100 via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> JC is theologically correct.
> 
> Why? Because any resurrection will be quantum.
> 
> The information about all things remains in the universe. How do I surmise 
> this?
> 
> 
> Physicist, Guilio Prisco & Science Writer, George Musser saw this. Musser's 
> 2019 article is called Gravit's Residue.
> Musser-
> Back in the 1960s, Hermann Bondi, A. W. Kenneth Metzner, M. G. J. van der 
> Burg and Rainer Sachs made the truly remarkable discovery that space–time far 
> away from any matter has an infinite collection of symmetries known as 
> supertranslations…”
> 
> A supertranslation, Strominger says (as reported by Musser), adds soft 
> particles to spacetime.
> 
> “This realisation, in turn, provides a clearer picture of how a seemingly 
> empty spacetime that is far from any gravitating bodies can retain a residue 
> of gravity’s effects. Plop a soft particle into a vacuum and, though it adds 
> no energy, it does contribute its angular momentum and other properties, 
> thereby bumping the vacuum to a new version of itself. Strominger realised 
> that if the vacuum can assume multiple forms, it will retain an almost 
> homeopathic imprint of what passes through it.”
> 
> A project like no other, I agree! But our Machine/Human descendants will have 
> lots of time to gather up the data. 
> 
> Bolonkin, the inventor, also holds with the quantum rez. 
> 
> https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/07/bolonkin-explores-ultimate-uploading-and-technology.html
> 
> 
> Me: So if you're a Christian and you have met favor in The Lords' Eyes, you 
> come back electronical.
> If Samy pleases Allah, bang! Up to Janah he goes!
> 
> Is this the only way this could happen? It's the most currently, scientific, 
> but this cannot be the last word in astronomy, physics, and computer science.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: John Clark 
> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
> Cc: te...@telmomenezes.net 
> Sent: Wed, Mar 15, 2023 1:46 pm
> Subject: Re: The connectome and uploading
> 
> On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 11:01 AM John Clark  wrote:
> 
> > It might affect you. 
> 
> I don't think so, but because it involves consciousness I'll never be able to 
> prove it, i'll never be able to prove anything about consciousness. But I'm 
> confident that if something acts just like me then it will be me.  
> 
> > Do you plan to freeze your brain?
> 
> Yes, I've already paid the $80,000 bill to do so. 
> 
>  > Do you have a clause to only resuscitate to biological substrates?
> 
> No, and it would not make any difference even if I did because it would not 
> be followed. I'm not at all sure cryonics will work at all because I'm not 
> sure my brain really will remain at liquid nitrogen temperatures until the 
> singularity, and even if it is I'm not at all sure anybody will think I'm 
> worth reviving, but I think my chances are infinitely better than if my brain 
> is burned up in a furnace or eaten by worms. If I am lucky enough to be 
> brought back I'm certain it will be as an upload, nobody will want somebody 
> as stupid as me (relative to the average citizen living at that time) wasting 
> resources in the physical world.  
> 
> John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis
> 9cv
> 
> yft
> 
> pii
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You can input nothing but a photograph into a modern "Language Machine" (by 
> "modern" I mean something that has been developed in

Re: The connectome and uploading

[John Clark]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 3:31 PM spudboy100 via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

*> Just as Neuro-guys explan human consciousness*


Nonsense, the Neuro-guys are able to do no such thing and I am quite
certain the electronics guys won't be able to explain consciousness either,
other than by proposing the axiom that it's a brute fact that consciousness
is the way data feels when it is being processed intelligently. And it is
now much more obvious than it was even 2 months ago that the electronics
guys* CAN* explain intelligence.

* > If we don't know what, we will soon.*
>

Nope

*> UNLESS you hold that consciousness is a Mystery? *
>

The trouble is even if you find out that X causes consciousness the next
obvious question is what causes X. There are only 2 possibilities, an
iterative chain of "what" or "how" or "why" questions either goes on
forever, like a Matryoshka doll or an onion with an infinite number of
layers, or it ends with a brute fact, an event without a cause.

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

n6z

>
>

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Re: The connectome and uploading

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

JC is theologically correct.
Why? Because any resurrection will be quantum.
The information about all things remains in the universe. How do I surmise this?
Physicist, Guilio Prisco & Science Writer, George Musser saw this. Musser's 
2019 article is called Gravit's Residue.Musser-Back in the 1960s, Hermann 
Bondi, A. W. Kenneth Metzner, M. G. J. van der Burg and Rainer Sachs made the 
truly remarkable discovery that space–time far away from any matter has an 
infinite collection of symmetries known as supertranslations…”
A supertranslation, Strominger says (as reported by Musser), adds soft 
particles to spacetime.

“This realisation, in turn, provides a clearer picture of how a seemingly empty 
spacetime that is far from any gravitating bodies can retain a residue of 
gravity’s effects. Plop a soft particle into a vacuum and, though it adds no 
energy, it does contribute its angular momentum and other properties, thereby 
bumping the vacuum to a new version of itself. Strominger realised that if the 
vacuum can assume multiple forms, it will retain an almost homeopathic imprint 
of what passes through it.”

A project like no other, I agree! But our Machine/Human descendants will have 
lots of time to gather up the data. 
Bolonkin, the inventor, also holds with the quantum rez. 

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/07/bolonkin-explores-ultimate-uploading-and-technology.html

Me: So if you're a Christian and you have met favor in The Lords' Eyes, you 
come back electronical.If Samy pleases Allah, bang! Up to Janah he goes!
Is this the only way this could happen? It's the most currently, scientific, 
but this cannot be the last word in astronomy, physics, and computer science.



-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Cc: te...@telmomenezes.net 
Sent: Wed, Mar 15, 2023 1:46 pm
Subject: Re: The connectome and uploading

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 11:01 AM John Clark  wrote:


> It might affect you. 

I don't think so, but because it involves consciousness I'll never be able to 
prove it, i'll never be able to prove anything about consciousness. But I'm 
confident that if something acts just like me then it will be me.  

> Do you plan to freeze your brain?

Yes, I've already paid the $80,000 bill to do so. 

 > Do you have a clause to only resuscitate to biological substrates?

No, and it would not make any difference even if I did because it would not be 
followed. I'm not at all sure cryonics will work at all because I'm not sure my 
brain really will remain at liquid nitrogen temperatures until the singularity, 
and even if it is I'm not at all sure anybody will think I'm worth reviving, 
but I think my chances are infinitely better than if my brain is burned up in a 
furnace or eaten by worms. If I am lucky enough to be brought back I'm certain 
it will be as an upload, nobody will want somebody as stupid as me (relative to 
the average citizen living at that time) wasting resources in the physical 
world.   
John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
9cv
yft
pii 



 





You can input nothing but a photograph into a modern "Language Machine" (by 
"modern" I mean something that has been developed in the last couple of months) 
and ask it what is in the photograph and it will be able to tell you, or ask it 
what will likely happen next to the object in the photo and it will give you a 
good answer. It can read and understand graphs and charts and if you show it a 
drawing from a high school geometry textbook full of intersecting lines circles 
squares and triangles and ask it to find the area of the second largest 
triangle in the upper left quadrant it will be able to do so. And if you ask 
what's humorous about the photograph it will be able to explain the joke to 
you. And it works the other way too, if you ask it to paint a picture of 
something, even something that doesn't exist, it will be able to provide an 
original painting of it that's far better than anything I could dream of 
painting.  How on earth can something that is just a "Language Machine" do amy 
of that?


