It's not that people don't want to imagine, it's that you don't need to imagine that.
I seems like you're hijacking the discussion to your pet issue. My point isn't about how good in general the computer analogy is, it really isn't. You should consider that maps of brain function began quite a while ago, before the start of the 20th (though accelerated by WWI). Here, the analogy was the machine and the mapping of brain followed functional units in machines. And if you consider the point I make (which pretty much echos the article), it's really a counter-example. The multi-layer organization of software show a system doesn't necessarily have to follow naive physical functional units, especially ones we naively perceive. That's it, there's nothing here forcing the computer analogy.
Neuroscientist love to reify a chunk of brain as responsible for function X. They have done this for 160 years. Only Karl Lashley’s work called “localization” into question but his work was swept aside in the Montcastle-Hubel-Wiesel era of big neuroscience.
Now we do toy experiments using optogenetics of a single inbred strain of mouse and delude ourselves into thinking that we are achieving understanding of a highly complex system.
I’ve worked in this field for 40 years and we are not even asking the right questions.
It is a pity neuroscientists do not know more about analog computing. Can a neuroscientist understand an op amp? Probably not.
To share the harsh light—can a CS expert in AI understand how to get to general AI? Probably not unless, like D. Hassabis, you have a solid background in neuroscience.
On one level that’s a reasonable take it, on the other simply having enough data is a prerequisite to come up with the right questions. Astronomers collected literally centuries of data to build up ever more complex epicenter models before ellipsis became an clearly better fit to the data.
IMO, neuroscience simply needs that foundational data and current theory is largely pointless.
Current theory isn't pointless. Current theory straight up doesn't exist.
There is no (non crackpot) theory of mind yet. Most high quality research on the mind (from a non computer science angle) comes from where it breaks down (schizophrenia, autism), since that's where the money is.
Research into AI and neural nets and stuff may change that, but as far as I'm aware an actual model for how thoughts exist doesn't really exist.
The hard problem of consciousness is an impassable obstacle given the set of tools that we have and, arguably, ever can have. If we grant that there is some level of physical description (chemical, atomic, sub-atomic, whichever) at which consciousness best adheres, what do we use to make the connection? Symbolic equations and theorems don't cut it, and that's pretty much all we've got. Physical systems are fully described by the collection of their measurable properties (positions, momenta, charges, etc)--there's no way to connect things going on "outside" with subjective experience.
What would an operator which turns a physical state into conscious experience spit out?
C|state> = ????
Can't write down e.g. "The perception of a red apple on a table". Red? Table? Just symbols. Consciousness and word-symbols are just too far apart.
> The hard problem of consciousness is an impassable obstacle given the set of tools that we have and, arguably, ever can have
I've come to the same conclusion, after reading and thinking about it for 20 years. I no longer search for answers in books, papers, or threads. It's worse than not being able to find any new insights. I never found any insight that goes beyond describing the problem, or defending the existence of the problem. I no longer expect to see any progress on it in my lifetime.
It is more complex than just a one word description but that’s an argument from absurdity.
Let’s suppose we build a teleport device which can make identical copies. As in your standing in pad X then someone else is standing on pad Y that looks identical to pad X and you both respond identically.
Now, whatever that machine reads as your mind state is your actual mind state. We don’t need to make an actual copy to do exactly what you said was impossible.
To clarify, you can’t really capture an image with words but a camera can capture an image as symbols. It’s just that a person looking at those symbols can’t see the image. The same is presumably true of a mind.
I was agreeing with you. And we are arguing from the same side. My comment was more directed at how the meta-opinion in Hackernews generally struggles to step outside of the computational model, or into other possible theories of mind (or memory) developed by philosophers like Wittgenstein, Dennett, or Hacker; and, the result is usually forcing the computer analogy in ways that assumes a kind of blunt physicalism, like the discrete parts of a computer, and often nonsense, as you described. There is often disbelief expressed at the idea that you could use anything but software or computer analogies to describe how the brain functions, or the mind. The assumption is so strong that people do feel forced into the analogy simply because they also understand computers.
I seems like you're hijacking the discussion to your pet issue. My point isn't about how good in general the computer analogy is, it really isn't. You should consider that maps of brain function began quite a while ago, before the start of the 20th (though accelerated by WWI). Here, the analogy was the machine and the mapping of brain followed functional units in machines. And if you consider the point I make (which pretty much echos the article), it's really a counter-example. The multi-layer organization of software show a system doesn't necessarily have to follow naive physical functional units, especially ones we naively perceive. That's it, there's nothing here forcing the computer analogy.