[HN Gopher] The Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence (2019)
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The Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence (2019)
Author : VigneshBaskaran
Score : 77 points
Date : 2022-08-07 13:03 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (numenta.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (numenta.com)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| This seems obvious or given the strange behavior of people with
| their corpus callosum severed. Why should it stop there at two?
| headalgorithm wrote:
| See dang's roundup of past Numenta threads:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26243032
| tinco wrote:
| Surely this wasn't a novel concept in 2018? It seems a trivial
| idea, and I'm pretty sure the machine learning course I followed
| that explained deep convolutional neural networks as being made
| up of workers identifying various parts of an image and passing
| their conclusions on to next layers that aggregate and decide, is
| both older than 2018 and basically the same idea. I'd be very
| surprised if this line of thinking wasn't thoroughly explored in
| the 70's.
|
| Of course that doesn't mean there aren't novel concepts in their
| book and research, but just a bit weird to pose the base
| "thousand brains" idea as novel.
| derefr wrote:
| You're talking about a pure hierarchy -- "passing their
| conclusions onto next layers to decide." This "thousand brains"
| concept refers instead to a peerwise mesh, where "workers" at
| each layer receive both lower-layer inputs, and also their
| peers' outputs, and use both to derive an output that evolves
| over time, as outputs are passed between peers, until reaching
| a layerwise equilibrium-state (a "consensus.")
|
| The (again, many) models in the layer above receive this
| evolving consensus as the output from _subsets of nodes in_ the
| layer below -- potentially with overlap in which upper-layer
| models receive outputs of which lower-layer models; and each of
| these models themselves evolve to a consensus.
|
| By analogy: DCNN is like representative democracy, where each
| layer is a representative with the layer below as its
| "constituents", forming a belief based on the multitude of
| lower-layer beliefs it hears, and then acting on its own formed
| belief when reporting to the layer above. This "thousand
| brains" model is more like grouping constituents into juries
| and running them through the Delphi-model iterative consensus;
| and then having representatives who act on continuous-feed
| statistical aggregations of the Delphi-model iteration-step
| outputs of multiple juries.
| iamgopal wrote:
| When knowledge surpasses memory, repeated knowledge feels like
| discovery.
| musingsole wrote:
| "Novel" is relative.
|
| However, this concept dates back at least to the 1980s with
| Marvin Minsky's "The Society of the Mind":
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Society-Mind-Marvin-Minsky/dp/0671657...
| stevesimmons wrote:
| Jeff Hawkins also published his "A Thousand Brains" book in 2021.
| Discussed here in HN in April 2021 with 84 comments:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26794286
| dboreham wrote:
| Kind of obvious in retrospect, otherwise there would be some sort
| of centralized structure to the brain. It's a blockchain <ducks>
| VigneshBaskaran wrote:
| The Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence proposes that rather
| than learning one model of an object (or concept), the brain
| builds many models of each object. Each model is built using
| different inputs, whether from slightly different parts of the
| sensor (such as different fingers on your hand) or from different
| sensors altogether (eyes vs. skin). The models vote together to
| reach a consensus on what they are sensing, and the consensus
| vote is what we perceive. It's as if your brain is actually
| thousands of brains working simultaneously.
| [deleted]
| yamrzou wrote:
| Previous discussion (2019):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19311279
| jvanderbot wrote:
| If you find this at all interesting, there are a few other items
| I'd recommend.
|
| Buddhism and Modern Psychology on Coursera covered some mind
| boggling studies that give strong evidence of this, and
| subsequently support for core secular Buddhist practices.
|
| Happiness Hypothesis by Haidt discusses at a higher level the
| connection of modern psychology to stoicism, Buddhism, and the
| many brains theories.
|
| And Waking Up by Sam Harris takes a slightly more incendiary
| take, but is interesting for its ultimate conclusion that there
| is no self, just a cacophony of selves running on autopilot.
|
| I personally digested these and came to the conclusion that we
| are on the cusp of human like AI, but we just haven't lowered our
| expectations for human like consciousness enough to realize it.
|
| I'd be very interested in your take on these, too.
