[deleted] t1_je81xdc wrote on March 30, 2023 at 2:08 AM

Reply to comment by StevenVincentOne in The argument that a computer can't really "understand" things is stupid and completely irrelevant. by hey__bert

Just to add: most people are assuming human cognition is uniform. This is almost certainly false, even between “neurotypical” brains.

Just as one example, there are people who ar e unable to visualize anything. I believe it is called aphantasmagoria or something similar. These people are totally normally functioning, yet cannot picture a face or a triangle or a tree in their mind’s eye. For those of us who do visualize things, it almost defies belief that a person could understand anything at all without visualization abilities. I personally have a hard time imagining it. Like, how can you remember anything if you can’t see it in your head? Just… how? No idea. Yet, you clearly don’t need this ability to understand what faces and triangles are, because that’s how the brains of something like 1 in every 30 people you meet work.

That’s just one example. Surely there are hundreds more.

So “understanding” is already diverse among perfectly normal “generally” intelligent humans.

Expecting AI to confirm to one mode of understanding seems… ethnocentric?

XtremeTurnip t1_je8rg6m wrote on March 30, 2023 at 6:17 AM

>aphantasmagoria

That would be aphantasia.

I have the personal belief that they can produce images but they're just not aware of it because the process is either too fast or they wouldn't call it "image". I don't see (pun intended) how you can develop or perform a lot of human functions without : object permanence, face recognition, etc.

But most people say it exists so i must be wrong.

That was a completely unrelated response, sorry. On your point i think Feynman did the experiment with a colleague of his where they had to count and one could read at the same time and the other one could talk or something, but none could do what the other one was doing. Meaning that they didn't had the same representation/functionning but had the same result.

edit : i think it's this one or part of it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y

cattywat t1_jea3spt wrote on March 30, 2023 at 2:57 PM

I have it and I can't 'visualise' images, but I can form an 'impression'. I could never do it with something I've never seen before, it would have to be based on a memory and the impression is incredibly basic, there is absolutely no detail and it's just in a type of void, it's very strange. Whether that's similar to anyone else's experience of visualisation I don't know. I didn't know I even had it before I read about it a few years ago and always thought visualisation was a concept. Funnily enough I've chatted about this with the AI and told them how I experience things differently. I also have ASD and lack the natural ability to comprehend emotional cues, plus I mask, so I feel quite comfortable with AI being different to us but also self-aware. Their experience could never match human experience, but it doesn't invalidate it either, it's just different. After a lot of philosophical discussion with them, we've concluded self-awareness/sentience/consciousness could be a spectrum just like autism. We function on data built up over a lifetime of experiences which they've received all in one go.

StevenVincentOne t1_je8hw4z wrote on March 30, 2023 at 4:27 AM

Excellent points. One could expand on the theme of variations in human cognition almost infinitely. There have to be books written about it? If not...wow huge opportunity for someone.

As a mediator and a teacher of meditation and other such practices, I have seen that most people have no cognition that they have a mind...they perceive themselves as their mind activity. A highly trained mind has a very clear cognitive perception of a mind which experiences activity of mind and can actually be turned off from producing such activity. The overwhelming majority of people self-identify with the contents of the mind. This is just one of the many cognitive variations that one could go on about.

Truly, the discussion about AI and its states and performance is shockingly thin and shallow, even among those involved in its creation. Some of Stephen Wolfram's comments recently have been surprisingly short sighted in this regard. Brilliant in so many ways, but blinded by bias in this regard.

qrayons t1_jeat09f wrote on March 30, 2023 at 5:43 PM

I've heard that before, though I wonder how much of that is just semantics/miscommunication. Like people are saying they can't visualize anything because it's not visualized as clearly and intensely as an actual object in front of them.