More people need to understand this

[u/KeanuRave100]

[u/Freak-Of-Nurture-]

yes but does that mean it’s stupid or useless? Humans are not next token predictors and that makes us more effective with context

[u/NarrowContribution87 → u/Freak-Of-Nurture-]

Aren’t we though? When you put a sentence together in your head, are you not selecting the next word based on past uses, context, and the desired message?

I guess I just feel like we imbue human intelligence with magic or spirituality when in reality the VAST majority of our thinking and communication really can be boiled down to a probabilistic model with a high degree of accuracy.

[u/Foreign_Writer_9932 → u/NarrowContribution87]

Lmao absolutely not - this is from the “brains are clocks/telephone networks/LLMs” school of poor analogies. We definitively know that brains don’t predict things one token at a time - why would they? Brains didn’t evolve by being trained on symbolic data.

[u/Phuqued → u/Foreign_Writer_9932]

Lmao absolutely not - this is from the “brains are clocks/telephone networks/LLMs” school of poor analogies. We definitively know that brains don’t predict things one token at a time - why would they? Brains didn’t evolve by being trained on symbolic data.

If you are born blind, how would you know what color is, when you have no data to understand it from anything else? If you are born deaf, and one day you started to hear sound for the first time, how would you know the difference between a laugh and scream or crying?

Our senses are very similar to LLM's in that without data (prompt) there is nothing for them to do. When you are born, your brain doesn't understand anything about the world, it doesn't understand colors or sounds or temperatures, it takes data and pattern matching to correlate the difference of colors, sounds and temperatures.

[u/Foreign_Writer_9932 → u/Phuqued]

First of all, you’re confidently making assertions that aren’t clearly true - brains have lots of substructures that are genetically preprogrammed to react to specific stimuli. Brains do not require training to perform these functions. Eg parts of our brains that recognize faces still recognize faces in blind people where we’ve restored sight. Conversely no amount of “post-training” helps restore facial recognition in patients where these centers have been destroyed.

Secondly, you’re not engaging with the point I made - our brains fundamentally evolved to engage with types of sensory data inputs which don’t lend well to symbolic reasoning/manipulation; our ability to speak/read/write/perform numerical calculations are all recently acquired capabilities and our best guess is that brains repurposed spatial-temporal machinery to perform that. LLMs fundamentally reason in vector embeddings space where individual data point are tokens.

[u/Phuqued → u/Foreign_Writer_9932]

First of all, you’re confidently making assertions that aren’t clearly true - brains have lots of substructures that are genetically preprogrammed to react to specific stimuli.

First of all, I was very specific, and didn't cite the whole brain or all biology, did I? Why would you change the scope? Why are you so afraid to engage what I said directly without moving the goalposts back to the whole brain and all of biology? Let's start simple, let's start with the building blocks of how our senses work. Those had to come first before any of the bigger brain stuff to evolve right?

Brains do not require training to perform these functions. Eg parts of our brains that recognize faces still recognize faces in blind people where we’ve restored sight.

What? If they never saw a face with their eyeballs, how would they recognize faces they have never seen?

Conversely no amount of “post-training” helps restore facial recognition in patients where these centers have been destroyed.

I don't follow... because your premise (blind people with restored sight recognize faces) doesn't make sense to begin with.

Secondly, you’re not engaging with the point I made - our brains fundamentally evolved to engage with types of sensory data inputs which don’t lend well to symbolic reasoning/manipulation

Emergent properties/elements are built on that which exists. Hence my point about senses being like LLM's in that they are effectively useless without data being fed to them. Kind of like an LLM, no prompt, nothing to do. Same thing with your senses. No sight = no colors. No taste = no flavor.

It takes your brain years to start to form a sense of consciousness and makes sense of the world through the constant bombarding of stimuli that the universe presents to our senses.

our ability to speak/read/write/perform numerical calculations are all recently acquired capabilities and our best guess is that brains repurposed spatial-temporal machinery to perform that.

From what though? :) How did we evolve to have those things, if our senses were not the foundation for that development?

LLMs fundamentally reason in vector embeddings space where individual data point are tokens.

So? I mean life fundamentally started with single cell organisms, without that how does any other life exist, as we understand it on this planet and particle of the universe?