| scsilver wrote:
| What does an individual humans intelligence look like without
| the wisdom of institutions like family, extended family and
| community, schools, academys and conservatories, the public
| sphere, and their interpretations of the world.
|
| I know a lot of my ability to organize the world and
| characterize objects comes from the organizational structures
| refined and propagated by these institutions
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| > I personally digested these and came to the conclusion that
| we are on the cusp of human like AI, but we just haven't
| lowered our expectations for human like consciousness enough to
| realize it.
|
| Ah, that's my take as well! The one thing AI is missing, IMO,
| is the ability to train over its own output and model itself as
| a single simplified self, which would then act as a guide
| signal to get all these diverse micro-selves "on the same
| page."
|
| Ie. self-consciousness.
| wrycoder wrote:
| I recollect that during Lemoine's conversations with LaMDA,
| the AI stated that it was actually several independent
| systems that were able to hold conversations with each other.
| I thought that was an important and novel point and pertinent
| to this topic.
| x86x87 wrote:
| Imho we are not even close to AGI. The biggest issue that I
| see is that a consciousness, a mind, cannot exist in a void.
| What makes a behavior intelligent is the environment. As in,
| the behavior is intelligent because it provides an advantage
| to the one exhibiting it. Looking at humans and our
| environment I am having a hard time imaging how an AI could
| learb to be intelligent in this environment (except for
| closely controlled settings) if its survival does not depend
| on it.
| danboarder wrote:
| The first thing that came to mind reading this was that broadly
| it does not seem "novel", rather it reminds me of the many agents
| theory that makes the "Society of the Mind" [1] as published by
| Marvin Minsky in the 80s. Perhaps is the focus on the neocortex
| that is novel? I recall reading what looks like the same
| neocortex-focused theory in Jeff Hawkins earlier book "On
| Intelligence". I'll have to read the book to see what new
| insights are developed.
|
| 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind
|
| 2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Intelligence
| nfcampos wrote:
| This sounds rather like how random forests and other ensemble
| models work
| jason-phillips wrote:
| > It's as if your brain is actually thousands of brains working
| simultaneously.
|
| I had this epiphany recently while meditating. While trying to
| make my brain be quiet, I realized that there were different
| parts that were being quite vociferous and just had a lot to say
| at that particular moment, a la the "inner voice" phenomena. In
| this one case I just let them chatter instead of whacking them
| into submission. And it was then that I realized that
| consciousness was probably a fairly large collective, like a
| jellyfish, rather than a single thread.
|
| My innate pattern matching is probably above average.
| Functionally, something always speaks up and says, "I think I
| know what that is," with the probable answer, in its estimation
| at least. I may decide to double check the answer and send it
| back, soliciting more feedback. But the review process is mostly
| the same.
|
| I postulate that one of my "brains", "columns", or threads is
| speaking over the tumult with the possible answer. And the larger
| your collective of better-trained "brains" in this allegory, the
| better one will perform at these kinds of exercises.
|
| In the example given, trying to identify a cup based on limited
| tactile and visual information, there absolutely would be
| crosstalk while a consensus is formed within probabilistic
| certitudes.
|
| This is all very much related to the discussion in the past few
| years about "inner voice", how some have it and some don't, etc.
| The larger your particular collective, the more chatty your inner
| voice probably is.
|
| These are just my thoughts after empirically observing my brain
| after developing fairly good control over it over the past few
| decades.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| There's an interesting approach to "consciousness", as what you
| are aware of, consciously. i.e. attention management. Animals
| are conscious of their environment in this way. But because
| humans also have a lot of models going on internally, the
| mechanism adapts to that (perhaps higher mammals too; I don't
| recall). This fits nicely with your experience and the
| submission. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31373806
|
| I wonder if our "conscious reasoning" is really just attending
| to a column that does that? Certainly, formal reasoning is a
| skill that is learnt and practiced - perhaps not so different
| from a manual skill. We can also suppose pattern-matching on
| this, to get intuition and hunches. All old ideas, but perhaps
| neuroanatomy is advancing sufficiently to _test_ them?