> To the claim that via magic, a consciousness arises in silicon or gallium 
> arsenide seems a tall order.

It's no more magical than the claim that consciousness arises from 3 pounds of 
gray goo made of carbon hydrogen and oxygen. Are you claiming that carbon 
hydrogen and oxygen are sacred but silicon gallium and arsenic are not? And 
besides, to hell with consciousness! If computers are not conscious then that's 
their problem not mine; it won't affect me one way or the other if computers 
are conscious or not, and I could say the same thing about your alleged 
consciousness.  I'm far FAR more interested in if computers are intelligent or 
not because that most certainly does affect me. 


> The question offered up 6 weeks ago was how does the similarity to animal 
> brains arise from a Server Farm? 

Because 

Re: The connectome and uploading

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Lets not accuse me of setting the bar, too high, Stathis. Just as Neuro-guys 
explan human consciousness, there is no reason why thet cannot come up with a 
cause and effect sketch of how Cha4 began to be conscious. 
If we don't know what, we will soon. UNLESS you hold that consciousness is a 
Mystery? 
You may be correct, but until research gets done, lets hold our cards.


-Original Message-
From: Stathis Papaioannou 
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, Mar 15, 2023 8:47 am
Subject: Re: The connectome and uploading



On Wed, 15 Mar 2023 at 22:47, spudboy100 via Everything List 
 wrote:

The question offered up 6 weeks ago was how does the similarity to animal 
brains arise from a Server Farm? 
At this point, I claim it doesn't and that 3 and 4 are clever Language Machines.
To the claim that via magic, a consciousness arises in silicon or gallium 
arsenide seems a tall order. I have seen no article by any computer scientist, 
neurobiologist, or physicist, indicating HOW computer consciousness arose? If 
there is something out there, somebody please present a link to this august 
mailing-list.

There is no process or structure that would satisfy as the secret of 
consciousness. Suppose we discovered a new neurotransmitter in the brain with 
exotic physical properties: how would that explain consciousness? Why would 
silicon or gallium arsenide be so fundamentally different to this 
neurotransmitter that it obviously couldn’t explain lain consciousness?



-- 
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Re: The connectome and uploading

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

All I am saying is what are the dynamics of creating a human level mind in a 
server farm???
You do know that we have switched identities with this argument with you being 
the cybernetic believer and me being the religious atheist? I am good if 
somebody arrives at an explanation? The Mechanics Plese.
I bet I can get a neuroscientist to explain how meat and bone become self 
aware. We need the same for Le Machine!
Stumbled upon this Tweet that applies perhaps to yourself?
A woman in the Philippines spent four years praying to a green "Buddha" figure 
she purchased from a store, until one day a friend pointed out the Buddha 
figure she'd been praying to was actually Shrek. The damned thing is, it 
actually works!


George Carlin: I believe in God, but I pray to the Sun. "“I've begun 
worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other 
gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It's there for me every day. And the 
things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, and a 
lovely day.


-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Cc: te...@telmomenezes.net 
Sent: Wed, Mar 15, 2023 11:01 am
Subject: Re: The connectome and uploading

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 7:47 AM spudboy100 via Everything List 
 wrote:

 > 3 and 4 are clever Language Machines.

You can input nothing but a photograph into a modern "Language Machine" (by 
"modern" I mean something that has been developed in the last couple of months) 
and ask it what is in the photograph and it will be able to tell you, or ask it 
what will likely happen next to the object in the photo and it will give you a 
good answer. It can read and understand graphs and charts and if you show it a 
drawing from a high school geometry textbook full of intersecting lines circles 
squares and triangles and ask it to find the area of the second largest 
triangle in the upper left quadrant it will be able to do so. And if you ask 
what's humorous about the photograph it will be able to explain the joke to 
you. And it works the other way too, if you ask it to paint a picture of 
something, even something that doesn't exist, it will be able to provide an 
original painting of it that's far better than anything I could dream of 
painting.  How on earth can something that is just a "Language Machine" do amy 
of that?


> To the claim that via magic, a consciousness arises in silicon or gallium 
> arsenide seems a tall order.

It's no more magical than the claim that consciousness arises from 3 pounds of 
gray goo made of carbon hydrogen and oxygen. Are you claiming that carbon 
hydrogen and oxygen are sacred but silicon gallium and arsenic are not? And 
besides, to hell with consciousness! If computers are not conscious then that's 
their problem not mine; it won't affect me one way or the other if computers 
are conscious or not, and I could say the same thing about your alleged 
consciousness.  I'm far FAR more interested in if computers are intelligent or 
not because that most certainly does affect me. 


> The question offered up 6 weeks ago was how does the similarity to animal 
> brains arise from a Server Farm? 

Because both animal brains and server farms process information intelligently. 
John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
pii



-- 
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Re: The connectome and uploading

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 1:47 PM John Clark  wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 11:01 AM John Clark  wrote:
>
> *> It might affect you. *
>
>
> I don't think so, but because it involves consciousness I'll never be able
> to prove it, i'll never be able to prove anything about consciousness. But
> I'm confident that if something acts just like me then it will be me.
>
> *> Do you plan to freeze your brain?*
>
>
> Yes, I've already paid the $80,000 bill to do so.
>
>  > *Do you have a clause to only resuscitate to biological substrates?*
>
>
> No, and it would not make any difference even if I did because it would
> not be followed. I'm not at all sure cryonics will work at all because I'm
> not sure my brain really will remain at liquid nitrogen temperatures
> until the singularity, and even if it is I'm not at all sure anybody will
> think I'm worth reviving, but I think my chances are infinitely better than
> if my brain is burned up in a furnace or eaten by worms. If I am lucky
> enough to be brought back I'm certain it will be as an upload, nobody will
> want somebody as stupid as me (relative to the average citizen living at
> that time) wasting resources in the physical world.
>

In that case the question of machine consciousness is not entirely
irrelevant to you.

