[HN Gopher] To be energy-efficient, brains predict their percept...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       To be energy-efficient, brains predict their perceptions
        
       Author : sebg
       Score  : 235 points
       Date   : 2021-11-17 15:39 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
        
       | strict9 wrote:
       | > _Through predictive processing, the brain uses its prior
       | knowledge of the world to make inferences or generate hypotheses
       | about the causes of incoming sensory information._
       | 
       | I wonder if this mechanism is responsible for many shared false
       | memories (or Mandela Effect). As an example, the spelling of the
       | Berenstain Bears is misremembered by many, perhaps because we're
       | so accustomed to seeing the suffix -stein in last names.
        
         | EMM_386 wrote:
         | > Berenstain Bears
         | 
         | Now that's a weird one, never saw that example before. I'm
         | familiar with the subject ... yet, if you asked me to spell it,
         | it would have been -stein.
         | 
         | Very interesting.
        
         | mcny wrote:
         | I still refuse to believe ET by Katy Perry always said
         | "different DNA". I distinctly remember it used to say perfect
         | DNA, not different DNA. Or I've lost my mind.
        
         | rectang wrote:
         | For a couple of years I made my living as an audio mastering
         | engineer, which involves making tiny changes at or below the
         | threshold of perception. One of the main ways I set myself up
         | for success was to accept the human perceptual mechanism's
         | propensity for illusion, and then to build systems which helped
         | me avoid being deceived by it.
         | 
         | * An instant level-matched AB switching mechanism for
         | auditioning changes
         | 
         | * Preferring tools which could be checked under optimal
         | perceptual conditions, and choosing to avoid gear which did not
         | lend itself easily to such conditions. This generally meant
         | preferring software plugins and avoiding outboard gear unless
         | the budget was very high (which it rarely was for my clients).
         | 
         | * Isolating changes and amplifying the effect to well above
         | perceptual threshold in order to get an impression of the
         | change before dialing it back down. (This is a standard
         | practice, especially for mix engineers.)
         | 
         | Many audio engineers don't hold the same priorities, especially
         | "audiophile" types those who advertise their "golden ears"[1].
         | And many customers don't want someone who acknowledges the
         | fallibility of their perceptions. But I was confident that I
         | was absolutely doing my best work and offering the best
         | possible value to my clients.
         | 
         | [1] It's basically impossible to talk intelligently about audio
         | in an open internet forum (including HN) because there will
         | always be a swarm of participants who don't accept the limits
         | of perception and their own propensity for illusion.
        
           | skulk wrote:
           | > gear which did not lend itself easily to such conditions
           | 
           | could you expand on this a bit? I don't see how software vs
           | hardware could impact this, doesn't it all just go through an
           | amplifier to your headphones at the end?
        
             | ubercore wrote:
             | Only think I can think of is taking the effect of cables
             | and preamps out of the loops when running through outboard
             | gear?
        
             | rectang wrote:
             | I built my AB system in software, which allowed me to make
             | a tiny crossfade on switching and avoid a big click. It's
             | well understood that such clicks wreak havoc on your
             | ability to perceive small changes. I didn't have access to
             | an analog version of that at the time.
             | 
             | It was also more difficult to set up and compare multiple
             | "wet" settings for hardware devices, and it was less
             | convenient to "save" settings, take a break and come back
             | with fresh ears (because the studio might be used for
             | something else in the interim.)
             | 
             | It's possible to give yourself optimal conditions with
             | hardware tools, it's just less convenient (and thus more
             | expensive). I believed that giving myself optimal
             | perceptual conditions and an ideal workflow was far more
             | important than gear choice -- especially in terms of value,
             | but in my view even in terms of doing my best work in an
             | absolute sense.
        
           | sneak wrote:
           | It's always astounding to me the number of "engineers" who
           | make fantastic claims and have never done an abx. It's nice
           | to know I'm not alone.
           | 
           | Do you give mentorship/lessons?
        
