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copperxtoday at 3:49 PM4 repliesview on HN

Two strikes against the hypothesis:

- LLMs suggest that human-like "cognition" can be somewhat mimicked by purely mechanical means.

- Exposing the brain to an MRI would affect cognition if there was a quantum element to it.


Replies

jebarkertoday at 5:05 PM

> LLMs suggest that human-like "cognition" can be somewhat mimicked by purely mechanical means.

This is not a strike against that hypothesis. Quantum systems can be simulated using non-quantum computers but that doesn't make non-quantum computers into quantum computers. Similarly, mimicking some aspects of human cognition doesn't mean you can replicate all of human cognition with the same method.

beardywtoday at 4:08 PM

Everything is subject to "quantum effects". Not necessarily trying to squeeze superposition and entanglement into a pint pot.

ck2today at 4:29 PM

oh and to address your second idea about MRI

when mice were exposed to cosmic ray bursts (to test for effects on past and future astronauts traveling to moon and mars)

the mice learned much much more slowly and forgot things much much faster

how's that for "cognitive corruption" ?

(btw this is also why I laugh when Musk thinks he's going to Mars ever, it's not just a one-way trip, he wouldn't even survive the journey itself with current technology and unlike earth there's no magnetic field or enough atmosphere on Mars to deflect them)

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ck2today at 4:20 PM

if you mean LLM seems like cognition

LLM emulate cognition, there is a huge difference, it's a mimick process not genuine

if you read about psychopaths/sociopaths, they do not comprehend emotions but they can learn to emulate them by watching others and mimicking them

that's exactly what LLM is doing, it is taught to assemble words in a way that mimics all the humans in its huge datapool, so it comes off as "cognition" because that's what the humans it's emulating were doing

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