Jason




> John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis
> 
> 9cv
>
> yft
>
> pii
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> You can input nothing but a photograph into a modern "Language Machine"
>> (by "modern" I mean something that has been developed in the last couple of
>> months) and ask it what is in the photograph and it will be able to tell
>> you, or ask it what will likely happen next to the object in the photo
>> and it will give you a good answer. It can read and understand graphs and
>> charts and if you show it a drawing from a high school geometry textbook
>> full of intersecting lines circles squares and triangles and ask it to find
>> the area of the second largest triangle in the upper left quadrant it will
>> be able to do so. And if you ask what's humorous about the photograph it
>> will be able to explain the joke to you. And it works the other way too, if
>> you ask it to paint a picture of something, even something that doesn't
>> exist, it will be able to provide an original painting of it that's far
>> better than anything I could dream of painting.  How on earth can something
>> that is just a "Language Machine" do amy of that?
>>
>> *> To the claim that via magic, a consciousness arises in silicon or
>>> gallium arsenide seems a tall order.*
>>
>>
>> It's no more magical than the claim that consciousness arises from 3
>> pounds of gray goo made of carbon hydrogen and oxygen. Are you claiming
>> that carbon hydrogen and oxygen are sacred but silicon gallium and arsenic
>> are not? And besides, to hell with consciousness! If computers are not
>> conscious then that's their problem not mine; it won't affect me one way or
>> the other if computers are conscious or not, and I could say the same thing
>> about your alleged consciousness.  I'm far FAR more interested in if
>> computers are intelligent or not because that most certainly does affect
>> me.
>>
>>
>> *> The question offered up 6 weeks ago was how does the similarity to
>>> animal brains arise from a Server Farm? *
>>>
>>
>> Because both animal brains and server farms process information
>> intelligently.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> --
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> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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> 
> .
>

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Re: The connectome and uploading

[John Clark]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 11:01 AM John Clark  wrote:

*> It might affect you. *


I don't think so, but because it involves consciousness I'll never be able
to prove it, i'll never be able to prove anything about consciousness. But
I'm confident that if something acts just like me then it will be me.

*> Do you plan to freeze your brain?*


Yes, I've already paid the $80,000 bill to do so.

 > *Do you have a clause to only resuscitate to biological substrates?*


No, and it would not make any difference even if I did because it would not
be followed. I'm not at all sure cryonics will work at all because I'm not
sure my brain really will remain at liquid nitrogen temperatures until the
singularity, and even if it is I'm not at all sure anybody will think I'm
worth reviving, but I think my chances are infinitely better than if my
brain is burned up in a furnace or eaten by worms. If I am lucky enough to
be brought back I'm certain it will be as an upload, nobody will want
somebody as stupid as me (relative to the average citizen living at that
time) wasting resources in the physical world.

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

9cv

yft

pii











> You can input nothing but a photograph into a modern "Language Machine"
> (by "modern" I mean something that has been developed in the last couple of
> months) and ask it what is in the photograph and it will be able to tell
> you, or ask it what will likely happen next to the object in the photo
> and it will give you a good answer. It can read and understand graphs and
> charts and if you show it a drawing from a high school geometry textbook
> full of intersecting lines circles squares and triangles and ask it to find
> the area of the second largest triangle in the upper left quadrant it will
> be able to do so. And if you ask what's humorous about the photograph it
> will be able to explain the joke to you. And it works the other way too, if
> you ask it to paint a picture of something, even something that doesn't
> exist, it will be able to provide an original painting of it that's far
> better than anything I could dream of painting.  How on earth can something
> that is just a "Language Machine" do amy of that?
>
> *> To the claim that via magic, a consciousness arises in silicon or
>> gallium arsenide seems a tall order.*
>
>
> It's no more magical than the claim that consciousness arises from 3
> pounds of gray goo made of carbon hydrogen and oxygen. Are you claiming
> that carbon hydrogen and oxygen are sacred but silicon gallium and arsenic
> are not? And besides, to hell with consciousness! If computers are not
> conscious then that's their problem not mine; it won't affect me one way or
> the other if computers are conscious or not, and I could say the same thing
> about your alleged consciousness.  I'm far FAR more interested in if
> computers are intelligent or not because that most certainly does affect
> me.
>
>
> *> The question offered up 6 weeks ago was how does the similarity to
>> animal brains arise from a Server Farm? *
>>
>
> Because both animal brains and server farms process information
> intelligently.
>
>
>
>
>>

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Re: The connectome and uploading

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 11:02 AM John Clark  wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 7:47 AM spudboy100 via Everything List <
> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> * > 3 and 4 are clever Language Machines.*
>
>
> You can input nothing but a photograph into a modern "Language Machine"
> (by "modern" I mean something that has been developed in the last couple of
> months) and ask it what is in the photograph and it will be able to tell
> you, or ask it what will likely happen next to the object in the photo
> and it will give you a good answer. It can read and understand graphs and
> charts and if you show it a drawing from a high school geometry textbook
> full of intersecting lines circles squares and triangles and ask it to find
> the area of the second largest triangle in the upper left quadrant it will
> be able to do so. And if you ask what's humorous about the photograph it
> will be able to explain the joke to you. And it works the other way too, if
> you ask it to paint a picture of something, even something that doesn't
> exist, it will be able to provide an original painting of it that's far
> better than anything I could dream of painting.  How on earth can something
> that is just a "Language Machine" do amy of that?
>
> *> To the claim that via magic, a consciousness arises in silicon or
>> gallium arsenide seems a tall order.*
>
>
> It's no more magical than the claim that consciousness arises from 3
> pounds of gray goo made of carbon hydrogen and oxygen. Are you claiming
> that carbon hydrogen and oxygen are sacred but silicon gallium and arsenic
> are not? And besides, to hell with consciousness! If computers are not
> conscious then that's their problem not mine; it won't affect me one way or
> the other if computers are conscious or not, and I could say the same thing
> about your alleged consciousness.  I'm far FAR more interested in if
> computers are intelligent or not because that most certainly does affect
> me.
>


It might affect you. Do you plan to freeze your brain? Do you have a clause
to only resuscitate to biological substrates?

Jason


>
> *> The question offered up 6 weeks ago was how does the similarity to
>> animal brains arise from a Server Farm? *
>>
>
> Because both animal brains and server farms process information
> intelligently.
>
> John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis
> 
> pii
>
>
>> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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> 
> .
>

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Re: The connectome and uploading

[John Clark]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 7:47 AM spudboy100 via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

* > 3 and 4 are clever Language Machines.*


You can input nothing but a photograph into a modern "Language Machine" (by
"modern" I mean something that has been developed in the last couple of
months) and ask it what is in the photograph and it will be able to tell
you, or ask it what will likely happen next to the object in the photo and
it will give you a good answer. It can read and understand graphs and
charts and if you show it a drawing from a high school geometry textbook
full of intersecting lines circles squares and triangles and ask it to find
the area of the second largest triangle in the upper left quadrant it will
be able to do so. And if you ask what's humorous about the photograph it
will be able to explain the joke to you. And it works the other way too, if
you ask it to paint a picture of something, even something that doesn't
exist, it will be able to provide an original painting of it that's far
better than anything I could dream of painting.  How on earth can something
that is just a "Language Machine" do amy of that?

*> To the claim that via magic, a consciousness arises in silicon or
> gallium arsenide seems a tall order.*


It's no more magical than the claim that consciousness arises from 3 pounds
of gray goo made of carbon hydrogen and oxygen. Are you claiming that
carbon hydrogen and oxygen are sacred but silicon gallium and arsenic are
not? And besides, to hell with consciousness! If computers are not
conscious then that's their problem not mine; it won't affect me one way or
the other if computers are conscious or not, and I could say the same thing
about your alleged consciousness.  I'm far FAR more interested in if
computers are intelligent or not because that most certainly does affect
me.


*> The question offered up 6 weeks ago was how does the similarity to
> animal brains arise from a Server Farm? *
>

Because both animal brains and server farms process information
intelligently.