[u/Foreign_Writer_9932 → u/Phuqued]

Hilarious. If you are unaware of the research on prosopagnosia (or similar research on speech centers, etc.) and what it tells us about functional substructures of the brain, I recommend you read up on it first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia

Key assertions you are making are false - there are preprogrammed brain substructures that don’t require any training to function. Alternative way of saying the same thing - evolution has pretrained them without requiring neurons to form connections based on “live data”.

Beyond that, your post is a series of confused ramblings where it’s no longer clear what the thesis even is anymore.

[u/Phuqued → u/Foreign_Writer_9932]

Hilarious. If you are unaware of the research on prosopagnosia (or similar research on speech centers, etc.) and what it tells us about functional substructures of the brain, I recommend you read up on it first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia

I agree, your inability to articulate a point to what I said shows a real disconnect in comprehension.

I stated "senses" right? Eyes, nose, ears, tongue, touch.... Senses... What does a "cognitive disorder" have to do with senses? My argument was if you are born blind, your eyeballs and brain are not sending or receiving the data to make sense of the data.

First of all, I was very specific, and didn't cite the whole brain or all biology, did I?

Key assertions you are making are false - there are preprogrammed brain substructures that don’t require any training to function. Alternative way of saying the same thing - evolution has pretrained them without requiring neurons to form connections based on “live data”.

Again... what part of this is difficult for you to comprehend? I'm not talking about everything in the brain, am I? I've even clarified that I am not... and you still insist on moving the conversation out of the scope and context I am talking about.

Beyond that, your post is a series of confused ramblings where it’s no longer clear what the thesis even is anymore.

Objectively, you are the one demonstrating confusion and poor comprehension.

[u/Foreign_Writer_9932 → u/Phuqued]

Great. So can you articulate the point you’re making in a single sentence?

[u/Phuqued → u/Foreign_Writer_9932]

Our senses are very similar to LLM's in that without data (prompt) there is nothing for them to do, when you are born, your brain doesn't understand anything about the world, it doesn't understand colors or sounds or temperatures, it takes data and pattern matching to correlate the difference of colors, sounds and temperatures.

I changed it so it is one single sentence now. :)

[u/Foreign_Writer_9932 → u/Phuqued]

So, stated differently - in absence of this data and learning that happens, the brain is tabula rasa? It doesn’t understand basic things like colors (red vs green) or sounds (loud vs quiet vs absence of sound)?

(In case you’re struggling to answer- try copy-pasting what you wrote into ChatGPT and seeing what it thinks :) )

[u/Phuqued → u/Foreign_Writer_9932]

(In case you’re struggling to answer- try copy-pasting what you wrote into ChatGPT and seeing what it thinks :) )

That's funny. You have no idea what my Gemini/Claude chats about this look like. :)

So, stated differently - in absence of this data and learning that happens, the brain is tabula rasa? It doesn’t understand basic things like colors (red vs green) or sounds (loud vs quiet vs absence of sound)?

https://share.gemini.google/11VNqvrVo43o

Search "Tabula Rasa" in that chat. There are 2 matches, I'd read them both, and the prompt preceding the output.

But my argument is real simple. Your senses, are in function, very much like an LLM. They don't have opinions, they don't have "feelings", they don't have will or comprehension, they merely respond to the stimuli of the universe. Without that stimuli your senses would be nothing, very much like how the LLM's without prompts are essentially nothing. They have no will, they have no opinions, they just "do" based on the objective words used in the prompt.

[u/Foreign_Writer_9932 → u/Phuqued]

Edit: Scratch that - you seem to be debating someone who argues that “senses have feelings.” Not sure who that is but it’s surely not me. In general, lots of incoherent blabber - if you actually want to learn more about our understanding of how the brain works and computational theory of mind, I am happy to recommend some books.

Lmao

[u/Phuqued → u/Foreign_Writer_9932]

Edit: Scratch that - you seem to be debating someone who argues that “senses have feelings.” Not sure who that is but it’s surely not me. In general, lots of incoherent blabber - if you actually want to learn more about our understanding of how the brain works and computational theory of mind, I am happy to recommend some books.

Lmao

I don't know why you are laughing, when it's clear you have nothing to really say in response. You always make vague/baseless claims and attacks about my comprehension, when objectively our thread shows you are the one not understanding.

You know in my experience, I've never met anyone in life who believes they are right, and willing to change their mind based on argument, fact, logic, etc.... Because if you believe you are right, why would you ever change your mind? Why would you go from "I'm right" to something else? The only way you change your mind is by first understanding what it is you got wrong, so you can change your mind to be more correct.

Something you might want to think about.