Writing an algorithm requires a reflection of what steps, and their internal relations, are necessary to determine a desired output correctly. Such reflection exercise involving logical and abstraction considerations not only about the operations to be performed but also, in depth, studying how our mind process that same operations. A couple of recent articles explore that cyclical effort.
“Algorithms of the Mind – What Machine Learning Teaches Us About Ourselves” by Christopher Nguyen and “Are You a Thinking Thing? Why Debating Machine Consciousness Matters” by Alison E. Berman aproach interesting points of this case.
In “Algorithms of the Mind – What Machine Learning Teaches Us About Ourselves” by Christopher Nguyen:
“Much like steam engines, machine learning is a technology intended to solve specific classes of problems. Yet results from the field are indicating intriguing—possibly profound—scientific clues about how our own brains might operate, perceive, and learn. The technology of machine learning is giving us new ways to think about the science of human thought … and imagination.(…)
Is it all a kind of “running backwards” by the brain from concept to images (or sound, smell, feel, etc.) through the information encoded in the layers? Aren’t we watching this network create new pictures — and perhaps in a more advanced version, even new internal connections — as it does so?
(…) Let’s first go back 234 years, to Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, in which he argues that “Intuition is nothing but the representation of phenomena”… read full article
And “Are You a Thinking Thing? Why Debating Machine Consciousness Matters” by Alison E. Berman:
““I think therefore I am.”
In 1637, when he published, The Discourse on Method, René Descartes unleashed a philosophical breakthrough (…)
Though the word consciousness has many commonly held definitions, this question can be answered quite differently when filtered through the many existing philosophical and religious frameworks. (…) “What and who is conscious?” can pull drastically different responses.
“Fundamentally, there’s no scientific experiment that doesn’t have philosophical assumptions about the nature of consciousness,” Kurzweil says.” read full article