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

pii


>

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Re: The connectome and uploading

[John Clark]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 7:51 AM spudboy100 via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

*> Connectome studies hold that "The Map is The Landscape."*
>

And if the map is so detailed that you can't tell the difference then it's
100% true that "The Map *IS *The Landscape".


*> When people like Ray Kurzweil were pontificating 25 years ago, it seemed
> back then like computer science would be roaring to The Singularity. Today,
> much of the goodies forecast by Kurz and everyone else seems sluggish,*
>


Since 1990 Ray Kurzweil has made147 precise predictions about the date by
which certain advances in information technology will be achieved, at the
time most technology gurus said his predictions were ridiculous, but 86% of
them turned out to be correct and only 14% were wrong. I can't think of any
other prognosticator on any subject that has a better track record than
that. But in one prediction he was too conservative, decades ago Kurzweil
said a computer would pass the Turing Test by 2029, but it passed it in
2023; he also predicted that the Singularity will happen by 2045, but the
events of the last few months have led me to believe that he may be too
conservative on that prediction also.

> Uploading seems as far away to me, as ever.
>

As far away as ever?!  I think the time when the sun turns into a red giant
and incinerates the Earth is closer this year than it was last year
but if after
the passing of years you think the time when uploading is possible has not
become closer that can only mean it will never happen because you think
uploading is physically impossible.  Why is that? Do you think chemistry is
sacred but electronics is not?
John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis


u7v





>
>  I see nothing sacred in hormones, I don't see the slightest reason why
> they or any neurotransmitter would be especially difficult to simulate
> through computation, because chemical messengers are not a sign of
> sophisticated design on nature's part, rather it's an example of
> Evolution's bungling. If you need to inhibit a nearby neuron there are
> better ways of sending that signal then launching a GABA molecule like a
> message in a bottle thrown into the sea and waiting ages for it to diffuse
> to its random target.
>
>
> I don't think the point is about the specific neurotransmitters (NTs) used
> in biological brains, but that there are multiple NTs which each activate
> separable circuits in the brain. It's probably adaptive to have multiple
> NTs, to further modularize the brain's functionality. This may be an
> important part of generalized intelligence.
>
>
> I'm not interested in brain chemicals, only in the information they
> contain, if somebody wants  information to get transmitted from one place
> to another as fast and reliablely as possible, nobody would send smoke
> signals if they had a fiber optic cable. The information content in each
> molecular message must be tiny, just a few bits because only about 60
> neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, norepinephrine and GABA are known,
> even if the true number is 100 times greater (or a million times for that
> matter) the information content of each signal must be tiny. Also, for the
> long range stuff, exactly which neuron receives the signal can not be
> specified because it relies on a random process, diffusion. The fact that
> it's slow as molasses in February does not add to its charm.
>
>
>

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Re: The connectome and uploading

[Jason Resch]

of those neurons that would generate
conscious experience. The dynamic core hypothesis takes James’s insight
seriously: As a process, a dynamic core is defined in terms of neural
interactions. In other words, the definition of a dynamic core is a
functional one, in that it is based on the strength of an ensemble of
interactions, rather than just on a structure, a property of some neurons,
or their location.”
-- Gerald Maurice Edelman and Giulio Tononi in "A Universe of
Consciousness" (2000)


"Amoeba’s Secret" Bruno Marchal (2014)
-
“The hypothesis is that of Mechanism: the idea that we could be digital
machines, in a sense that will be rendered more clearly in due course.
Broadly speaking, we might be machines in the precise sense that no parts
of our bodies are privileged with respect to an eventual functional
substitution. This says that we can survive a heart substitution by the
transplant of an artificial heart, or of a kidney substitution by an
artificial kidney, etc., inasmuch as the substitution is carried out at a
sufficiently fine-grained level.”

“When people talk about consciousness, something often mentioned is
“self-awareness” or the ability to “think about one’s own processes of
thinking”. Without the conceptual framework of computation, this might seem
quite mysterious. But the idea of universal computation instead makes it
seem almost inevitable. The whole point of a universal computer is that it
can be made to emulate any computational system—even itself.”
Stephen Wolfram in “What is Consciousness” (2021)


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/e2-80-98the-game-is-over-e2-80-99-google-e2-80-99s-deepmind-says-it-is-on-verge-of-achieving-human-level-ai/ar-AAXnuQX

“Dr Nando de Freitas said “the game is over” in the decades-long quest to
realise artificial general intelligence (AGI) after DeepMind unveiled an AI
system capable of completing a wide range of complex tasks, from stacking
blocks to writing poetry.
Described as a “generalist agent”, DeepMind’s new Gato AI needs to just be
scaled up in order to create an AI capable of rivalling human intelligence,
Dr de Freitas said.“





> Now, for life arising out of chemicals on planet earth, I stumbled upon
> this yesterday. The theory is called Nickleback (O Canada!)
> Scientists Have Found Molecule That Is Behind The Origin Of Life On Earth?
> Read To Know
>
> https://www.republicworld.com/science/space/scientists-have-found-molecule-that-is-behind-the-origin-of-life-on-earth-read-to-know-articleshow.html
>
> Somebody come up with a theory that network systems can accidentally
> produce a human level mind, before we celebrate chat4 overmuch.
>
> Let humans come up with a network that invents technology that produce
> inventions that humans alone would not have arrived at for decades of
> centuries! That, would be the big breakthrough, and not a fun chatbox.
>

There is Koza's "Invention Machine":
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2006-04/john-koza-has-built-invention-machine/%3famp

And computers have been used to design computers since at least the 80s
with Danny Hillis's "Thinking Machines". He notes that the human brain
can't keep track of a device with billions of parts, only machines can do
that. So humans alone would not in centuries be able to design the CPU
chips we have and use today.

Jason


>
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Telmo Menezes 
> To: Everything List 
> Sent: Tue, Mar 14, 2023 11:45 am
> Subject: Re: The connectome and uploading
>
>
>
> Am Di, 14. Mär 2023, um 13:48, schrieb John Clark:
>
> On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 7:31 AM Telmo Menezes 
> wrote:
>
> > One of the authors of the article says "It’s interesting that the
> computer-science field is converging onto what evolution has discovered",
> he said that because it turns out that 41% of the fly brain's neurons are
> in recurrent loops that provide feedback to other neurons that are upstream
> of the data processing path, and that's just what we see in modern AIs like
> ChatGPT.
>
>
> *> I do not think this is true. ChatGPT is a fine-tuned Large Language
> Model (LLM), and LLMs use a transformer architecture, which is deep but
> purely feed-forward, and uses attention heads. The attention mechanism was
> the big breakthrough back in 2017, that finally enabled the training of
> such big models:*
>
>
> I was under the impression that transformers are superior to recurrent
> neural networks because recurrent processing of data was not necessary with
> transformers so more paralyzation is possible than with recursive neural
> networks; it can analyze an entire sentence at once and doesn't need to do
> so word by word.  So Transformers learn faster and need less trading data.
>
>
> It is true that transformers are fast

Re: The connectome and uploading

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Wed, 15 Mar 2023 at 22:47, spudboy100 via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> The question offered up 6 weeks ago was how does the similarity to animal
> brains arise from a Server Farm?
>
> At this point, I claim it doesn't and that 3 and 4 are clever Language
> Machines.
>
> To the claim that via magic, a consciousness arises in silicon or gallium
> arsenide seems a tall order. I have seen no article by any computer
> scientist, neurobiologist, or physicist, indicating HOW computer
> consciousness arose? If there is something out there, somebody please
> present a link to this august mailing-list.
>

There is no process or structure that would satisfy as the secret of
consciousness. Suppose we discovered a new neurotransmitter in the brain
with exotic physical properties: how would that explain consciousness? Why
would silicon or gallium arsenide be so fundamentally different to this
neurotransmitter that it obviously couldn’t explain lain consciousness?

