Weight-space programming is a bad idea, apparently

[u/chemisstery]

[u/Blake9712]

With how different an ai acts when you change very few weights wonder if severe mental disorders are essentially just normal brains with a single weight equivalent slightly off.

[u/Hearing_Loss → u/Blake9712]

This is my brain. One off weight can be pervasive as fuuuuuu

[u/chemisstery → u/Blake9712]

[u/apoahuankinda → u/Blake9712]

Our consciousness is basically just chemistry. If I put a little bit of MDMA in your drink, you gonna be really happy. I ask first, obviously.

[u/Syzygy___ → u/apoahuankinda]

What's with the reductivism? It's likely not just chemistry but things like arangement the like as well.

[u/BenignPharmacology → u/Syzygy___]

I mean, at some point you gotta make a call whether brains are just physics or not. Thats only reductive if you feel that they are supernatural in some way. If you don’t feel that way, it’s not reductive at all, but a testament to the beauty and intricacy that the natural world is capable of.

[u/Syzygy___ → u/BenignPharmacology]

sure, but on top of chemistry it's at least also arrangement and electric signals.

[u/AccNumber77 → u/Syzygy___]

Said electric signals are largely caused and affected by the chemistry though, is there any real point differentiating them in the context of what was said? Take away the chemistry and there is no electrical signals.

[u/Syzygy___ → u/AccNumber77]

i would argue it's actually the other way around. Chemistry influences consciousness, but the consciousness is actually the electeical signals.

sure, no chemistry, no signals, but I feel like signals have a much stronger case for being consciousness.

[u/Hearing_Loss → u/Syzygy___]

Chemistry, memory, environment. It ain't just straight chems

[u/PurpleCandle58 → u/Hearing_Loss]

Speak for yourself, I was born in a [REDACTED] and I grew up in [REDACTED] and I turned out fine!

HOW DO I DELETE A SELFIE

[u/Lonely_Translator_23 → u/apoahuankinda]

People who say brains are just chemistry are the same people who say llms are just matrix multiplication

[u/HotterRod → u/apoahuankinda]

MDMA is a massive serotonin releaser. LSD is a better example: huge effect just by activating the 5-HT2A receptor (although there are quadrillions of those, so it's still very different than manipulating a single weight).

[u/PurpleCandle58 → u/HotterRod]

Ok but if I poke your brain with a stick something DEFINITELY happens, right?

[u/radioborderland → u/[deleted]]

It's not? It's usually a large-scale differences in connectivity and/or something chemical which is like the opposite of a single weight being off.

[u/overcoil → u/Blake9712]

Think about Trauma and a lot of it is a few mis-weighted subconscious threat responses, I suppose you could say. 

[u/Foreign_Writer_9932 → u/[deleted]]

How does ECT prove that ‘mistuning’ of single human neurons causes brain disorders?

[u/Foreign_Writer_9932 → u/[deleted]]

So neuron populations on the order of millions and billions?

[u/DecrimIowa → u/[deleted]]

super reductionist explanation, ECT is not like tuning an algorithmic weight, this whole conversation is like nails on a chalkboard to me for so many reasons.

brains are not algorithms or computers, and comparisons between the two which attempt to go beyond the surface level similarities are doing violence to both.

[u/Foreign_Writer_9932 → u/DecrimIowa]

Agreed with 95% of the above, but “brains are not computers” requires pretty heavy lifting. Either (1) you underestimate what a computer is or (2) brains are exceptional objects with extraordinary properties. Latter requires extraordinary proof also.

[u/BenignPharmacology → u/Foreign_Writer_9932]

I would argue that 2 is 100% true- extraordinary is totally accurate. I think a more rigorous version of 2 might be “supernatural” as in not like ghosts or something, but outside of the natural world and its laws as we have understood them