No software/hardware separation in the brain: empirical evidence
I feel like the evidence in this section isn’t strong enough to support the conclusion. Neuroscience is like nutrition—no one agrees on anything, and you can find real people with real degrees and reputations supporting just about any view. Especially if it’s something as non-committal as “this mechanism could maybe matter”. Does that really invalidate the neuron doctrine? Maybe if you don’t simulate ATP, the only thing that changes is that you have gotten rid of an error source. Maybe it changes some isolated neuron firings, but the brain has enough redundancy that it basically computes the same functions.
Or even if it does have a desirable computational function, maybe it’s easy to substitute with some additional code.
I feel like the required standard of evidence is to demonstrate that there’s a mechanism-not-captured-by-the-neuron-doctrine that plays a major computational role, not just any computational role. (Aren’t most people talking about neuroscience still basically assuming that this is not the case?)
We can expect natural selection to result in a web of contingencies between different levels of abstraction.[6]
Mhh yeah I think the plausibility argument has some merit.
Especially if it’s something as non-committal as “this mechanism could maybe matter”. Does that really invalidate the neuron doctrine?
I agree each of the “mechanisms that maybe matter” are tenuous by themselves, the argument I’m trying to make here is hits-based. There are so many mechanisms that maybe matter, the chances of one of them mattering in a relevant way is quite high.
I think your argument also has to establish that the cost of simulating any that happen to matter is also quite high.
My intuition is that capturing enough secondary mechanisms, in sufficient-but-abstracted detail that the simulated brain is behaviorally normal (e.g. a sim of me not-more-different than a very sleep-deprived me), is likely to be both feasible by your definition and sufficient for consciousness.
If I understand your point correctly, that’s what I try to establish here
the speed of propagation of ATP molecules (for example) is sensitive to a web of more physical factors like electromagnetic fields, ion channels, thermal fluctuations, etc. If we ignore all these contingencies, we lose causal closure again. If we include them, our mental software becomes even more complicated.
i.e., the cost becomes high because you need to keep including more and more elements of the dynamics.
I feel like the evidence in this section isn’t strong enough to support the conclusion. Neuroscience is like nutrition—no one agrees on anything, and you can find real people with real degrees and reputations supporting just about any view. Especially if it’s something as non-committal as “this mechanism could maybe matter”. Does that really invalidate the neuron doctrine? Maybe if you don’t simulate ATP, the only thing that changes is that you have gotten rid of an error source. Maybe it changes some isolated neuron firings, but the brain has enough redundancy that it basically computes the same functions.
Or even if it does have a desirable computational function, maybe it’s easy to substitute with some additional code.
I feel like the required standard of evidence is to demonstrate that there’s a mechanism-not-captured-by-the-neuron-doctrine that plays a major computational role, not just any computational role. (Aren’t most people talking about neuroscience still basically assuming that this is not the case?)
Mhh yeah I think the plausibility argument has some merit.
I agree each of the “mechanisms that maybe matter” are tenuous by themselves, the argument I’m trying to make here is hits-based. There are so many mechanisms that maybe matter, the chances of one of them mattering in a relevant way is quite high.
I think your argument also has to establish that the cost of simulating any that happen to matter is also quite high.
My intuition is that capturing enough secondary mechanisms, in sufficient-but-abstracted detail that the simulated brain is behaviorally normal (e.g. a sim of me not-more-different than a very sleep-deprived me), is likely to be both feasible by your definition and sufficient for consciousness.
If I understand your point correctly, that’s what I try to establish here
i.e., the cost becomes high because you need to keep including more and more elements of the dynamics.