> --
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: The connectome and uploading

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Connectome studies hold that "The Map is The Landscape." Thus, making uploading 
possible. 
When people like Ray Kurzweil were pontificating 25 years ago, it seemed back 
then like computer science would be roaring to The Singularity. Today, much of 
the goodies forecast by Kurz and everyone else seems sluggish, even with LLM's 
and quantum computing and its photonics cousin. Uploading seems as far away to 
me, as ever. 


-Original Message-
From: Terren Suydam 
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, Mar 14, 2023 11:02 am
Subject: Re: The connectome and uploading



On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 8:49 AM John Clark  wrote:

On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 7:31 AM Telmo Menezes  wrote:


> My intuition is that if we are going to successfully imitate biology we must 
> model the various neurotransmitters.

That is not my intuition. I see nothing sacred in hormones, I don't see the 
slightest reason why they or any neurotransmitter would be especially difficult 
to simulate through computation, because chemical messengers are not a sign of 
sophisticated design on nature's part, rather it's an example of Evolution's 
bungling. If you need to inhibit a nearby neuron there are better ways of 
sending that signal then launching a GABA molecule like a message in a bottle 
thrown into the sea and waiting ages for it to diffuse to its random target.

I don't think the point is about the specific neurotransmitters (NTs) used in 
biological brains, but that there are multiple NTs which each activate 
separable circuits in the brain. It's probably adaptive to have multiple NTs, 
to further modularize the brain's functionality. This may be an important part 
of generalized intelligence.
 
I'm not interested in brain chemicals, only in the information they contain, if 
somebody wants  information to get transmitted from one place to another as 
fast and reliablely as possible, nobody would send smoke signals if they had a 
fiber optic cable. The information content in each molecular message must be 
tiny, just a few bits because only about 60 neurotransmitters such as 
acetylcholine, norepinephrine and GABA are known, even if the true number is 
100 times greater (or a million times for that matter) the information content 
of each signal must be tiny. Also, for the long range stuff, exactly which 
neuron receives the signal can not be specified because it relies on a random 
process, diffusion. The fact that it's slow as molasses in February does not 
add to its charm.  

Similarly, NTs that produce effects on different timescales, or in terms of 
more diffuse targets, may provide functionality that a single, fast NT cannot 
achieve. You might call it Evolutionary bungling, but it's not necessarily the 
case that faster is always better.  I sometimes wonder how an AI that could 
process information a million times faster than a human could be capable of 
talking to humans. Imagine having to wait 20 years for a response - 
subjectively, that's how it might feel to a super-fast AI. 

Terren 
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Re: The connectome and uploading

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

The question offered up 6 weeks ago was how does the similarity to animal 
brains arise from a Server Farm? 
At this point, I claim it doesn't and that 3 and 4 are clever Language Machines.
To the claim that via magic, a consciousness arises in silicon or gallium 
arsenide seems a tall order. I have seen no article by any computer scientist, 
neurobiologist, or physicist, indicating HOW computer consciousness arose? If 
there is something out there, somebody please present a link to this august 
mailing-list. 
Now, for life arising out of chemicals on planet earth, I stumbled upon this 
yesterday. The theory is called Nickleback (O Canada!)

Scientists Have Found Molecule That Is Behind The Origin Of Life On Earth? Read 
To Know
https://www.republicworld.com/science/space/scientists-have-found-molecule-that-is-behind-the-origin-of-life-on-earth-read-to-know-articleshow.html

Somebody come up with a theory that network systems can accidentally produce a 
human level mind, before we celebrate chat4 overmuch. 
Let humans come up with a network that invents technology that produce 
inventions that humans alone would not have arrived at for decades of 
centuries! That, would be the big breakthrough, and not a fun chatbox.




-Original Message-
From: Telmo Menezes 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Tue, Mar 14, 2023 11:45 am
Subject: Re: The connectome and uploading

#yiv1573443158 p.yiv1573443158MsoNormal, #yiv1573443158 
p.yiv1573443158MsoNoSpacing{margin:0;}#yiv1573443158 p.yiv1573443158MsoNormal, 
#yiv1573443158 p.yiv1573443158MsoNoSpacing{margin:0;}

Am Di, 14. Mär 2023, um 13:48, schrieb John Clark:

On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 7:31 AM Telmo Menezes  wrote:



> One of the authors of the article says "It’s interesting that the 
>computer-science field is converging onto what evolution has discovered", he 
>said that because it turns out that 41% of the fly brain's neurons are in 
>recurrent loops that provide feedback to other neurons that are upstream of 
>the data processing path, and that's just what we see in modern AIs like 
>ChatGPT.


> I do not think this is true. ChatGPT is a fine-tuned Large Language Model 
> (LLM), and LLMs use a transformer architecture, which is deep but purely 
> feed-forward, and uses attention heads. The attention mechanism was the big 
> breakthrough back in 2017, that finally enabled the training of such big 
> models:


I was under the impression that transformers are superior to recurrent neural 
networks because recurrent processing of data was not necessary with 
transformers so more paralyzation is possible than with recursive neural 
networks; it can analyze an entire sentence at once and doesn't need to do so 
word by word.  So Transformers learn faster and need less trading data.


It is true that transformers are faster for the reason you say, but the 
vanishing gradient problem was definitely an issue. Right before transformers, 
the dominant architecture was LSTM, which was recurrent but designed in such a 
way as to deal with the vanishing gradient:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_short-term_memory

Memory is the obvious way to deal with context, but like you say transformers 
consider the entire sentence (or more) all at once. Attention heads allow for 
parallel learning to focus on several aspects of the sentence at the same time, 
and then combining them at higher and higher layers of abstraction.

I do not think that any of this has any impact on the size of the training 
corpus required.




> My intuition is that if we are going to successfully imitate biology we must 
> model the various neurotransmitters.


That is not my intuition. I see nothing sacred in hormones,


I agree that there is nothing sacred about hormones, the only important thing 
is that there are several of them, with different binding properties. Current 
artificial neural networks (ANNs) only have one type of signal between neurons, 
the activation signal. Our brains can signal different things, importantly 
using dopamine to regulate learning -- and thus serve as a building block for a 
decentralized, emergent learning algorithm that clearly can deal with recursive 
connections with no problem.

With recursive connections a NN becomes Turing complete. I would be extremely 
surprised if Turing completeness turns out to not be a requirement for AGI.


