Do People Think?

[Zampano]

The common question that has been asked and answered a hundred times is 'Do Computers Think?' The reason people started asking this question is because with the increasing complexity of computers, they were able to perform tasks that made them seem increasingly intelligent to humans.

The answer to the question is 'No', as computers are only able to follow set instructions while people are able to make conscious decisions, which separates the computer's thought from humans'.

However, a computer's thought still seems to be strikingly similar to a person's, which is why I made this topic.

The hypothetical possibility is that people do not actually think, except in the way a computer thinks: a large amount of 'if' statements.

Let me explain: all the decisions that a person makes are based on their circumstances, and for that reason, they have no conscious thoughts. For example: if a lion is chasing you, you run. If the phone is ringing, you pick it up. That's is how a person thinks; what if it looked like this:

if lion chasing then
run
end if

if phone ringing then
pick up
end if

That's just how Turing might have our thoughts, but the syntax is irrelevant. What's important is that our brains only produce the output (run, pick up) based on the input. Furthermore, the output can become more and more complex, based on the circumstances of the input (run in the opposite direction of the lion, pick up the nearest phone). The output can be so complex even to mirror emotions.

The point is that if our interactions with life are only based on circumstance, we have no intelligence, the same way a computer has no real intelligence, and therefore our lives are predictable, the same way a skilled programmer can tell what will happen in a program by just studying the code involved in the program for a few minutes.

That has huge implications:
A)We have no will our say in our lives.
B)There is no such thing as emotion.
and C), the most important and the ultimate implication of this idea; if we could build a program that charts the course of human input and output to eventually find patterns in it (the program would have to be infinitely complex), and we had a fast enough computer (it would have to be infinitely fast, and we knew the position of every proton, neutron, and electron at the farthest point back in the age of the universe we knew of (our knowledge of this matter would have to stretch over infinite space); if we had those three things, we could determine the course of the universe, the future, and the exact past the same way (as I said earlier) a programmer sees the exact course of a program.

Of course, that's conditional on humans not thinking.

I'm reluctant to explore this idea, as it ultimately makes my life futile, and gives me no to run like a program. But i just want to know what you guys think, with all your insight into computers and people. Please read the entire post and respond accordingly.

[haskell]

Everything you have said is just basic observations, all of which can be explained by what we learned through our entire lives and basic brain functions that stop us from having to consciously decide every little thing that happens. We DO NOT run fully on conditionals, in fact, these "conditionals" you described are either:

A. Instincts that have carried over thousands of years.
B. Things we learned from other people(Social Proof).

These are used to keep us alive and allow us to function in the efficient manner we do now, despite the countless stimulus we encounter each day.

Our complex functioning is basically a positive charge that flows up the axons of neurons that is caused by the diffusion of sodium ions into it due to a successive opening of protein channels, which causes a chemicals to be released, which causes various reactions(VERY simplified).

However, there is a much better argument about a new Physics theory that proves we don't have free-will through Quantum Mechanics,.

[Cervantes]

It's a well known fact that the universe is NOT deterministic. That is, if we knew exactly the state of the universe at a certain time, it is not possible to work out the exact state of the universe at another time (before or after). The best you can do is work out probabilities of a certain state happening or not. This is all based on Quantum Mechanics.

So don't worry, your life is not pre-determined.

Now, here's my answer to your first question. People think in a way that is distinct from a (classical) computer. There are some fantastic theories that relate quantum mechanics to the human brain. Stuart Hameroff defines consciousness as

Quote:

a sequence of discrete events, arising from alternating phases of 1) isolated quantum coherent superposition (in which microtubule quantum states are isolated by actin gelation), and 2) classical input/output in which microtubule information communicates with the non-conscious portions of the brain, nervous system and outside world.

The theory explains that brains of humans are capable of having many "conscious moments" per second, while a worm's brain might only be able to have a few per minute. A classical computer has none, to the best of my knowledge.

I find the field of Quantum Computing fascinating because it is so inter-disciplinary: Physics, Math, Computer Science, (Chemistry), Neuroscience, Engineering

[Skynet]

Even assuming that our brain behaves identically to a massively parallel computer, the main advantage a human has is the ability to constantly develop new "conditionals" through a subconscious obsession to find patterns in the world. Yes, I believe that my thought processes at any discrete instant can be modeled by a long list of conditionals. However, since my brain is constantly feeding back information, these conditionals are evolving over time. On top of that, some 'inputs' to these conditionals are the outputs of other 'operations' our brain performs on sensory information - audio filtering, visual pattern matching, etc. Those 'modules' are also constantly evolving over time based on feedback they receive. But, unlike a feedback control system like a car's cruise control, there are millions of interconnected paths. Also, the operations are not synchronized with each other.

If you want to get into the gooey stuff, there's what haskell and Cervantes posted, but what I've posted above makes no assumptions as to the actual method of functioning of the human brain.