             | rectang wrote:
             | In my view, understanding the human perceptual mechanism
             | was as essential as understanding how to set up good
             | monitoring to doing my best audio engineering.
             | 
             | I left the audio industry a long time ago. I love music,
             | but I don't love audio engineering enough to sacrifice my
             | life to it -- and because there's a tremendous oversupply
             | of labor for art-adjacent professions, that's what it
             | takes.
        
       | Geee wrote:
       | Not just the human brain, but anything that is _intelligent_.
       | Life itself is a prediction machine. Evolution selects for
       | prediction power in an energy-constrained environment.
        
         | eevilspock wrote:
         | > Life itself is a prediction machine.
         | 
         | I beg to differ. That assumes evolution is teleological, that
         | it isn't _reactive_. It 's like saying positive and negative
         | feedback loops are predictive. You're diluting the meaning of
         | "predictive" to say something that sounds deep.
        
       | hypertexthero wrote:
       | "The observer is the observed."
       | 
       | --Jiddu Krishnamurti
        
       | podgaj wrote:
       | I have Aspergers and suffer from something called closed eye
       | visions. When I close my eyes, mostly at night, I get flashes of
       | images, like faces and people and places. The idea is that the
       | brain is trying to make sense of the random light patterns I am
       | seeing even when my eyes are close. And so it's hyper predictive.
       | Like others are saying, this is nothing new to me.
        
         | somebodythere wrote:
         | I get these too, although I wouldn't describe it as suffering.
         | Sometimes the images are detailed and tangible enough that it
         | feels like looking at a printed photo through my eyelids. When
         | the images are particularly interesting, I like to draw them.
        
           | podgaj wrote:
           | Sometimes mine are horrific though. Like a face in bandages
           | with an eye hanging out. But sometimes they are interesting
           | and nice, like tree tops of a forest.
        
         | guerrilla wrote:
         | Same here. I used to narrate them and make up stories about
         | them to my girlfriend :)
         | 
         | There's also a different TED talk than the one I already linked
         | about your theory which gives a lot of interesting examples[1].
         | 
         | 1. https://youtu.be/SgOTaXhbqPQ
        
       | vga805 wrote:
       | Andy Clark's Surfing Uncertainty[1] is a nice monograph of the
       | topic
       | 
       | 1:
       | https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/a...
        
       | ithkuil wrote:
       | Funny coincidence, I'm in the middle of reading of "a thousand
       | brains" by Jeff Hawkins
        
       | eevilspock wrote:
       | Do you notice that your visual center of focus shifts to
       | different parts of the duck vs rabbit image?
       | 
       | While I strongly agree with the ideas of the article, the fact
       | that you have to focus on different parts of the image to shift
       | perception, altering the "bottom up" sensory data your brain
       | receives, undermines at least a little the use of this example.
        
       | paradaux wrote:
       | This would certainly explain why my brain periodically suffers
       | from meltdown.
        
         | nefitty wrote:
         | One of my "executive function" problems is that I get
         | overwhelmed when I think about things I need to do. I noticed
         | that a sort of movie starts playing in my head of how to
         | accomplish the task, i.e. the steps entailed, resources needed,
         | etc.
         | 
         | What happens frequently is that my brain takes multiple
         | discrete tasks and attempts to simulate each one's steps to
         | completion simultaneously. I suddenly find myself at the front
         | door paralyzed for five minutes, "Should I grab the trash since
         | I'm going to go check the mail? I have to walk the dog, I can't
         | carry all this trash while holding the dog. Where will I put
         | the dog when I get the mail. Ok, put the leash on the dog, grab
         | the trash... Crap, there's so much trash! Ok, just take the
         | office trash out..."
         | 
         | ADHD medicine stopped working after a month. What has helped a
         | lot is N-acetylcysteine. In fact, it's been several months and
         | I'm comfortable saying that it has changed my life. The
         | trainwreck thought loops give way to singular chains of focus.
        
