Forums > Social Discussion > Global brain theory

Or, to paraphrase, will the internet (in time) ever become self aware? Before you all start with the Terminator 2 comparisons, read this article, it expands the theory better than I ever could:

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/WWWSuperBRAIN.html
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I've already posted this idea in the "will humans ever evolve" thread, but I reckon it's such a fascinating idea it deserves it's own discussion.

Often science fiction (and this definitely sounds like it) is a precursor to science fact, and in my opinion can often inspire researchers to try and actualize ideas. For example Star-trek style teleportation: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3811785.stm
although obviously research on this is at a relatively primitive stage.

I first came across the idea that the internet could theoretically function as a giant brain in the novel "Earth" by David Brin. It occured to me there might be an element of truth in it, and having an interest in complexity theory and hebbian networks (essentially networks that learn through pathway-reinforcement a-la Data from Star Trek), the idea sounded, well, sound. So I did some research, and unearthed the above article.

The main arguments against (at least from people I've had this discussion with) seem to be that as an artificial entity, the internet will never be truly self aware as it follows inherent rules for processing data, and can therefore only ever be a simulation of awareness. Soulless if you will. The other argument being that if each "neuron" in the network is a computer terminal connected to the internet, and our brains have a much higher number of neurons than there will ever be computer terminals.

My response to that would be that neurons in our brains don't think for themselves, and are only capable of responding to electrical impulses. A computer terminal on the other hand require a human user, which already has a fully developed sense of interaction with other users, thus exponentially increasing the overall amount of neurons on offer.

The fundamental idea of complexity theory is that systems get built on systems get built on systems, and I see no reason why the same can't be true of the internet. The only factor preventing this currently is the underlying protocols of the net, which don't include self-reinforcing network paths. There are a few self-learning sites out there ( http://www.gnod.net/
being my favourite), but if the idea is expanded to the entire internet, with every single user acting as a neuron in the global brain....

I absolutely love the idea. Go on, rip it to shreds... I'll be fascinated to hear what you think. After all, competition and cooperation (even on internet forums) are the basis for evolution...




Sambo

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?

Faith
Nay, whatever comes one hour was sunlit and the most high gods may not make boast of any better thing than to have watched that hour as it passed

But it already has an accurate representation of itself on it's hard drive, otherwise it couldn't function. And it already knows what's onscreen, cause it put it there in the first place.



But good point about the definition of self awareness. What is self aware? Humans have a sense of self that a PC doesn't. Even if you point a webcam at a monitor, all you'll get is a feedback loop. If the computer is able to adapt what is on screen based on what's on the webcam according to it's own definition of what it wants to display on the other hand...



But then again, it has to define what it wants to display based on it's own evalutation of what it wants, just like humans, and it won't get that by merely pointing a webcam at a screen.



However, a single computer isn't really the point here. One computer acts as a single neuron in the entire network, and one neuron in our brains isn't self aware. The awareness arrises from the interaction between billions of neurons. A single PC is only a conduit between it's user and the whole network, much like a synapse in our brains.

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?

Smiley faces a go-go!

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?

Pat, also in the case of a single computer, the user is self-aware, which provides the pre-requiste ability for interaction a PC wouldn't have on it's own.

Think of it like this: in terms of a brain anaolgy, the user is the neuron, the PC is the synapse. The whole system (ie the internet) is dependent on user interaction with other users.

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?

For it to be described as "self aware" then it needs to have a singular and united consciousness. This will not happen because it is entirely dependant on human input. There is no collective consciousness.

For the WWW to be self aware, it would need to be autonomous from human action. It isn't. So it isn't.

After much consideration, I find that the view is worth the asphyxiation.
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I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

I agree, at least at the moment. However, it depends how you believe consciousness arises. I would say our own consciousness is derived from the interaction between the millions of neurons in our brains, which in turn are triggered by external stimuli. The idea of a simgular unified consciousness is a bit of a misnomer.

In the global brain analogy, humans are the senses of the brain, providing the imput and responses, the external stimuli. You're quite right, humans are a pre-requisute for the system to work, but I don't think that means self awareness can't arise out of that. It wouldn't be consciousness in the same sense that we know it, it would be a level up from us, but we'd be part of it.

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?

-Mike )'(
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella

"A buckuht 'n a hooze!" -Valura

Free will?

What a wonderful miracle if only we could look through each other's eyes for an instant.
Thoreau

Doc: very good point. My counter-argument is this: whoever mentioned accidental? Physical evolution in the animal kindom (including ourselves) works on this basis, agreed, but there is nothing accidental about the internet. Biological evolution in the sense we've known up until now has had no intelligent input. Rather, it has been accidental, just as you correctly point out.

However, the internet has had the benefit of intelligent input from humans, meaning it has an instant jump on natural evolution in the form of human understading of learning networks.