I don't see the slightest reason why they or any neurotransmitter would be 
especially difficult to simulate through computation, because chemical 
messengers are not a sign of sophisticated design on nature's part, rather it's 
an example of Evolution's bungling. If you need to inhibit a nearby neuron 
there are better ways of sending that signal then launching a GABA molecule 
like a message in a bottle thrown into the sea and waiting ages for it to 
diffuse to its random target.


Of course, they are easy to simulate. Another question is if they are easy to 
simulate at the

Re: The connectome and uploading

[Telmo Menezes]

Am Di, 14. Mär 2023, um 13:48, schrieb John Clark:
> On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 7:31 AM Telmo Menezes  wrote:
> 
>>> > One of the authors of the article says "It’s interesting that the 
>>> > computer-science field is converging onto what evolution has discovered", 
>>> > he said that because it turns out that 41% of the fly brain's neurons are 
>>> > in recurrent loops that provide feedback to other neurons that are 
>>> > upstream of the data processing path, and that's just what we see in 
>>> > modern AIs like ChatGPT.
>> 
>> *> I do not think this is true. ChatGPT is a fine-tuned Large Language Model 
>> (LLM), and LLMs use a transformer architecture, which is deep but purely 
>> feed-forward, and uses attention heads. The attention mechanism was the big 
>> breakthrough back in 2017, that finally enabled the training of such big 
>> models:*
> 
> I was under the impression that transformers are superior to recurrent neural 
> networks because recurrent processing of data was not necessary with 
> transformers so more paralyzation is possible than with recursive neural 
> networks; it can analyze an entire sentence at once and doesn't need to do so 
> word by word.  So Transformers learn faster and need less trading data.

It is true that transformers are faster for the reason you say, but the 
vanishing gradient problem was definitely an issue. Right before transformers, 
the dominant architecture was LSTM, which was recurrent but designed in such a 
way as to deal with the vanishing gradient:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_short-term_memory

Memory is the obvious way to deal with context, but like you say transformers 
consider the entire sentence (or more) all at once. Attention heads allow for 
parallel learning to focus on several aspects of the sentence at the same time, 
and then combining them at higher and higher layers of abstraction.

I do not think that any of this has any impact on the size of the training 
corpus required.

> 
>> *> My intuition is that if we are going to successfully imitate biology we 
>> must model the various neurotransmitters.*
> 
> That is not my intuition. I see nothing sacred in hormones,

I agree that there is nothing sacred about hormones, the only important thing 
is that there are several of them, with different binding properties. Current 
artificial neural networks (ANNs) only have one type of signal between neurons, 
the activation signal. Our brains can signal different things, importantly 
using dopamine to regulate learning -- and thus serve as a building block for a 
decentralized, emergent learning algorithm that clearly can deal with recursive 
connections with no problem.

With recursive connections a NN becomes Turing complete. I would be extremely 
surprised if Turing completeness turns out to not be a requirement for AGI.

> I don't see the slightest reason why they or any neurotransmitter would be 
> especially difficult to simulate through computation, because chemical 
> messengers are not a sign of sophisticated design on nature's part, rather 
> it's an example of Evolution's bungling. If you need to inhibit a nearby 
> neuron there are better ways of sending that signal then launching a GABA 
> molecule like a message in a bottle thrown into the sea and waiting ages for 
> it to diffuse to its random target.

Of course, they are easy to simulate. Another question is if they are easy to 
simulate at the speed that we can perform gradient descent using contemporary 
GPU architectures. Of course, this is just a technical problem, not a 
fundamental one. What is more fundamental (and apparently hard) is to know 
*what* to simulate, so that a powerful learning algorithm emerges from such 
local interactions.

Neuroscience provides us with a wealth of information about the biological 
reality of our brains, but what to abstract from this to create the master 
learning algorithm that we crave is perhaps the crux of the matter. Maybe it 
will take an Einstein level of intellect to achieve this breakthrough.

> I'm not interested in brain chemicals, only in the information they contain, 
> if somebody wants  information to get transmitted from one place to another 
> as fast and reliablely as possible, nobody would send smoke signals if they 
> had a fiber optic cable. The information content in each molecular message 
> must be tiny, just a few bits because only about 60 neurotransmitters such as 
> acetylcholine, norepinephrine and GABA are known, even if the true number is 
> 100 times greater (or a million times for that matter) the information 
> content of each signal must be tiny. Also, for the long range stuff, exactly 
> which neuron receives the signal can not be specified because it relies on a 
> random process, diffusion. The fact that it's slow as molasses in February 
> does not add to its charm.  

I completely agree, I am not fetishizing the wetware. Silicon is much faster.

Telmo

> If your job is delivering packages and all 

Re: The connectome and uploading

[Terren Suydam]

On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 8:49 AM John Clark  wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 7:31 AM Telmo Menezes 
> wrote:
>
> *> My intuition is that if we are going to successfully imitate biology we
>> must model the various neurotransmitters.*
>
>
> That is not my intuition. I see nothing sacred in hormones, I don't see
> the slightest reason why they or any neurotransmitter would be especially
> difficult to simulate through computation, because chemical messengers are
> not a sign of sophisticated design on nature's part, rather it's an example
> of Evolution's bungling. If you need to inhibit a nearby neuron there are
> better ways of sending that signal then launching a GABA molecule like a
> message in a bottle thrown into the sea and waiting ages for it to diffuse
> to its random target.
>

I don't think the point is about the specific neurotransmitters (NTs) used
in biological brains, but that there are multiple NTs which each activate
separable circuits in the brain. It's probably adaptive to have multiple
NTs, to further modularize the brain's functionality. This may be an
important part of generalized intelligence.


> I'm not interested in brain chemicals, only in the information they
> contain, if somebody wants  information to get transmitted from one place
> to another as fast and reliablely as possible, nobody would send smoke
> signals if they had a fiber optic cable. The information content in each
> molecular message must be tiny, just a few bits because only about 60
> neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, norepinephrine and GABA are known,
> even if the true number is 100 times greater (or a million times for that
> matter) the information content of each signal must be tiny. Also, for the
> long range stuff, exactly which neuron receives the signal can not be
> specified because it relies on a random process, diffusion. The fact that
> it's slow as molasses in February does not add to its charm.
>

Similarly, NTs that produce effects on different timescales, or in terms of
more diffuse targets, may provide functionality that a single, fast NT
cannot achieve. You might call it Evolutionary bungling, but it's not
necessarily the case that faster is always better.  I sometimes wonder how
an AI that could process information a million times faster than a human
could be capable of talking to humans. Imagine having to wait 20 years for
a response - subjectively, that's how it might feel to a super-fast AI.

Terren

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Re: The connectome and uploading

[Samiya Illias]

Acknowledging the Perfection of our Lord

No change should there be in the creation of Allah [Quran 30:30] 
Mission of the Messengers - XXIX  




Abstract 
To do تَسْبِيحَ of Allah means to acknowledge, declare, and/or celebrate that 
Allah is absolutely perfect. Allah creates perfectly and governs excellently. 
We humans need to acknowledge and appreciate this fact, and consequently submit 
to The Right Religion (الدِّينُ الْقَيِّمُ). 


