[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)