In article <8pv6u2$vgm$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>, George Bajszar <gyuri at usa.net> wrote:
>In article <8puas1$1pt$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,
>teyh at my-deja.com wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>>> Thanks for the excellent discussion! I haven't read such good
>> spirited discussion on internet for quite some time.
>>>> Since one can not keep taking without giving back, I will chip
>> in my two cents:
>>>> I believe the basic function of sleep is to stop the
>> fully-awake cycle and start a maintenance cycle. The Hypothalamus
>> determines when sleep is needed:
>>>> (a) To refresh the body: human body generates many waste and
>> some of them are poisonous if not clean up in timely fashion.
>> Hypothalamus monitors the contents of blood and orders
>> a maintenance cycle should body is in bad shape. This is
>> when a sick patient starts to feel sleepy.
>>>> (b) To refresh the brain: as a special case to (a), the brain
>> is often the first components of the body that signals the
>> need for a maintenance cycle. The brain consumes the majority
>> of energy and blood supply in normal condition. A high school
>> student often feels sleepy due to heavy homework.
>>>> (c) To refresh the memory: as a special case to (b), the memory
>> encoding/retrieval is heavy part of the overall consciousness
>> process in brain. The cortex that dominates the memory and
>> thinking process is the prefrontal lobe, it consumes most of
>> the blood supply and energy of the brain. Thus it is often the
>> first components in the brain that triggers the signal for a
>> maintenance cycle.
>>>> The maintenance cycle is signified by a 7-13 Hz alpha wave.
>> It may not actively clean up the neuron, but it does help
>> inhibit the neuron and send them back to initial state.
>>>> (d) To calm the emotion: as another special case to (b), the
>> emotion system (limbic) is also part of the consciousness.
>> The limbic system causes emergency reaction and results in
>> consuming large amount of blood supply and energy. The
>> consequence is also signals for the need of maintenance
>> cycle after the emotional reaction.
>>>> However trying to sleep after an emotional event is very hard
>> since many neurons are fired up to the fullest and is
>> extremely hard to tame them with the alpha wave. Sleeping pill
>> is often needed in these cases.
>>>> (e) To preserve energy: Even if none of the above occurs, the
>> hypothalamus has an internal biological clock to mandate
>> the 'wake' and 'sleep' cycle. It is normally coincide with
>> the 'day' and 'night' cycle to preserve energy when there is
>> nothing to do.
>>>> In modern society this biological clock is often disturbed by
>> the artificial light. Many young people stay up all night
>> dancing until cases a-d arises.
>>>> We still have a lot to learn in this subject. Again, thanks
>> for the excellent dialog!
>>I also thank you for your valuable contribution to the subject and I
>cannot argue the validity of your statements.
>>Being a computer scientist, my current approach is more information
>oriented that is relevant to AI machines, in particular ANN (Artificial
>Neural Network) machines.
>>With no doubt, energy conservation is certainly an extreamly important
>contribution to sleeping but may not be the main cause.
Not only energy concervation, but CREATION and restoration.
That is the pure magic part of the equasion.
> There may be
>other important reasons which relate to intelligence itself and might
>play a very significant, if not even a more important role to sleeping.
It may turn out that sleeping is the MOST important part of it
because in the "sleeping domain" you might be getting the core
guidance to your entire activity in the "waking state".
>The brain's job is to serve as the central nervious system to the
>biological body and provide intelligent control of that body.
>When a person is awake, the brain is always active. It commands
>constant activity during the day.
>No normal person could sit in a couch, stare at the wall and think
>nothing for hours.
Yes one can.
Boddhisattva went to China several hundred years ago
and that is how Zen started.
He sat in the room for 9 years, LITERALLY staring at the wall.
Thinking of NOTHING.
It wasn't even the issue of thinking.
It is pretty hard to grasp such a thing,
especially in the context of thought obscessed
word, but you can not simply dismiss the possibility.
What is the very essense of meditation?
Well, it is UTTER thoughtlessness.
What is awareness on the first place?
It is non evaluatory, simultaneous presence.
No thought. It is the very core of it.
That is what makes meditation a meditation.
Again, no thought.
This can not be denied.
> The brain's job is to be constantly active when
>awake.
And active while asleep only in a different way and domain.
> It's constant activity continuously keeps on sparking us to seek
>sources of information to feed the brain continuously,
And even more so during the dream as it is a period of
reconceliation of daily activity and preparation for the
"next day".
This can not be denied.
> so it can
>perform its processing duty against those inputs and make decisions
>when necessary.
>If the brain would not have access to information, it would go insane.
This is invalid.
It is a byproduct of fear.
>This is because when the brain is used, neural networks are constantly
>evolving. If established neural connections are not sparked for usage,
>the connections begin them weaken.
Which merely implies that CERTAIN focus and aspect is being ignored.
Refocusing occurs in a different domain.
Entity can not be denied the experience.
In "primitive" societies the brain functions in a quite
different ways outside of scope of your so called logic.
