Is it possibly to functionally transfer knowledge from a neural network to another?

[someguy1]

Why you insist on using the Turing type of computation as the standard by which all other forms of computation should be judged, is a mystery to me.

Because the people who study computations don't know how to instantiate any other type of computation in the physical world.

So that any OTHER type of computation may well exist; but it has not yet been discovered. You're just talking about a hypothetical future leap in technology; but you THINK you are saying something much more tangible than that. You're not. You're making an unjustified leap. The science isn't there. Yes you can CALL the secret sauce of consciousness a "computation." And you can say that you mean it in a sense more general than just a TM. The problem is -- you haven't got such a thing. Nobody does.

The point isn't to deny there could be a mode of computation that's not a Turing machine. It's that nobody's ever found an example of such.

The rest of your post was interesting. I would love to respond point by point. But having reread my own previous post, I think it came out pretty well and I'm content to let that post stand as my thesis. With more words I could only repeat what I've said.

I'm going to take a break from this very interesting thread for a while. The conversation has helped me to clarify some of my own thoughts about these matters. Thanks to everyone who chatted. This has been a thoughtful thread.

 

[someguy1]

It is likely these will be implemented on nonconventional computers (i.e. computers that are, or include, an NPU, and do not meet the classic definition of a Turing machine) - but they are deterministic, easily programmed and understandable machines, and do not require any sort of "quantum weirdness" or anything.

There is no known model of computation that goes beyond what a TM can do. This is the Church-Turing thesis. The theoretical models that go beyond, such as oracle machines, involve transfinite principles that can not be instantiated in the real world using known physics.

Neural nets do not go beyond what TMs can do. They just do the same things differently.

You want to imagine "levels" of computation ... but we don't know any that apply to the real world. If you assume transfinite ordinals you can get an endless hierarchy of levels of computation. In fact Turing studied ordinal models of computation in his doctoral thesis, before publishing his paper on Turing machines.

The problem is that all these models depend on transfinite ordinals. and there are no transfinite ordinals in physics. Whether that holds true in the future, no one can say.

There ARE NO LEVELS of computation in the real world that we know of. Nobody's figured out yet what that could possibly look like.

Not neural nets, not quantum computers. Neither of those approaches allows you to compute anything that a TM can't. This is my strong understanding and will remain so till someone shows me otherwise.

 

[Write4U]

OK, question:
Can we introduce bio-chemistry into computers?

 

[Michael 345]

Can we introduce bio-chemistry into computers?

I might be way way way off here but what would you think of the following?

Our brain is a computer (biological composition) (operating system, content - completely immaterial)

Stay with me

We are going to use this computer to teach another computer. We know this computer has the same (biological composition) and suspect the operating system could be the same

Get where I'm going

Human teaching ape

Psychologist Francine "Penny" Patterson teaching Koko ape

Can we consider Koko brain the biological computer?

I understand a lot of the teaching took place from what we look at as plain computers

Human (brain) to plain computer to Koko (brain)

Problem what stops the human brain getting all of its content into Koko brain?

So would wiring up Koko brain to either plain computer or even Penny's brain enable a more efficient upload / download ie more information into Koko's brain

Would the increased information be able to be used by Koko's brain?

Not sure if any of my thought bubble helps but.......

 

[billvon]

There is no known model of computation that goes beyond what a TM can do.

Agreed. Neural networks are not traditional Turing machines, but a Turing machine can simulate a neural network (albeit slowly.)

You want to imagine "levels" of computation ... but we don't know any that apply to the real world.

We know that simulation can accurately simulate the real world, with sufficient fidelity to predict the outcome of experiments in that real world. As computational power has increased, the complexity of systems that can be simulated has increased as well.

 

[Write4U]

I might be way way way off here but what would you think of the following?

Our brain is a computer (biological composition) (operating system, content - completely immaterial)

Stay with me

We are going to use this computer to teach another computer. We know this computer has the same (biological composition) and suspect the operating system could be the same

Get where I'm going

Human teaching ape

Psychologist Francine "Penny" Patterson teaching Koko ape

Can we consider Koko brain the biological computer?