           | phkahler wrote:
           | Tell me more about acetylcisteine. How much per day? Is there
           | a theory behind that use? Etc...
        
             | nefitty wrote:
             | It has to do with the glutamine-glutamate system,
             | glutathione, GABA and dopamine. There are various possible
             | etiologies for ADHD, but I'm lucky this is one path I
             | discovered that actually helped me. It also explains why
             | Adderall and Wellbutrin didn't help me, as they affect
             | dopamine and norepinephrine respectively.
             | 
             | I take at least 2g per day. Some NAC supplements have some
             | selenium and molybdenum included, so in those cases it's
             | important to be mindful of not taking too much of those
             | trace minerals.
             | 
             | Check out the introduction of this paper: https://www.scien
             | cedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341...
        
               | digilypse wrote:
               | How long did it take for you to observe a difference
               | after you started taking NAC?
        
               | nefitty wrote:
               | I noticed a difference on day one. I'll note that I also
               | take l-glutamine to further the effect on the system I'm
               | targeting. You'd also want a molybdenum and selenium
               | source because NAC uses them up.
               | 
               | The effect is not dramatic like a stimulant. It's more
               | like it makes my attention stickier, and allows me to
               | hook into long problems more easily. It doesn't "feel"
               | like anything, just causes a noticeable change in what I
               | find engaging. One weird effect it has had is I
               | completely stopped craving alcohol, news and social
               | media. I usually spend hours on Reddit when I don't have
               | anything on my plate. I'm talking 40k+ karma, multiple
               | posts/comments per day type of addiction. I see multi-
               | day, multi-week gaps between comments on my account now,
               | which is unheard of for me. I know it's a silly
               | heuristic, but it's an example of the behavior change.
               | 
               | I've seen much smarter people than me on Reddit say that
               | effects may take 2-3 days. The supplement itself is
               | pretty cheap, and negative side effects are minimal to
               | non-existent. I am seriously astonished that such a
               | common and accessible supplement has had the impact it
               | has had on me. I personally think the cost/benefit ratio
               | is so good that warranted skepticism can be overcome with
               | a self-experiment.
               | 
               | If it doesn't have an effect, then at least a person can
               | check off the "glutamate-glutamine system" checkbox in
               | their quest to address executive function problems.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutamate%E2%80%93glutamine
               | _cy...
        
               | hawski wrote:
               | I'm sorry if that's a dumb question, but is monosodium
               | glutamate consumption related to ADHD?
        
               | nefitty wrote:
               | No, that's a smart question because MSG is so prevalent
               | in our food. You'd have to ingest a lot of MSG to make an
               | impact on glutamate levels, which would then affect GABA,
               | which then affects ADHD symptoms.
               | 
               | https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/494782
        
           | afarviral wrote:
           | Your comment on N-acetylcysteine is really left-field. Its
           | not even listed as a use of that medication, whos primary
           | purpose is to treat panadol overdose. Can you elaborate?
        
             | nefitty wrote:
             | I hesitated to mention the specific supplement for that
             | reason, but maybe it will help someone.
             | 
             | Apparently, the glutamate-glutamine system is implicated in
             | psychiatric problems. Through my research I found that GABA
             | deficiencies can cause ADHD symptoms. GABA is produced in
             | the gut, I have stomach problems, so this seemed feasible.
             | I learned that NAC increases glutathione and helps regulate
             | glutamate. The effects people report point to an effect on
             | this system.
             | 
             | The Wikipedia page for NAC has many references, but this is
             | one review of its possible uses in psychiatric problems: ht
             | tps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341.
             | ..
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylcysteine
        
             | astrange wrote:
             | N-acetylcysteine is very effective (for some people)
             | against anxiety, addictions, amphetamine tolerance, acne,
             | and also some things that don't begin with "a".
             | 
             | Amazon also stopped selling it this year because people
             | thought it was a COVID cure.
        
