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estearum | on: SQLite Critical CVEs or LLM Slop?
> but being able to generate probabilistic outputs based on inputs is not what makes us intelligent.

???

Of course it is. The brain is mechanically not capable of doing anything other than that.

Do you believe the brain is something other than a bundle of probabilistic physical interactions? Or are brains not the source of what we call intelligence?

polotics | parent | next
May I suggest the excellent & recent book: "The brain. In theory" by Romain Brette?

This is going to elevate your thinking on this no end, if you're interested.

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noncoml | parent | next
We don’t know
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tadfisher | parent | next
This deserves about as large of a "[citation needed]" as one could draw. Are you well-studied in neuroscience?
estearum | root | parent
Nothing in the universe is anything other than a chain of reactions, amigo.

The brain is an object in the universe.

The universe has quantum behaviors (fully random, not a source of intelligence) and it has deterministic behaviors (fully non-random). Many of those deterministic behaviors are so complex that they're easier to analyze and describe as probabilistic, which is where most brain input → output relationships land.

Please point to any evidence whatsoever that the brain has some third type of interaction going on that has never been observed anywhere in the entire universe, then we can have a discussion about it.

chlorion | root | parent
Its baffling to me that people think the brain is somehow "outside" of the universe and somehow "magic" and not tied down by physics just like any other matter is. I don't understand how people come to this conclusion, except in the case of belief in magic or religion (which is belief in magic more or less).
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beepbooptheory | parent | next
Why is the brain probabilistic instead of deterministic?
estearum | root | parent
Probabilistic and deterministic are not opposites.

The brain is deterministic at the level of specific interactions, which process inputs in a highly chaotic (but still deterministic) manner into probabilistic outcomes.

The opposite of deterministic is random, i.e. in the quantum sense of truly no relationship between input and output.

There are probably some quantum effects in the brain here and there, but the vast majority of it is just traditional deterministic interactions networked together in such a complex system that the resulting behavior is much, much easier to predict in probabilistic terms than otherwise.

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pessimizer | parent | next
Yours is a controversial view. It is lazy and selfish to try to get other people to explain their case that it is not exclusively that, when saying that it is exclusively that is the weaker case, and you back it up with nothing but a snarky proclamation.

Are newly born babies reacting due to statistical probabilities that they have derived, or are they using something other than their brains?

estearum | root | parent
> Are newly born babies reacting due to statistical probabilities that they have derived, or are they using something other than their brains?

The answer is obviously yes lol.

The creature is an assemblage of electrical, chemical, and kinetic relationships.

Watching a baby develop is exactly what you'd expect from a system that's predominantly electrical noise triggering behaviors and then gradually refining denoising the relationship between inputs and outputs, with the goal function of achieving more desirable inputs.

Surely you can at least gesture toward one thing in the brain that appears not to be a probabilistic relationship between input and output?