Full Text
https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2018/10/acknowledging-perfection-of-our-lord.html
  


> On 14-Mar-2023, at 6:48 PM, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 9:44 AM Samiya Illias  wrote:
>> 
>> > Aren’t you an emergent property of the same system that you are 
>> > criticising? 
> 
> Yes.
> 
> John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis
> uyc
> 
> 
> 
>  
>> 
>> 
>> 
 On 14-Mar-2023, at 5:49 PM, John Clark  wrote:
 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 7:31 AM Telmo Menezes  
>>> wrote:
>>> 
> > One of the authors of the article says "It’s interesting that the 
> > computer-science field is converging onto what evolution has 
> > discovered", he said that because it turns out that 41% of the fly 
> > brain's neurons are in recurrent loops that provide feedback to other 
> > neurons that are upstream of the data processing path, and that's just 
> > what we see in modern AIs like ChatGPT.
 
 
 > I do not think this is true. ChatGPT is a fine-tuned Large Language 
 > Model (LLM), and LLMs use a transformer architecture, which is deep but 
 > purely feed-forward, and uses attention heads. The attention mechanism 
 > was the big breakthrough back in 2017, that finally enabled the training 
 > of such big models:
>>> 
>>> I was under the impression that transformers are superior to recurrent 
>>> neural networks because recurrent processing of data was not necessary with 
>>> transformers so more paralyzation is possible than with recursive neural 
>>> networks; it can analyze an entire sentence at once and doesn't need to do 
>>> so word by word.  So Transformers learn faster and need less trading data.
>>> 
 > My intuition is that if we are going to successfully imitate biology we 
 > must model the various neurotransmitters.
>>> 
>>> That is not my intuition. I see nothing sacred in hormones, I don't see the 
>>> slightest reason why they or any neurotransmitter would be especially 
>>> difficult to simulate through computation, because chemical messengers are 
>>> not a sign of sophisticated design on nature's part, rather it's an example 
>>> of Evolution's bungling. If you need to inhibit a nearby neuron there are 
>>> better ways of sending that signal then launching a GABA molecule like a 
>>> message in a bottle thrown into the sea and waiting ages for it to diffuse 
>>> to its random target.
>>> 
>>> I'm not interested in brain chemicals, only in the information they 
>>> contain, if somebody wants  information to get transmitted from one place 
>>> to another as fast and reliablely as possible, nobody would send smoke 
>>> signals if they had a fiber optic cable. The information content in each 
>>> molecular message must be tiny, just a few bits because only about 60 
>>> neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, norepinephrine and GABA are known, 
>>> even if the true number is 100 times greater (or a million times for that 
>>> matter) the information content of each signal must be tiny. Also, for the 
>>> long range stuff, exactly which neuron receives the signal can not be 
>>> specified because it relies on a random process, diffusion. The fact that 
>>> it's slow as molasses in February does not add to its charm.  
>>> 
>>> If your job is delivering packages and all the packages are very small, and 
>>> your boss doesn't care who you give them to as long as they're on the 
>>> correct continent, and you have until the next ice age to get the work 
>>> done, then you don't have a very difficult profession.  Artificial neurons 
>>> could be made to communicate as inefficiently as natural ones do by 
>>> releasing chemical neurotransmitters if anybody really wanted to, but it 
>>> would be pointless when there are much faster, and much more reliable, and 
>>> much more specific ways of operating.
>>> 
>>> John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis
>>> kuh
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
>>> "Everything List" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
>>> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv089oC%3DAc-DswW5simNfWzQsGAZADjusaWOacE4M6kt9g%40mail.gmail.com.
>> 
>> -- 
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>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop 

Re: The connectome and uploading

[John Clark]

On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 9:44 AM Samiya Illias 
wrote:

*> Aren’t you an emergent property of the same system that you are
> criticising? *
>

Yes.

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

uyc





>
>
>
> On 14-Mar-2023, at 5:49 PM, John Clark  wrote:
>
> 
> On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 7:31 AM Telmo Menezes 
> wrote:
>
> > One of the authors of the article says "It’s interesting that the
>>> computer-science field is converging onto what evolution has discovered",
>>> he said that because it turns out that 41% of the fly brain's neurons are
>>> in recurrent loops that provide feedback to other neurons that are upstream
>>> of the data processing path, and that's just what we see in modern AIs like
>>> ChatGPT.
>>
>>
>>
>> *> I do not think this is true. ChatGPT is a fine-tuned Large Language
>> Model (LLM), and LLMs use a transformer architecture, which is deep but
>> purely feed-forward, and uses attention heads. The attention mechanism was
>> the big breakthrough back in 2017, that finally enabled the training of
>> such big models:*
>>
>
> I was under the impression that transformers are superior to recurrent
> neural networks because recurrent processing of data was not necessary with
> transformers so more paralyzation is possible than with recursive neural
> networks; it can analyze an entire sentence at once and doesn't need to do
> so word by word.  So Transformers learn faster and need less trading data.
>
> *> My intuition is that if we are going to successfully imitate biology we
>> must model the various neurotransmitters.*
>
>
> That is not my intuition. I see nothing sacred in hormones, I don't see
> the slightest reason why they or any neurotransmitter would be especially
> difficult to simulate through computation, because chemical messengers are
> not a sign of sophisticated design on nature's part, rather it's an example
> of Evolution's bungling. If you need to inhibit a nearby neuron there are
> better ways of sending that signal then launching a GABA molecule like a
> message in a bottle thrown into the sea and waiting ages for it to diffuse
> to its random target.
>
> I'm not interested in brain chemicals, only in the information they
> contain, if somebody wants  information to get transmitted from one place
> to another as fast and reliablely as possible, nobody would send smoke
> signals if they had a fiber optic cable. The information content in each
> molecular message must be tiny, just a few bits because only about 60
> neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, norepinephrine and GABA are known,
> even if the true number is 100 times greater (or a million times for that
> matter) the information content of each signal must be tiny. Also, for the
> long range stuff, exactly which neuron receives the signal can not be
> specified because it relies on a random process, diffusion. The fact that
> it's slow as molasses in February does not add to its charm.
>
> If your job is delivering packages and all the packages are very small,
> and your boss doesn't care who you give them to as long as they're on the
> correct continent, and you have until the next ice age to get the work
> done, then you don't have a very difficult profession.  Artificial neurons
> could be made to communicate as inefficiently as natural ones do by
> releasing chemical neurotransmitters if anybody really wanted to, but it
> would be pointless when there are much faster, and much more reliable, and
> much more specific ways of operating.
>
> John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis
> 
> kuh
>
>
> --
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> "Everything List" group.
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> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv089oC%3DAc-DswW5simNfWzQsGAZADjusaWOacE4M6kt9g%40mail.gmail.com
> 
> .
>
> --
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> "Everything List" group.
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> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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> 
> .
>

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To 

Re: The connectome and uploading

[Samiya Illias]

If you are so inefficiently wired, how come you can comment on the inefficiency 
of the system? Aren’t you an emergent property of the same system that you are 
criticising? 