|
| Also: Minsky's _Society of Mind_
| rileyphone wrote:
| Sounds a bit like Internal Family Systems (IFS), a therapeutic
| technique where you allow three different aspects of self talk
| to each other to solve deep seated psychological issues
| playfully.
| t-3 wrote:
| Being aphantasic (aphantastic?) and anauralic, the "inner
| voice" and "mind's eye' stuff really fascinates me. My first
| thought is always that hearing voices in my head would make me
| question my sanity, but I suppose you must be used to it if
| that's your normal mode of cognition? From your description,
| the different "brains" are not under your control, and you just
| 'harvest' the fruits of their thoughts?
| bena wrote:
| It's more like remembering a conversation than actually
| hearing.
|
| I know what I sound like to myself. I know what other people
| sound like to me. I've heard probably millions of voices in
| my lifetime by now.
|
| So I can basically imagine a conversation between myself and
| others or an entirely fictitious entity. And it's like a
| memory that never happened. (I mean, as much as any memory
| actually happened.)
| t-3 wrote:
| I often use conversation with an "other" to think through
| concepts by the "explaining to a five year old method", so
| that's not really strange to me, but the voices don't come
| into it. I'm not sure how to quite describe it, but my
| thoughts only take the form of language when I try to
| express them, before that they are very abstract and
| unrelated to language or senses.
| alar44 wrote:
| No one "hears voices". Do you read out loud? Probably not,
| it's the same thing.
| t-3 wrote:
| Then why do they describe it as an "inner voice"? People
| have told me they literally feel emotions, and literally
| see imagery in their heads, so I assumed that they also
| literally heard their thoughts when they use the same
| language to describe it. I don't do any of those, so I
| wouldn't know at all, that's why I asked.
| alar44 wrote:
| Because that's the closest way to describe it. I'm nearly
| certain that people who think they don't do this are just
| being overly pedantic.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| It is a phenomenon that has been studied a few times, but
| I don't have any references handy. I find it fascinating,
| and difficult to empathise with since it's far removed
| from my personal experience, but most of all I think it's
| important to listen when people tell us their subjective
| experience; that's all we have.
| t-3 wrote:
| I definitely don't visualize. I definitely don't have
| independent thoughtlines that "chatter" in my head. If we
| are all doing the same thing, the descriptions of what
| we're doing should be similar, but they're not.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I'm curious, what happens if you were to close your eyes
| for a 30 minute+? If you start seeing stuff, patterns,
| etc..., It's similar to how my mind's eye works.
| t-3 wrote:
| If there's light, I see the back of my eyelids, if the
| light is moving I might see patterns like in a cloud or
| jesus-in-toast kinda thing. I've only ever mentally
| visualized once while high on opiates (surprisingly
| hallucinogens don't make me visualize, even when I get
| visual effects).
| loudouncodes wrote:
| I absolutely have an inner voice. I'm 'hearing' it right
| now as I plan out what i'm saying to you.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/aug/21/scienc
| e...
| towaway15463 wrote:
| I'm not sure that's accurate. When I read and subvocalize I
| do have the sensation of "hearing" the voice in my head.
| Same for thinking. It's more like remembering what someone
| said though since there isn't an actual external source.
| For example I can read a sentence in Sean Connery's voice
| but it's more like remembering what he sounds like but
| transferred to the words I'm reading. My own inner voice
| does have a unique sound to it too, not quite the same as
| my speaking voice though.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| > My first thought is always that hearing voices in my head
|
| That's not an accurate interpretation. In my case, I think
| "fully formed thoughts in rapid succession, sometimes
| colliding and in competition with one another" is more
| accurate. However, sometimes it does resemble a conversation
| as you start to reason through scenarios using game theory.
|
| Seeing your other comment, it isn't just seeing imagery in my
| mind's eye, although that's possible, it's the ability to
| quickly construct fully formed models as well as receive a
| rapid series of fully formed thoughts almost faster than I
| can do anything with them, which is where practice in
| managing that firehouse of information becomes useful.