               | nefitty wrote:
               | Yeah. I've had several convos with my health store owner
               | about this. She told me she's found herself stocking up a
               | lot lately because of the increased popularity and COVID
               | misinformation-motivated stocking changes on Amazon.
        
       | jackallis wrote:
       | the saying "My brain runs faster than my mouth" lends to this
       | idea.
        
       | swayvil wrote:
       | A kind of reverse-science if you will. Don't think about what you
       | see, see about what you think.
       | 
       | And what we think derives from so many different sources.
       | 
       | It explains a lot.
        
       | guerrilla wrote:
       | This TED talk has a great example where the same sound sounds
       | different to you based on what you expect to hear, if you need to
       | prove this to yourself [1]. His thesis is also that the brain is
       | a prediction machine.
       | 
       | 1. https://youtu.be/lyu7v7nWzfo?t=365
        
         | tasty_freeze wrote:
         | Michael Shermer played Stairway to Heaven backwards and it
         | mostly sounds like gibberish. But when he displays the
         | 'translation' as text and plays it again, the words seem pretty
         | clear.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYG2oZXSvdE
        
           | jodrellblank wrote:
           | In 1985 two young men attempted suicide, and the family sued
           | the British rock band Judas Priest, accusing them of hiding
           | subliminal messages in the music that said "Do It!" when
           | listened to backwards.
           | 
           | From memory, part of the trial was the defence taking a song,
           | suggesting what words the court would hear in it played
           | backwards, and then playing it backwards. e.g. this clip
           | https://youtu.be/uyIsu93zAoM?t=1123 and showing that you hear
           | the suggested words out of the noise.
           | 
           | The trial was thrown out, after deciding there were words and
           | they were subliminal, but were not deliberate. The whole
           | situation included: "In a pre-trial motion, the judge ruled
           | that subliminal messages were incapable of being protected
           | speech under the First Amendment to the United States
           | Constitution, since they were by definition not noticeable
           | and thus could not form part of a dialogue."
           | 
           | Documentary - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104140/
        
         | eevilspock wrote:
         | did Grover drop an f-bomb?
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mU7t9GZ9Os
        
         | _Microft wrote:
         | Here is a sound that sounds like either _brainstorm_ or _green
         | needle_ , depending on which words you focus. Try own word
         | combinations. I have no trouble hearing _brain needle_ or
         | _green storm_ , for example.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1okD66RmktA
        
           | shard wrote:
           | Hmm no matter how hard I try, I can't get _storm_. Closest I
           | can get is _brain needle_. It 's just too clear to me that
           | there are three syllables, and I can't map _storm_ to the
           | second half.
        
             | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
             | I had trouble hearing it too, so I closed my eyes to remove
             | the flashing light as input and, I shit you not, just
             | straight up told myself "you will hear _brain storm_ ". It
             | was interesting not only in that that worked, but that my
             | perception of the word was so completely different that it
             | sounded nothing like _green needle_.
        
             | kibwen wrote:
             | And no matter how hard I try, I can't get "needle". There's
             | an "s" sound in there, how does anyone get "needle" out of
             | that? :P
        
       | defaultname wrote:
       | Related but also not: One of the most interesting aspects about a
       | "shroom" trip is the incredible ability to visualize. Visualizing
       | is something that we all think we can do normally, but if you
       | really try to picture something in your head -- specific faces,
       | the design of a bicycle, the layout of a room -- it's quickly
       | evident that we are actually _terrible_ at it (it 's hard to
       | reverse information from that neural network). Even if you're
       | drawing it's often an iterative process where each line drives
       | the next.
       | 
       | Maybe other people are better at it, but when self-interrogating
       | and inspecting one's own vision, it just completely falls apart.
       | https://www.booooooom.com/2016/05/09/bicycles-built-based-on...
       | 
       | Normally.
       | 
       | I can only speak to personal experience, but under the influence
       | of psilocybin I find that closing my eyes and visualizing complex
       | environments and machines -- of literally inspecting and walking
       | through gearing systems, for instance, and rationalizing their
       | operation -- with complex lighting, etc, leaves me just in awe at
       | the mind's capacity. It literally feels like looking into another
       | universe, the construction of the reality simply too complex to
       | be imagined and visualized.
       | 
       | I've actually felt my head to ensure I'm not overheating,
       | contemplating the process like the mind was a GPU.
        
