RE: Seeing red
February 4, 2016 at 9:21 am
(This post was last modified: February 4, 2016 at 10:10 am by The Grand Nudger.)
@Benny, not sure. Removing a component of a system doesn't have a standard effect. If I "removed" one of your pc's alu functions (which always reduces to a single gate transmission in one of your cpu cores) you -might- never notice. Or you might notice right away. It would depend upon how integral to the operation of the system the removed component was, or how often you leveraged the function. That's a dedicated function though, with no redundancy. Removing single neurons, as far as I know, doesn't remove dedicated functions (we're not sure they have a specific function they;re tasked too(plasticity)...though there's some critical point where you've removed enough neurons...say, the neurons of the motor cortex..... at which paralysis ensues.
What I don't know, relative to the question, is whether or not this is what you mean by stable and variable. Presumably, if you've removed all of the neurons of the motor cortex the system itself (ignoring the "full body" system) is going to be pretty stable (even though you can't move). If there's some amount of them left trying to coordinate with nobody, as it were, you can imagine a situation in which jerky and unpredicatble motion is both expressed by the subject and reflected in constant "errors" in the cortex. You'll see this with the condition I linked back there with the nazis..due to iron buildup in the brain which causes neurons to malfunction leading to parkinsons like symptoms that get progressively worse. You might consider this chemical removal of nuerons leading to instability in both the system and in loss of function (or control of function) on the whole.
@emjay, If brain is comp...then no, if all components of a comp system yield the same state simultaneously that's critical failure. It can no longer comp (and it can't reboot -itself- as that would be a signal change as well). If you were designing a board with this problem in mind, for whatever reason, say..in this case, you were going to use it around alot of ambient power discharges that might interfere with the circuit.....what you -could do- is run an output from some (or all, theoretically) gates in process and if, and only if all gates are on simultaneously, that trips a nand wired directly to the PS, shutting the system down (ofc you'll have just engineered a single point failure criteria for your whole system..if that nand malfunctions so too does the entire board). You'll actually find error checking arrays like this in your home PC, but you'll find even more exotic arrays in boards meant for exotic purposes. I know that probably doesn't answer your question outright, but it gives you a little more context for the question. That's a mechanical problem which does exist in comp systems, for which a solution exists...but.....it's the kind of solution which invokes near instant suspicion in the case of an evolved computer. Thankfully, we don't seem to be subject to this problem. I picked up on something earlier, that I wanted to comment upon. There's an upper limit to how fast neurons can fire, and there's also an upper limit to how quickly those signals can move as well. Presumably, there's time for error checking in transit, and there must be some sort of frontloading or backloading of information when the amount of work being done exceeds the ability of the system to transmit the data as a packet to the relevant centers. This is the sort of thing that answers a question benny had awhile back as well..."what do I gain from considering mind material or considering mind comp" - well, you gain insight into how existing comp systems work around problems we would perceive or describe as cognitive problems. The great and wonderful "well, you could try to solve for x like so". That gives us a hell of a working start to exploring how the brain does it. We can say.."were going to engineer "problem x" in the brain, and then see if it's doing anything that resembles this solution in response to that". For example, present each eye with a different image isolated from the other. What do we see the brain doing, how does it resolve conflicting inputs? I mention this because, mechanically, your situation above where all neurons are in the same state, is the penultimate expression of the conflicting inputs problem.
Also, in your convo with Jorg you mentioned that you didn;t see the need for programming, that the hardware would handle and explain all function. That's always the case..even when there -is- programming. Programming is just a set of instructions for the hardware to be in a certain state. It's -always- about the hardware..your nn weighting process...is writing a program, constantly. That's the point at which "classical" comp mind fell flat on it's face and things like NN and hueristics took over as practical descriptions.
What I don't know, relative to the question, is whether or not this is what you mean by stable and variable. Presumably, if you've removed all of the neurons of the motor cortex the system itself (ignoring the "full body" system) is going to be pretty stable (even though you can't move). If there's some amount of them left trying to coordinate with nobody, as it were, you can imagine a situation in which jerky and unpredicatble motion is both expressed by the subject and reflected in constant "errors" in the cortex. You'll see this with the condition I linked back there with the nazis..due to iron buildup in the brain which causes neurons to malfunction leading to parkinsons like symptoms that get progressively worse. You might consider this chemical removal of nuerons leading to instability in both the system and in loss of function (or control of function) on the whole.
@emjay, If brain is comp...then no, if all components of a comp system yield the same state simultaneously that's critical failure. It can no longer comp (and it can't reboot -itself- as that would be a signal change as well). If you were designing a board with this problem in mind, for whatever reason, say..in this case, you were going to use it around alot of ambient power discharges that might interfere with the circuit.....what you -could do- is run an output from some (or all, theoretically) gates in process and if, and only if all gates are on simultaneously, that trips a nand wired directly to the PS, shutting the system down (ofc you'll have just engineered a single point failure criteria for your whole system..if that nand malfunctions so too does the entire board). You'll actually find error checking arrays like this in your home PC, but you'll find even more exotic arrays in boards meant for exotic purposes. I know that probably doesn't answer your question outright, but it gives you a little more context for the question. That's a mechanical problem which does exist in comp systems, for which a solution exists...but.....it's the kind of solution which invokes near instant suspicion in the case of an evolved computer. Thankfully, we don't seem to be subject to this problem. I picked up on something earlier, that I wanted to comment upon. There's an upper limit to how fast neurons can fire, and there's also an upper limit to how quickly those signals can move as well. Presumably, there's time for error checking in transit, and there must be some sort of frontloading or backloading of information when the amount of work being done exceeds the ability of the system to transmit the data as a packet to the relevant centers. This is the sort of thing that answers a question benny had awhile back as well..."what do I gain from considering mind material or considering mind comp" - well, you gain insight into how existing comp systems work around problems we would perceive or describe as cognitive problems. The great and wonderful "well, you could try to solve for x like so". That gives us a hell of a working start to exploring how the brain does it. We can say.."were going to engineer "problem x" in the brain, and then see if it's doing anything that resembles this solution in response to that". For example, present each eye with a different image isolated from the other. What do we see the brain doing, how does it resolve conflicting inputs? I mention this because, mechanically, your situation above where all neurons are in the same state, is the penultimate expression of the conflicting inputs problem.
Also, in your convo with Jorg you mentioned that you didn;t see the need for programming, that the hardware would handle and explain all function. That's always the case..even when there -is- programming. Programming is just a set of instructions for the hardware to be in a certain state. It's -always- about the hardware..your nn weighting process...is writing a program, constantly. That's the point at which "classical" comp mind fell flat on it's face and things like NN and hueristics took over as practical descriptions.
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