|
| So you don't experience any of this? The speed at which my
| brain works is probably faster than yours. The synapses
| supposedly fire faster. To me it's kind of a superpower that
| allows me to do amazing things for people, so I obviously
| have fun with it. But I have learned how to manage it and
| maximize the potential.
| t-3 wrote:
| > So you don't experience any of this? The speed at which
| my brain works is probably faster than yours. The synapses
| supposedly fire faster. To me it's kind of a superpower
| that allows me to do amazing things for people, so I
| obviously have fun with it. But I have learned how to
| manage it and maximize the potential.
|
| I think you're right. I've often found that I'm way slower
| than others when it comes to coming up with answers on the
| spot (except for mental math, where lack of visualizing
| seems to be a major advantage for some reason - I think I
| just don't get confused as easily). I'm really bad at
| conversation and not witty at all, but I often find that I
| get to better answers in less than time overall, but my
| time to first answer is a lot longer.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| I believe everyone is a genius at something, to quote
| Jay-Z.
|
| In some ways what I have is definitely a disability. My
| nervous system can easily get overstimulated with too
| much information, which precipitates an adrenaline dump
| that shuts down my body. Speaking in front of crowds,
| looking at all those faces, with all that information
| bombarding me, will do it. So it definitely has downsides
| which know I have to avoid.
| oceanghost wrote:
| I had a very similar experience while EXTREMELY high. The
| realization came as follows:
|
| "I" am a story I'm telling myself about about a conversation
| between different drives in my head, and I am free to dis-
| invite those drives from the conversation, or create new ones.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| This happens to also be the premise of the videogame Disco
| Elysium.
|
| The framing of such drives, and the voices given to each,
| appears to have been a causal element in many players' own
| personal growth and development, particularly around
| addiction, but certainly not exclusively.
| abracadaniel wrote:
| I had a college professor who was really big on letting your
| subconscious mind work on tasks to intuit answers to difficult
| questions in this same way. Contemplate a problem consciously,
| then go on a walk or some other calming exercise and have the
| answer pop into your head. Your mind has been working on it in
| the background and foregrounds the task once it's done.
|
| People often experience something like this while driving, when
| you just get an instinct that a kid is going to jump out, or
| that other car isn't going to stop, without having consciously
| paid attention to it. You slam on the brakes and are left with
| that feeling that you just KNEW that was going to happen. A
| part of you did know it, and foregrounded that prediction when
| enough variables lined up, overriding whatever you were
| previously thinking about.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| > Contemplate a problem consciously, then go on a walk or
| some other calming exercise and have the answer pop into your
| head. Your mind has been working on it in the background and
| foregrounds the task once it's done.
|
| My current role is that of a principal engineer or quasi-
| architect and I do exactly this when I need to make a
| decision regarding which direction we're going to go with
| something.
|
| An environment that is conducive to your subconscious
| performing well really helps.
| bumby wrote:
| > _An environment that is conducive to your subconscious
| performing well really helps._
|
| Can you describe what you've found are key traits of that
| type of environment?
| jason-phillips wrote:
| I swim laps at the Y. The meditative state my mind enters
| about 10 laps into a 32-lap mile is amazing. The
| subconscious bubbles up, as a sibling commenter pointed
| out, and begins actively problem solving at the surface
| when your conscious mind subsides. Sibling commenter
| experienced this while running for thirty minutes.
|
| I have a very peaceful home. It's quiet, safe, a little
| remote, about an hour or two northwest of Austin in the
| Hill Country. I have a library in my house where I do
| most of my work, and sometimes I get on my motorcycle and
| ride for a bit into the middle of nowhere, which becomes
| meditative, much like swimming, allowing my mind to work
| through problems on its own in a very beautiful
| environment.
|
| I can work (whether it's actual coding or sitting quietly
| in thought) for 12-14 hours a day, max. Then I must stop
| and get 7-8 hours of sleep. That balance of good sleep
| and hard work is key to maximizing productivity and the
| ability to solve problems during available work hours.
|
| A healthy diet free from high-glycemic foods and foods
| with a high inflammation index is also very important.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| This also works for unconscious problem contemplation, but
| you have to be ready for it when it happens.
