Consciousness is an Explanation of What Already Has Been Computed (John Hopfield) | AI Podcast Clips

Duration: 9:14 1144 transcript words EN summary

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In this discussion, John Hopfield explores his long-standing interest in consciousness and contrasts it with prominent views held by other scientists like Marvin Minsky. Minsky suggests that consciousness is overrated and merely an epiphenomenon—a superficial layer of "icing on the cake" atop a much deeper subconscious reality where hard computations actually occur. This perspective aligns with evidence showing that simple decisions are made before conscious awareness registers them, implying that what we perceive as our will is often just a narrative constructed after neural processes have already determined an outcome. Hopfield notes that while Freud popularized terms like "subconscious," the more accurate description might be distinguishing between conscious and non-conscious processing rather than relying on ambiguous terminology. The conversation delves into how humans construct memories, illustrating this with Nicholas Chater's concept of a "flat" neural net versus deep networks. When recalling events, such as traumatic incidents, individuals often possess only a few correct anchor points but weave a rich, detailed narrative by integrating general knowledge to fill gaps. This constructed story is then repeated and accepted as truth, even though the details are largely fabricated. A compelling historical example provided involves John Dean, Nixon's personal lawyer who testified during the Watergate era. Despite having an average memory for specific facts, Dean could vividly recall the tone and atmosphere of conversations with high accuracy because his brain generated a coherent narrative based on limited data points rather than reproducing exact recordings of events. Hopfield reflects on Francis Crick's approach to consciousness, comparing it to how Mendel identified fundamental principles in genetics before DNA was understood. Just as biologists eventually realized that inheritance involved distinct genetic mechanisms rather than just blending traits, Hopfield believes there is a similar "smoking gun" for consciousness waiting to be found. However, he admits that unlike the clear entry points provided by physics or biology's discovery of DNA, his own attempts to grasp consciousness from a physical perspective have not yet yielded definitive results. He feels that current neurobiology has reached a point where collective phenomena and dynamic evolution can describe brain function as clock-like systems, but these mysteries are distinct from quantum mechanics issues like phase coherence. Addressing the relationship between physics and neuroscience, Hopfield argues that the complexities of the brain do not necessarily rely on quantum mechanical explanations for their fundamental operations. Instead, he posits that relevant neurobiological processes can be captured by classical equations of motion involving dynamical systems with approximately 10 to the power of 14 parts. The true mystery lies in understanding how such complex physical systems behave and what emergent properties arise from them, a challenge comparable to solving problems in quantum mechanics but rooted entirely in classical dynamics. Consequently, he remains skeptical about attributing consciousness or free will directly to quantum effects without further evidence, noting that questions of determinism often lead to contradictions when pushed too far into the realm of physics versus biological reality.

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let alone consciousness oh is that little own consciousness yes because that's tied up in there too you can't just put that on another shelf every once in a while I got interested in consciousness and then I go and I've done that for years and ask one of my betters as it were their view on consciousness that's been interesting collecting them what let's try to take a brief step into that room well as Marvin Minsky there's even a consciousness and Marvin said consciousness is basically overrated it may be an epiphenomenon after all all the things your brain does but or if they're actually hard computations you do not consciously and there's so much evidence that even the things the simple things you do you can make decisions you can make committed decisions about them the neurobiology can say he's now committed he's going to move them left before you know it so his view that consciousness is not that's just like little icing on the cake the real cake is in the subconscious yo-yo so conscious non conscious non-conscious that's the better word sir it's only the Freud captured the other word yeah it's that's a confusing word subconscious Nicholas chater wrote an interesting book I think I saw delivers divined is flat flat and in a neural net sense you might have to be a flat is something which is a very broad they're all know without really any of the layers in depth or as a deep brain would be many layers and not so broad in the same sense that if you push Minsky hard enough he would probably of said consciousness is your effort to explain to yourself that would you have already done yeah it's the weaving of the narrative around the things that already been competed for you that's right and then so much of what we do for our memories of events for example if there's some traumatic event you witness you will have a few facts about it correctly done if somebody asks you about it you will weave a narrative which is actually much more rich in detail than that based on some anchor points you have of correct things and and pulling together general knowledge on the other but you will have a narrative and once you generate that narrative you're very likely to repeat that narrative and claim that all the things you have hidden are actually the correct things there was a marvelous example of that in the Watergate / impeachment era of John Dean John Dean you're too young to know had been the personal lawyer of Nixon and so John Dean was involved in the cover-up and John Dean ultimately realized the only way to keep himself out of jail for a long time was actually to tell some of the truths about Nixon and John Dean was a tremendous witness he would remember these conversations in great detail and very convincing detail and long afterward some of some of the tapes the secret aces were which these Don was Jane was recalling these conversations were published and one found out that John Dean had a good but not exceptional memory what he had was an ability to paint vividly and in some sense accurately the tone of what was going on by the way that's a beautiful description of consciousness [Music] do you mean like worried where do you stand in your today so perhaps it's changes day to day but where do you stand on the importance of consciousness in our whole big mess of cognition is it just a little narrative maker or is it actually fundamental to intelligence that's our that's a very hard one what I asked Francis Crick about consciousness he launched forward a long monologue about handle of the peas yeah and how Mendel knew that there was something and I hope our biologists understood there was something in inheritance which is just very very different and he is the effect that inherited traits didn't just wash out into a gray but it's this or this and propagated that that was absolutely fundamentals of biology and it took generations of biologists to understand that there was genetics and it took another generation or two to understand that genetics came from DNA but there but but but very shortly after Mendel thinking biologists did realize that there was a deep problem of about inheritance any Francis would of like would like to have said and that's why I'm were working on consciousness but of course he didn't have any smoking gun in the sense of Mendel and that's the weakness of his physician that he read his book but you wrote with coke I think Nia Christophe go ah I find it under Vinson for this for smoking gun reason so I going on and collecting views without actually having taken it very strong with myself because I haven't seen the entry point not seeing the smoking gun and the point of view of physics I don't see the entry point whereas where is the neurobiology once they understood the idea of a collective a and the evolution of dynamics which could be described as a clock a collective phenomenon I thought ah there is a point where what I know about physics is so different from any neurobiologist that I have something that I might be able to contribute and right now there's no way to grasp at consciousness from a physics perspective from my point of view that's correct and of course people this is like everybody else do you think very badly about things you have the closely related question about freewill do you believe your freewill business will give an offhand answer and then backtrack backtrack backtrack where they realized that the answer they gave must fundamentally contradict the laws of physics that natura answering questions of freewill and consciousness naturally lead to contradictions from a physics perspective because it eventually ends up with quantum mechanics and then you get into that whole mess of trying to understand how much from a physics perspective how much is determined already predetermined much is already deterministic about our universe and there's not the difference and if you don't push quite that far you can say essentially all of neurobiology which is relevant it can be captured by classical equations of motion right because in my view of the mysteries of the brain are not the mysteries of quantum mechanics for the mysteries of what can happen when you have a dynamical system driven system with 10 to the 14 parts the BET complexity is something which is that the physical complex systems is at least as badly understood as the physics of phase coherence in quantum mechanics you