         | dgan wrote:
         | This happens to me (almost) every night, before i fall asleep,
         | and for some short time right after I woke up
         | 
         | Amazing state, i love it!
        
         | chwzr wrote:
         | I like the way you are thinking here. Speaking of the brain as
         | a neural network, what might be the counterpart of psilocybin
         | in our cs neural networks?
        
           | rolisz wrote:
           | Randomized weight updates?
        
             | jareklupinski wrote:
             | along with amplifying feedback bleeding into unrelated
             | parameters
        
         | frisco wrote:
         | > Visualizing is something that we all think we can do
         | normally... we are actually terrible at it
         | 
         | > leaves me just in awe at the mind's capacity
         | 
         | Want a really trippy realization? All you _ever_ see is brain
         | activity! Sounds obvious, but most people haven 't really
         | internalized it. That's all regular perception, which feels
         | totally real and solid, is. The psychedelic just gave you a
         | greater ability to volitionally influence the percepts.
        
           | penjelly wrote:
           | yeah, those color illusions really demonstrate this. like
           | when you stare at a point and the picture changes, the
           | picture looks fully colored but in reality its turned black
           | and white and your brain just hasnt realized it.
        
       | zero_iq wrote:
       | The ideas in this article are strongly reminiscent of those in
       | Jeff Hawkins' "On Intelligence" (2004).
       | 
       | The idea of the brain operating (at least in part) as a
       | "prediction machine" is certainly not a new one. I'm actually
       | surprised it's taken this long for this sort of experimental
       | confirmation and theory to become more mainstream.
        
         | cr4zy wrote:
         | Prediction machines, yet critically, taking actions that pursue
         | states which we are not quite able to predict.
         | https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0896627315007679?...
        
         | SubiculumCode wrote:
         | On any serious discussion of neuroscience, I'd advise to keep
         | Jeff Hawkins out of it. Not only are the ideas he publishes
         | often gross simplifications with little data to back it up (but
         | does wonders as marketing), they were ideas pushed and
         | developed by real working neuroscientists. Just my opinion.
        
           | LesZedCB wrote:
           | isn't that pretty face value what Numenta's goal is though?
           | They read research papers on neuroscience and try to distill
           | it down to applicable engineering problems for their HTM and
           | see what works.
           | 
           | i can't speak much as to their original research efforts, but
           | i personally appreciate the engineering-research side of what
           | they are doing.
        
         | Invictus0 wrote:
         | Thought of this as well. Have you read his newer book? I
         | haven't decided if I should pick it up or not.
        
           | chalcolithic wrote:
           | Oh, he has a newer book! Thank you!
        
           | KingFelix wrote:
           | It's alright, I didn't end up finishing it. I really like On
           | Intelligence, wasn't pulled in to finish. Might have been
           | state of mind at the time etc
        
           | metanonsense wrote:
           | I have read the book and I really liked the first half, which
           | explains the "thousand brains theory of intelligence". Very
           | inspiring and thought-provoking (at least to me as an
           | interested amateur in this field). The second half, however,
           | would better have been a book of its own. It's about Hawkins'
           | ideas on AGI implications and whatnot, which is quite
           | entertaining but devalues the first half, in a way.
        
         | ethbr0 wrote:
         | It's been known in many communities, I think.
         | 
         | There's been a number of articles on HN over the years on
         | saccades / visual interpolation.
         | 
         | See: https://www.portsmouthctc.org.uk/a-fighter-pilots-guide-
         | to-s...
        