I understand a lot of the teaching took place from what we look at as plain computers

Human (brain) to plain computer to Koko (brain)

Problem what stops the human brain getting all of its content into Koko brain?

So would wiring up Koko brain to either plain computer or even Penny's brain enable a more efficient upload / download ie more information into Koko's brain

Would the increased information be able to be used by Koko's brain?

Not sure if any of my thought bubble helps but.......

I agree, if it takes a human brain about roughly 20 -30 years to fully "mature", then comparing a "learning' computer to a brain should involve an actual teaching period also.
What struck my interest is that the brain is not a single lump of neurons that do stuff, but that there are distinct areas which process specific types of information, IOW, the human brain is a compound structure, with many specialized areas for processing specific types of information.

and the interesting part is that each of these area has a connection to the frontal lobe which is where sentience (decicion making) resides.

When we think about brain development and plasticity, most of us think about the birth and death of neurons or changes in the number or strength of synapses. Yet, no part of the brain works in isolation. Brain maturation and plasticity also depends upon the large nerve fiber tracts that connect different brain regions together. These include the corpus callosum that link the two cerebral hemispheres, tracts that connect the cerebral cortex and lower brain areas and spinal cord, and "association" tracts that connect different parts of the cerebral cortex together. Strikingly, all long association fiber pathways have a terminus in the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex, a brain region involved with emotional regulation, social behavior, attention, and planning. No other part of the brain is so richly connected.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/eyes-the-brain/201108/when-is-the-brain-fully-mature

 

[iceaura]

You claimed that classical physics was reducible to propositional logic. I pointed out that this is factually not the case.

I said it was describable - formulatable - in propositional logic.
And you never did actually explain why you thought that was not the case - your discussion veered into digital approximations of unsolvable equations, and did not return.

Well you just said that you are only talking about tranference, and now you're willing to set it aside.

I'm not setting it aside, I'm pointing to some of the aspects involved that need to be considered. The brain as a neural net is self-remodeling - that is duplicable, in principle, and more or less takes care of your objection that the brain is not a box of hardware running an algorithm.

Diminishing returns again. Now you're claiming that a bird could fly like an airplane. Not even Icarus could pull off that trick.

No, I (not Write4U) asserted the opposite and more relevant claim: that a machine can be designed that flies like a bird. That the functionality of bird flight can be transferred to a machine, and imho probably one managed by a neural net.

Which side of which discussion? I'm serious. I no longer know what's being argued.

I'm normally arguing that anyone who thinks the functionality of a given human brain can be transferred to a computer of some kind any time soon is probably underestimating the task. AlphaGo or no AlphaGo.

 

[iceaura]

functional level simulation (almost doable now.) It is likely these will be implemented on nonconventional computers (i.e. computers that are, or include, an NPU, and do not meet the classic definition of a Turing machine) - but they are deterministic, easily programmed and understandable machines,

They will be "deterministic" only in the loose sense in which predictability and repeatability are not implied (chaos, quantum uncertainty), as the brain is. They will be programming themselves, and probably remodeling their hardware connections themselves. My guess is they won't be all that easy to "understand". Right now, the programmers of AlphaGo have trouble understanding its moves - and uncertainty attends their deductions, when they have made them. And AlphaGo is quite simple compared to anything approaching a full emulation of function.

 

[Write4U]

No, I (not Write4U) asserted the opposite and more relevant claim: that a machine can be designed that flies like a bird. That the functionality of bird flight can be transferred to a machine, and imho probably one managed by a neural net.

Just for the record, I agree with you. Moreover I gave an example of the frigate bird wich uses the principle of "lift" with exquisite conservation of energy. It is more of a glider using air currents (lift) than a power driven airplane which requires "thrust" to produce lift, because of its weight.

But according to the aerodynamics of flight, what difference does the propulsion method make when using wings to create lift?

When sailing my sailboat I use my sails (vertical wings) to create horizontal "lift" to tack "upwind". The airstream (wind) itself is the propulsion force. In the absence of wind I end up in the "doldrums", unless I use my outboard motor.