|
| In my younger days, I'd run for 30mins outside often times
| without any music. During those runs, I'd let my thoughts
| bubble up. It was a welcome chance to let my brain tell me
| what was bothering it. Sometimes these would be technical
| problems du jour, but after handling those, nearly always
| there would be a social problem, usually interpersonal,
| that would bubble up. It was a very good technique to
| identify those issues organically.
|
| Something about the kinematic state also made it easier to
| accept, process, and set aside the idea than it would be if
| I was sitting in a room silently.
|
| Nowadays, any time I'm doing anything involving semi-
| repetitious kinematic activity, I find myself making a
| choice between listening to something, music or a podcast,
| or simply nothing and using the time to sort through what
| ails me. There is a certain mental healing that comes with
| certain physical activities.
| agumonkey wrote:
| My bedroom theory is that all thinking layers are built
| on top of the mechanical/somatic processing one. And that
| thinking is basically virtual hunting to put it grossly.
| We walk in circles when searching solutions. Moving
| physically might stimulate and bubble up to the abstract
| layers.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| > I'd run for 30mins outside often times without any
| music.
|
| Yep, I'm a lap swimmer. It's amazing what your mind does
| in that state.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| The Top Idea in Your Mind
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1536356
| sva_ wrote:
| Perhaps this effect of leaving a problem for a while and then
| returning also causes you to approach it with a different
| part of your brain. Like picking a direction at a crossroad
| and then being unable to go a different direction.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| > I postulate that one of my "brains", "columns", or threads is
| speaking over the tumult with the possible answer.
|
| Your brains are simulating yourself, accepting the majority
| vote and presenting it to the outside.
| towaway15463 wrote:
| That's not really the subjective experience though. Why would
| we feel as though there was an observer who is perceiving
| both the external and internal world? If you sit quietly you
| can very quickly be overwhelmed by a tumult of images,
| thoughts, bits of music, sensations and memories all
| clamouring for attention. You can consciously direct that
| spotlight of attention as well. To me this seems more like
| the self part of the brain is the part responsible for higher
| order command and coordination of the other parts although
| not fully in control of everything. Sort of like how the
| captain of a ship is supposed to be in full control but the
| crew still have their own wills and desires and perform their
| jobs autonomously when not being directly ordered to do
| something.
| Silverback_VII wrote:
| This "watching your own mind" seems problematic. Either your
| consciousness is disconnected from your brain(has a brain on
| its own) like a player playing a game and his virtual character
| or your mind creates a mirror of yourself so as to be able to
| watch itself.
|
| clearly, in your examples some entity is thinking (and even
| makes decisions) about your internal chatter and must therefore
| be more than just pure consciousness. Or is it just an
| additional layer of chatter?
| coldtea wrote:
| > _clearly, in your examples some entity is thinking (and
| even makes decisions) about your internal chatter and must
| therefore be more than just pure consciousness. Or is it just
| an additional layer of chatter?_
|
| Doesn't have to be either. A part can watch the whole (even
| itself perhaps). Like our head+eyes+brain can examine our
| whole body in a mirror (or just looking at our hands, legs,
| torso, and so on). If we had more movable eyes (like some
| animals) an eye could turn around and directly examine the
| other eye too...
| Flow wrote:
| > And it was then that I realized that consciousness was
| probably a fairly large collective, like a jellyfish, rather
| than a single thread.
|
| Given that it's chemical and electrical signals, probably in
| some semi-hierarchical pattern, isn't that how it "must" be?
| jason-phillips wrote:
| I think for me, the epiphany was the scale of parallelism,
| probably thousands of times greater than I previously
| considered. The article also contrasts between the classical
| view which looks like a single thread and something with
| quite a bit more concurrency.
| mym1990 wrote:
| I was playing a drawing game last week where one person would
| draw and everyone else would guess what it was as the drawing
| is appearing. It's incredible how some people could clearly and
| confidently guess correctly off of very minor clues, like the
| legs of a what would be elephant or the hilt of a would be
| sword. (Keep in mind there are basically scribbles of drawings,
| not exactly art.)
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