zlacker

[parent] [thread] 1 comments
1. Workac+(OP)[view] [source] 2025-12-06 12:26:54
It's easy to handwave away if you assign arbitrary analogies though.

If we stay on topic, it's much harder to do since we don't actually know how the brain works. Outside at least that it is a computer doing (almost certainly) analog computation.

Years ago I built a quasi mechanical calculator. The computation was done mechanically, and the interface was done electronically. From a calculators POV it was an abomination, but a few abstraction layers down, they were both doing the same thing, albeit my mecha-calc being dramatically worse at it.

I don't think the brain is an LLM, like my Mecha-calc was a (slow) calculator, but I also don't think we know enough about the brain to firmly put it many degrees away from an LLM. Both are infact electrical signal processors with heavy statistical computation. I doubt you believe the brain is a trans-physical magic soul box.

replies(1): >>runarb+vy
2. runarb+vy[view] [source] 2025-12-06 17:17:51
>>Workac+(OP)
But we do know how the brain works, we have extensively studied the brain, it is probably one of the most studied phenomena in our universe (well barring alien science) and we do know it is not a computer but a neural network[1].

I don’t believe the brain is a trans-physical magic soul box, nor do I think an LLM is doing anything similar to an LLM (apart from some superficial similarities; some [like the artificial neural network] are in an LLMs because it was inspire by the brain).

We use the term cognition to describe the intrinsic properties of the brain, and how it transforms stimulus to a response, and there are several fields of science dedicated to study this cognition.

Just to be clear, you can describe the brain as a computer (a biological computer; totally distinct from a digital, or even mechanical computers), but that will only be an analogy, or rather, you are describing the extrinsic properties of the brain which it happens to share some of which with some of our technology.

---

1: Note, not an artificial neural network, but an OG neural network. AI models were largely inspired by biological brains, and in some parts model brains.

[go to top]