       | sea_things wrote:
       | This article is so fascinating... and it reminds me of one of my
       | favorite topics! I'm excited to share this link:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideasthesia#Neurophysiology_of...
       | 
       | > Ideasthesia is congruent with the theory of brain functioning
       | known as practopoiesis. According to that theory, concepts are
       | not an emergent property of highly developed, specialized
       | neuronal networks in the brain, as is usually assumed; rather,
       | concepts are proposed to be fundamental to the very adaptive
       | principles by which living systems and the brain operate.
        
       | exporectomy wrote:
       | A lot of comments here seem to be overlooking the point of the
       | article. That brains predict their sensory inputs isn't new. What
       | seems to be is that a NN where correct predictions are done with
       | small values of the weights and error correction has large
       | weights uses lower weight values overall. That being energy
       | efficient seems to be more a coincidence of how biological brains
       | happen to work - larger weights use more energy. At least that's
       | how I understand it. Doesn't seem quite as incredible as
       | predicting sensory inputs.
       | 
       | Obviously being able to predict the future has value beyond
       | conserving energy.
        
       | Barrin92 wrote:
       | I think this is a very intuitive theory. I feel you can actually
       | notice this consciously when you do some mundane repetitive task
       | you've done a lot and something is off. For example if you lift a
       | cup you thought was full and it isn't and for a moment it
       | _really_ throws you off. It 's not just perceived as a difference
       | but as something 'out of whack'.
        
         | euroderf wrote:
         | Or when you lift an egg carton with one hand but it's only
         | partially full and all the eggs are at one end and you lose
         | your grip oops. I always rearrange our eggs to have left/right
         | symmetry in the carton and my wife must think I'm nuts.
        
       | birriel wrote:
       | Friston on the Free Energy Principle and Markov Blankets:
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/NIu_dJGyIQI
        
       | supperburg wrote:
       | The brain is a prediction machine largely. How is it possible
       | that you can experience a lucid dream where every sensation and
       | interaction is as real as real life? It's because your
       | consciousness lives inside a simulation. When you're awake, your
       | brain uses sensory input to populate the simulation. But when
       | you're asleep it populates it itself. When you're awake, your
       | brain doesn't scan every square inch of the real world looking
       | for things to populate the simulation; it scans sparsely looking
       | for key indicators and then guesses the rest. It's an
       | optimization for time and energy. Most of the things you
       | experience are guesses. And when you're asleep this guessing is
       | all that you're seeing. Dreams are just the guessing machine.
       | 
       | There are scattered reports of lucid dreamers who take
       | benzodiazepines. They can't escape their dreams. They simply wake
       | up into the dream again if they die. Everyone reported it as
       | being terrifying. Some reported that their reality checks stopped
       | working; double taking at a watch didn't change the position of
       | the hands. The world became frighteningly real. It's likely that
       | the guessing machine you experience during a normal dream is not
       | operating at full capacity.
       | 
       | It explains everything. How people swear on their life that they
       | saw something, ordinary or extraordinary, that couldn't be
       | explained by a trick of light on the eyes or anything else. It
       | explains dreams of course and other realistic hallucinations had
       | by schizophrenics or drug users. The simulation doesn't just deal
       | with the physical world, it deals with abstract things like the
       | "presence" of a person or entity. It's all haywire simulation.
       | 
       | This idea that synapses are a part of an energy optimization is
       | fascinating. It is widely speculated that inflammation has to do
       | with schizophrenia, and inflammation is also involved in
       | metabolic interference. African sleeping sickness for example is
       | a purely inflammatory disease that causes people to run out of
       | energy and fall asleep. Perhaps schizophrenia is some kind of
       | metabolic knob being turned down by an inflammation signal which
       | then results in the progressive shutting down of synapses as a
       | way to conserve energy...
        
