muesliMar 8

Do you know this feeling? You're walking down the stairs like you have done thousands of times before, when your brain suddenly goes:

"Wait... how are my legs coordinating this extremely complex biomechanical process exactly?!"

Anyway I'm happy to report gravity still works.

Show threadB Thoreau 🛸
@fribbledom Yes. I always wonder how my unconscious brain calculates the calculus and physics to catch a baseball, but can I explain how I calculate to do it? Noooo. Weird stuff.
Mar 8 at 2:05amWeb
Show threadmuesliMar 8

@Thoreau

I think about that a lot when driving a car. How do we calculate which gap is big enough when there are various cars in multiple lanes at varying speeds involved?!

If you asked me to solve these situations mathematically on paper, I'd give up. Yet you and I are constantly making thousands of these calculations every time we drive down the road...

Show threadmuesliMar 8

@Thoreau

Of course, the obvious answer is that we're not consciously doing these calculations.

Our brains are just matching the situation against thousands of similar experiences from the past. In the end, it's mostly a gut feeling. Which is arguably even more unsettling when you think about it.

Show threadB Thoreau 🛸Mar 8
@fribbledom I think you just described how a large language model develops. Wouldn't it just suck to find out we are all just LLMs? 🙃😅
Show threadHolgerPietaMar 8
@Thoreau @fribbledom They described how every (machine) learning system works. Neural nets are one kind of learning system. LLMs are one kind of neural net. The brain is another.
We will never find out we're just LLMs, because we already know that our brains are much more complex.
We will also never find out that we're just very complex neural nets. Because we already know that.
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸Mar 8
@HolgerPieta @fribbledom Yes I agree. I was being playful! 🙂 One of my favorite books about the brain and learning is A Celebration of Neurons by Robert Sylwester. He leans heavy into the brain as an ecosystem of parts, sometimes competing, like a rain forest. The biggest mystery for me: How do we get information introduced in the prefrontal cortex past the amygdala with help from the hippocampus into the basal ganglia /cerebellum? What happens in the 12 atom wide gap between neurons?
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸Mar 8
@HolgerPieta @fribbledom If I really want to think about Meusli's stair question: He is right, his long term memory through the basal ganglia has stored the coordination for traveling by stairs. His automaticity of movement/ stair habits is now there. His lizard brain, the amydala, made damn sure that he knows about stairs because they can kill you and the amydala is a survivor, man. When he is actually walking down the stairs and suddenly ignites his prefrontal cortex to ask,
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸Mar 8
@HolgerPieta @fribbledom " Wait, how am I doing this?" Midstep, that can trigger the amygdala to go " WHAT ARE YOU FREAKING OUT ABOUT RIGHT NOW? Do we need to adapt something? The automaticity can stop until the amydala says," Oh, we are cool. Carry on. Quit thinking so much."
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸Mar 8

@HolgerPieta @fribbledom

All this has to happen on neurons firing across at 12-atom wide gap between neurons . How electrons jump that gap is wild. How the competing parts of the rain forest brain jockey for action is so amazing. Muesli is a walking miracle.

Show threadHolgerPietaMar 8
@Thoreau @fribbledom Playfulness duly noted. The neuron gaps in the humor parts of my brain must have been significantly larger than 12 atoms this morning.
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸Mar 8

@HolgerPieta @fribbledom Well, it gave me a chance to really think about his question rather than just be silly.

***whispers to self*** It still seems mysterious how I catch a baseball without thinking. Prefrontal cortex and hippocampus would like an answer.

Show threadHolgerPietaMar 8
@Thoreau @fribbledom Recently I "rediscovered" my VR headset and played some Beat Saber: Easy levels I can "think through". But when it gets faster and harder, I have to purposely "dumb down" my higher brain functions and just let my subconscious do its thing. Which it is surprisingly good at.
In this state I don't have the slightest clue why my arms are doing what they do. Or would be able to tell you the color or direction of the box my arm just hacked in two.