And yet there is a differen other kinds of "logic",
allowing and facilitating the life experiences in that
particular context.
This can not be denied.
>That is the ingredient feature necessary for constant adaptability to
>changing environments.
The essense of a human being is NOT "adaptability"
to ANY environment.
You CREATE that environement as you go.
The nature of human being is human experience
and environment is but a stage upon which this
play is taking place.
Yes, there is a particular appeal to a particular scope
and domain, but this is not the END of the story,
but a beginning.
> Neural networks must constantly form and change.
Where did you pull that one out from?
MUST?
For what?
To facilitate what aspect of what?
Yes, the validity of neural structure can not be denied,
but your assumptions about the change is but a byproduct
of a particular inclinations, presently ruling your scope.
Furthermore, it is the same as stating "the rivers must
constantly flow".
Ok, and then?
By that token, you must exist.
Ok, very fine argument.
And then?
What is the PURPOSE of that human expericence?
What is the purpose of intelligence?
Just to grow a pile of neurons, that are INEVITABLY
turn into dust?
That looks like a bit of a limitation of the very
essense.
>Our ancestors had nothing to do at night, it was better not to make any
>noise to avoid being noticed by predators,
You are projecting your own fear of survival
because you are living in a MUCH more violent world
than you "ancestors".
You are operating on a mistaken model of a "predator/prey"
worldview, which is but a TOTAL delusion.
A bad dream.
A myth of the most destructive nature,
that brought you to the point of self anihilation.
As a result of that worldview, you are now hanging
on the hair think thread, just about the hell,
you have all invented and defined.
> so to avoid neural
>structural deformation, the brain might have gone into a neural
>structural conservation mode, or sleeping.
Not only conservation but refreshment, restoration,
enlargement, modification, adaptation, expansion
and things of that nature.
The focus definetely changes during the sleep,
but it is a well known "fact" that the brain does not
simply go into coma at night. It is HIGHLY active,
even though you can not quite decode that activity
as you simply deny yourself the very opportunity
to do so by constricting your own investigation,
choises and possibilities.
Some of the greatest discoveries of a mankind happened
when?
Well, during sleep.
Historical record is evidence.
You go to sleep exhausted. You can not solve your problem.
It seems to be futile. You wasted half of your life on this
and you simply came to a dead end it seems.
Exhausted and even FRUSTRATED you let go and go to sleep.
And when you open your eyes in the morning...
Yes, that is how your discoveries are made.
During the day, you are largely grinding your own limitations.
During the night, you are free of those.
Plus...
Well, you have your own private channel to your own superentity.
Hey, THAT is where the "discoveries" are made.
Can you allow this idea into your minds?
>This view I presented here about the importance of sleep when the
>source of all or most of sensory inputs are cut off, becomes a very
>important feature when designing a constantly working ANN system based
>on the structure of constantly evolving neural networks.
And yet, with that system, you can hardly create and
equivalent of an amoeba in terms of intelligence.
Yes, this is a bit stretching it,
but, neverthelesss, it points out the scope of your
"achievements".
You TOTALLY fail to grasp the grandior of your own being,
and spend all this time modelling a carbon copy of your
intelligence, failing to even consider the possibility
that there is simply no need to create a copy of you
as YOU are there to experience the life and not a machine,
you are trying to create.
You can try to make your car "intelligent".
You can try to make your weapons "intelligent",
but still, for some strange reason, those
EXTREMELY "intelligent" weapons hit the Chinese
embasy in Belgrade.
So, the whole thing is just a scam on the first place?
There is simply not even a HINT of intelligence in
those "intelligent" bombs of yours. Not even a hint.
You merely carbon copied the MOST primitive aspects
of a functioning intelligence, created for the biological
life in order to EXPERIENCE the phisical domain.
You took the single dimension of that intelligent,
and not even that much, you took a single point,
isolated it from the whole, and used it to do what?
Well, to destroy.
This is nothing much to brag about.
>ANN systems resembling neural networks of our brain would receive
>constant inputs as well in the form of internal thought processes,
Internal thought process is a mechanism for the biological
intelligence to EXPERIENCE the physical domain and learn
the nature of its own entity and life force as such.
It is simply inapplicable to a machine, no matter what kind
of software you are going to put in.
No matter how hard you model your most intricate mechanisms,
it can not possibly function as intelligence.
You simply removed the CORE of it.
All you have is a plastic lable on a bottle of coca cola.
> even
>if external thought processes are not present at a given time. However
>due to the nature of neurons, any neuron that is not used will deevolve
>from its network. That includes neurons and neuron groups evolved to
>serve connections to sensory inputs.
This is trivial.
>If we want the ANN system to be adaptable, we cannot allow it to
>perform endless thought processes if no sensory inputs are arriving
>from the outside world.
This is merely the issues of efficiency
and not the issue of principle.
You are merely optimizing the performance
or conserving energy, whatever pleases you more.
It does not change ANYTHING at the core of the issues.
>Thanks again,
>George Bajszar