         | selimthegrim wrote:
         | You wonder if that Batman episode about people not being able
         | to read in their dreams holds up
        
         | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
         | > There are scattered reports of lucid dreamers who take
         | benzodiazepines. They can't escape their dreams. They simply
         | wake up into the dream again if they die. Everyone reported it
         | as being terrifying.
         | 
         | I am not a lucid reamer nor to I take benzodiazepines, but I do
         | occasionally have dreams that I suddenly realize are dreams and
         | then wake up into another dream. Occasionally, this too results
         | in my realizing I'm dreaming and waking into another dream,
         | where the pattern repeats at faster and faster pace until I'm
         | just examining the way my bedroom appears in each iteration
         | looking for how it is wrong and trying desperately to wake up
         | for real this time.
         | 
         | I can confirm that it is pretty terrifying. Fortunately for me,
         | I've developed an appreciation of nightmares and actually don't
         | mind it all.
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Makes sense. If someone throws a ball into the air and you want
       | to catch it, you predict where it will go. Along the way, if
       | there is an error between prediction and actual position, you
       | adjust for it.
       | 
       | Classic control theory :)
        
       | FearlessNebula wrote:
       | Speculative execution
        
         | motohagiography wrote:
         | Rich, rich analogy. SPECTRE and Meltdown attacks for the mind
         | have to be a thing, possibly as interrogation and cross
         | examination techniques?
        
           | forgetfulness wrote:
           | Well... from the looks of it, we've gotten diddly squat from
           | trying to think of the brain like the thing I'm writing this
           | comment on, so probably not.
        
           | 988747 wrote:
           | We use SPECTRE and Meltdown attacks against brain every day,
           | we call them "jokes".
        
             | motohagiography wrote:
             | Woah. That could make me a _very_ dangerous person, because
             | I am not funny at all.
        
       | shostack wrote:
       | Is this akin to asynchronous space warping or synchronous space
       | warping used with VR headsets to improve perceived frame rates?
        
         | CyberDildonics wrote:
         | No, that has nothing to do with this at all. This is about
         | making predictions and comparing them to new information.
        
       | xyzzy21 wrote:
       | And in many cases only the prediction is used - people see what
       | they want to see. It's a natural extrapolation of this (which can
       | be very wrong and even deadly).
        
       | vez- wrote:
       | Considering these three statements:
       | 
       | - the brain predicts what its upcoming input will be,
       | 
       | - quantum biologists ask if the human eye is sensitive to quantum
       | effects, and
       | 
       | - measuring quantum information under different bases result in a
       | different quantum state of not only the measurer, but of the
       | world being measured.
       | 
       | I wonder if it is possible that the brain uses its predictive
       | power to change the basis under which the eye measures photons,
       | resulting in different perceptions as well as a different
       | reality. A bit of a crazy idea but I don't see any reason why it
       | shouldn't be the case other than if it is shown that biological
       | sensory organs are simply not that precise.
       | 
       | [0]https://www.templeton.org/grant/is-the-human-eye-able-to-
       | see...
        
       | leobg wrote:
       | Classic in marriage counseling. Many fights occur not because of
       | what the other person has said or done, but because what your own
       | brain has added to their behavior. Often, you see what you are
       | most afraid of. Or what you used to experience in childhood. To
       | "see" that your partner here and now is actually completely
       | different takes a lot of energy.
        
         | rks404 wrote:
         | holy crap this is a very useful insight for me. Thank you!
        
         | SubiculumCode wrote:
         | THE BIGGEST issue in marriages, no doubt.
        
         | xeromal wrote:
         | You have to clear the cache constantly.
        
           | HenryKissinger wrote:
           | Insufficient memory to perform operation. Your brain will go
           | to sleep in 5...4...3...2...1...
        
           | trhway wrote:
           | It isn't that straightforward for GAN.
        
           | alx__ wrote:
           | You can actually just overwrite the neurons. But it requires
           | multiple exposures to new perspectives.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-11-17 23:00 UTC)