As a side note, 'expert systems' do what you describe above - attempt to condense an expert's analytical skill into a computer program, usually for the purpose of making diagnoses. (Medicine was the first place that this was used)

[haskell]

Actually, I can do exactly what you described in LISP :p. Although, I'm pretty sure you can't live long enough to properly simulate the human brain. Its crude and is usually producing errors... No computer system could function like that. In fact, we'd never let a computer system function like that. Mistakes are for humans.

[Skynet]

Yeah, I meant to mention LISP. You could do it in assembler too, if you tried hard enough. However, the difficulty of structuring the system to accept feedback in the correct way is still there....especially since on top of everything else, the brain is capable of reorganizing itself to maintain function in the face of severe trauma. It would be like having a running program rewrite itself to achieve its original goals after large portions of its instruction set were removed without warning. (and without telling the program what happened)

[Zampano]

Thanks for the answers, guys.
I knew nothing about quantum mechanics or anything else for that matter when I posted this topic. I guess whatever question you can imagine, there is a person somewhere with at least a partial, if hypothetical answer.
I'm interested in these kinds of questions, so I'll look into all the stuff you wrote about, and maybe come to a conclusion I am satisfied with.

[cavetroll]

wow I started reading this and decided to look up some of the stuff you guys are talking about ... anyway long story short is now 12:20 and I am gonna be tired tomorrow.

Anyway I think we have consciousness merely by the fact that we are having this conversation in an attempt to further understand our own being. If we weren't conscious then we would not have any reason to (or way to) understand ourselves. Also I think creating a computer which functions like our brain does is impossible because our brain has X number of "ifs" as you call them and Y number of them are used for process that don't require us to think about(i.e. heartbeat, breathing) but still take up our thought process. We cannot comprehend our brains because we cannot utilize the entire brain. Thus it would be impossible to create a computer program to model out brains.

[Cervantes]

cavetroll wrote:

Anyway I think we have consciousness merely by the fact that we are having this conversation in an attempt to further understand our own being. If we weren't conscious then we would not have any reason to (or way to) understand ourselves.

why do you think it's impossible for a computer program to try to determine the source of its own "intelligence"? I can definitely see that happening.

cavetroll wrote:

Also I think creating a computer which functions like our brain does is impossible because our brain has X number of "ifs" as you call them and Y number of them are used for process that don't require us to think about(i.e. heartbeat, breathing) but still take up our thought process.

You'd have to define "thought process", but if it's defined at all in terms of the cerebrum (which seems reasonable to me), then these things don't take up our thought process. They're controlled by the brainstem (in particular the medulla oblongata). But still, there's no reason why a computer program couldn't model the brainstem. In fact, modelling the brainstem would be quite easy. It's the cerebrum that would be orders of magnitude more difficult.

cavetroll wrote:

We cannot comprehend our brains because we cannot utilize the entire brain.

The fact that we don't consciously use all parts of the brain, does not imply that we can't (externally) study all parts of the brain and eventually understand it completely.

Zampano @ Sat Sep 29, 2007 8:04 pm wrote:

I'm interested in these kinds of questions, so I'll look into all the stuff you wrote about, and maybe come to a conclusion I am satisfied with.

I kind of doubt this, but good luck!

If anyone likes Star Trek, check out Season 2 Episode 9 of The Next Generation. It's called "The Measure of a Man", and Data is ordered to transfer off the Enterprise. He counters by resigning from Star Fleet. But is Data, being a machine, considered the property of Star Fleet? Does he have the right to choose? The question ultimately comes down to whether Data is conscious or not. If anyone's really interested in watching this (and can't find it elsewhere), I could possibly upload it to something.

[Zampano]

Cervantes wrote:

If anyone likes Star Trek, check out Season 2 Episode 9 of The Next Generation. It's called "The Measure of a Man", and Data is ordered to transfer off the Enterprise. He counters by resigning from Star Fleet. But is Data, being a machine, considered the property of Star Fleet? Does he have the right to choose? The question ultimately comes down to whether Data is conscious or not.

There's a similar situation in 2001: A Space Odysee, where the HAL-9000(a very 'intelligent' machine) kills a human because he was scheduled to be turned off because of an apparent glitch in his function.

By the way, does any one know of a site where there's an explanation of quantum mechanics for dumb morons like me?

[CodeMonkey2000]

Why are we assuming that the brain performs a bunch of if statements? What if the human thought is made up of trillions and trillions of random chemical reactions super-imposed into one conscience/sub conscience? According to quantum mechanics, isn't everything suppose to happen at random?

[Cervantes]

Things progress according to probabilities, but for macroscopic (non-quantum) systems, the probabilities are so enormously close to 1 or 0 that we can treat them as 1 or 0.

Zampano, the first good exposure I got to Quantum Mechanics was through Brian Greene's book, The Elegant Universe. The first section is special and general relativity, the second is QM, and the third is String theory and M-theory.

[rdrake]

Yes.

[BigBear]

I believe people think because if we were like computer we wouldn't make terrible mistakes. People go out and buy terrible cell phone plans and complain about it, Computer program wouldn't complain.

[Nick]

what if we were programed to complain :p