> On 14-Mar-2023, at 5:49 PM, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 7:31 AM Telmo Menezes  wrote:
>> 
 > One of the authors of the article says "It’s interesting that the 
 > computer-science field is converging onto what evolution has 
 > discovered", he said that because it turns out that 41% of the fly 
 > brain's neurons are in recurrent loops that provide feedback to other 
 > neurons that are upstream of the data processing path, and that's just 
 > what we see in modern AIs like ChatGPT.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> > I do not think this is true. ChatGPT is a fine-tuned Large Language Model 
>>> > (LLM), and LLMs use a transformer architecture, which is deep but purely 
>>> > feed-forward, and uses attention heads. The attention mechanism was the 
>>> > big breakthrough back in 2017, that finally enabled the training of such 
>>> > big models:
>> 
>> I was under the impression that transformers are superior to recurrent 
>> neural networks because recurrent processing of data was not necessary with 
>> transformers so more paralyzation is possible than with recursive neural 
>> networks; it can analyze an entire sentence at once and doesn't need to do 
>> so word by word.  So Transformers learn faster and need less trading data.
>> 
>> > My intuition is that if we are going to successfully imitate biology we 
>> > must model the various neurotransmitters.
> 
> That is not my intuition. I see nothing sacred in hormones, I don't see the 
> slightest reason why they or any neurotransmitter would be especially 
> difficult to simulate through computation, because chemical messengers are 
> not a sign of sophisticated design on nature's part, rather it's an example 
> of Evolution's bungling. If you need to inhibit a nearby neuron there are 
> better ways of sending that signal then launching a GABA molecule like a 
> message in a bottle thrown into the sea and waiting ages for it to diffuse to 
> its random target.
> 
> I'm not interested in brain chemicals, only in the information they contain, 
> if somebody wants  information to get transmitted from one place to another 
> as fast and reliablely as possible, nobody would send smoke signals if they 
> had a fiber optic cable. The information content in each molecular message 
> must be tiny, just a few bits because only about 60 neurotransmitters such as 
> acetylcholine, norepinephrine and GABA are known, even if the true number is 
> 100 times greater (or a million times for that matter) the information 
> content of each signal must be tiny. Also, for the long range stuff, exactly 
> which neuron receives the signal can not be specified because it relies on a 
> random process, diffusion. The fact that it's slow as molasses in February 
> does not add to its charm.  
> 
> If your job is delivering packages and all the packages are very small, and 
> your boss doesn't care who you give them to as long as they're on the correct 
> continent, and you have until the next ice age to get the work done, then you 
> don't have a very difficult profession.  Artificial neurons could be made to 
> communicate as inefficiently as natural ones do by releasing chemical 
> neurotransmitters if anybody really wanted to, but it would be pointless when 
> there are much faster, and much more reliable, and much more specific ways of 
> operating.
> 
> John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis
> kuh
> 
> 
> -- 
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> "Everything List" group.
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> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv089oC%3DAc-DswW5simNfWzQsGAZADjusaWOacE4M6kt9g%40mail.gmail.com.

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Re: The connectome and uploading

[John Clark]

On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 7:31 AM Telmo Menezes 
wrote:

> One of the authors of the article says "It’s interesting that the
>> computer-science field is converging onto what evolution has discovered",
>> he said that because it turns out that 41% of the fly brain's neurons are
>> in recurrent loops that provide feedback to other neurons that are upstream
>> of the data processing path, and that's just what we see in modern AIs like
>> ChatGPT.
>
>
>
> *> I do not think this is true. ChatGPT is a fine-tuned Large Language
> Model (LLM), and LLMs use a transformer architecture, which is deep but
> purely feed-forward, and uses attention heads. The attention mechanism was
> the big breakthrough back in 2017, that finally enabled the training of
> such big models:*
>

I was under the impression that transformers are superior to recurrent
neural networks because recurrent processing of data was not necessary with
transformers so more paralyzation is possible than with recursive neural
networks; it can analyze an entire sentence at once and doesn't need to do
so word by word.  So Transformers learn faster and need less trading data.

*> My intuition is that if we are going to successfully imitate biology we
> must model the various neurotransmitters.*


That is not my intuition. I see nothing sacred in hormones, I don't see the
slightest reason why they or any neurotransmitter would be especially
difficult to simulate through computation, because chemical messengers are
not a sign of sophisticated design on nature's part, rather it's an example
of Evolution's bungling. If you need to inhibit a nearby neuron there are
better ways of sending that signal then launching a GABA molecule like a
message in a bottle thrown into the sea and waiting ages for it to diffuse
to its random target.

I'm not interested in brain chemicals, only in the information they
contain, if somebody wants  information to get transmitted from one place
to another as fast and reliablely as possible, nobody would send smoke
signals if they had a fiber optic cable. The information content in each
molecular message must be tiny, just a few bits because only about 60
neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, norepinephrine and GABA are known,
even if the true number is 100 times greater (or a million times for that
matter) the information content of each signal must be tiny. Also, for the
long range stuff, exactly which neuron receives the signal can not be
specified because it relies on a random process, diffusion. The fact that
it's slow as molasses in February does not add to its charm.

If your job is delivering packages and all the packages are very small, and
your boss doesn't care who you give them to as long as they're on the
correct continent, and you have until the next ice age to get the work
done, then you don't have a very difficult profession.  Artificial neurons
could be made to communicate as inefficiently as natural ones do by
releasing chemical neurotransmitters if anybody really wanted to, but it
would be pointless when there are much faster, and much more reliable, and
much more specific ways of operating.

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

kuh

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Re: The connectome and uploading

[Telmo Menezes]

This is very nice. I did some stuff with the previously available complete 
connectome (C. elegans).

But:

Am Di, 14. Mär 2023, um 12:05, schrieb John Clark:
> One of the authors of the article says "*It’s interesting that the 
> computer-science field is converging onto what evolution has discovered*", he 
> said that because it turns out that 41% of the fly brain's neurons are in 
> recurrent loops that provide feedback to other neurons that are upstream of 
> the data processing path, and that's just what we see in modern AIs like 
> ChatGPT. 

I do not think this is true. ChatGPT is a fine-tuned Large Language Model 
(LLM), and LLMs use a transformer architecture, which is deep but purely 
feed-forward, and uses attention heads. The attention mechanism was the big 
breakthrough back in 2017, that finally enabled the training of such big models:

https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/2017/hash/3f5ee243547dee91fbd053c1c4a845aa-Abstract.html

Recurrent networks have been tried for decades precisely because of their 
biologically plausibility, but they suffer from the "vanishing gradient" 
problem. In simple terms, recurrence means that an input from a long time ago 
can remain important, but it becomes increasingly hard for gradient descent 
algorithms to assign the correct importance to the weights. So in this case, 
the breakthrough was achieved by moving away from biological plausibility.

I think that part of the reason for this is that although neural network 
topology is biologically inspired, the dominant learning algorithms are 
centralized top-down (gradient descent). Learning algorithms in our own brain 
are certainly much more decentralized / emergent / distributed. I do not think 
we cracked them yet. I imagine recurrent NNs will be back once we do. My 
intuition is that if we are going to successfully imitate biology we must model 
the various neurotransmitters. There is a reason why we have several of them 
(and all sorts of drugs that imitate them and can bind selectively). This 
contrasts with the "single signal type" approach of contemporary artificial NNs 
-- which is very handy because it really fits linear algebra and thus GPU 
architectures.

Telmo

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