I'm not suggesting the net in it's current form will, or ever could form it's own consiousness. The underlying architecture doesn't allow for learning capability. However, if a Hebbian netwok architecture was applied to the entire network, thus reinforcing the most used conections while sidelining those that don't really go anywhere, a model of a human brain could theoretically emerge. There really isn't that much difference from a human brain, other than the fact that there are less "neurons" in the network. That fact is meaningless on account of the fact that each neuron is an intelligent being in itself, thus increasing the amount of overall neurons by a factor of the average amount of neurons in the human brain.

Intelligence augmented evolution if you will...

Kevlarsoul: Where does free will come from? All your choices are based on your experience of life up until this point in time. Your upbringing, random encounters with people, what your friends say, everything contributes to what you decide to do. Every decision anyone ever makes has a precedent somewhere in their life. If the net ever developed the ability (by human design or otherwise) to be able to reach it's own conclusions about things, free will would be a natural result.

By the way, I love the Thoreau quote, that's genius!

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?

-Mike )'(
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella

"A buckuht 'n a hooze!" -Valura

I see your point. Maybe evolution was the wrong word to use. It wouldn't evolve, it would be designed. And I agree that intelligence couldn't arise out of the net in it's current form accidentally. However, research is being done into learning networks (see gnod), and there are several arguments in favour of implementing this sort of architecture, for example better search engines.

If you look on the GNOD music site, it asks for your 3 favourite bands, then gives you a list of other stuff you might like, based on other peoples responses, using exactly this type of network. It got every one of my favourite bands down, and put me on to a new bunch of bands that I now really like. Imagine this sort of thing scaled up to google type searches. So in theory the idea of this type of architecture could be very beneficial... and it would lay the groundwork.

Gnod rules... http://www.gnod.net

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?

-Mike )'(
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella

"A buckuht 'n a hooze!" -Valura

Is it? Oops! I better do my research better... Still, that means progress is being made. I think the guys who wrote the orginal paper explained the concept better than me!

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/WWWSuperBRAIN.html


Section 2.1 of that paper refers to this exact idea...

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?

You know, the paper loses me right at the beginning when it tries to model humanity as a super-organism.

ORGANISMS reproduce. They copy themselves. HUMANS reproduce. "HUMANITY" (whatever the hell that means) does not reproduce. It may spread, it may adapt, it may do many things that organisms do, but it doesn't reproduce. Not only doesn't it, but it can't. You can take two humans and make a third one (it's even easier with chavs than it is with humans). You can't take two "humanities" and make a third one.

Now, there are other situations where one might consider a collection of individuals to be a single "superorganism." Ant colonies and beehives are perfect examples. Why them and not us? Well, colonies do have many features of an organism. First, they reproduce. And the method by which they reproduce is reminiscent of the method by which organisms reproduce. Organisms often reproduce by producing a male reproductive cell (sperm) and a female reproductive cell (egg). Sperm fertilizes egg and produces a new organism.

MOST ants in a colony are not capable of reproducing. However, two specialized types of ant, the male and the queen, are. Each colony produces males and queens and they fly off and mate and then the queen forms a new colony. In some respects, worker ants (or drone bees) might not even be considered whole organisms because they can't reproduce. But they do take part in the reproductive process in that they support the queen and males, much in the same way that the brain supports the human reproductive process by making the male spout BS to the female about eternal love and what-not. (Of course, this raises an interesting philosophical/semantic question of whether a mule is an organism, in that case.)

But here's the thing: ant colonies don't evolve. Ants CAN evolve, but they evolve over time as new colonies are formed. Ants from one colony who are sensitive to a given insecticide will always be sensitive to that insecticide. A mutation in a germ cell and formation of a new colony of ants is necessary for the evolution of insecticide resistance. Humanity doesn't work that way because we didn't all spring from the same queen human.

The idea of humanity as a superorganism isn't that new. The "Gaia" hypothesis, which is also a load of BS from a biological standpoint, is similar.

Yes, humanity and all life on earth jointly can do some things that organisms can do, like adapting, utilizing energy, etc. But that does NOT make us a collective organism.

But if we are a collective organism, then humans are a malignant, metastasizing tumor.

-Mike )'(
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella

"A buckuht 'n a hooze!" -Valura

Damn! I don't even know if I can regain any dignity at all after all my arguments being demolished that comprehensively!

*racks brains for something intelligent to say*

Ok. I'm going to attack the problem from a different angle. I agree with you that Gaia is, biologically speaking, balls. I also concur that humanity isn't an organism, and have actually used the cancer metaphor myself in previous discussions on this topic. So yes, at the moment, those arguments hold no water. However, the way I approach the concept is less from the evolution point of view and more from the complexity theory angle, ie self organizing adaptive systems. A system can be self organizing and adaptive, without being classified as alive. There are myriad examples of such systems, which arrive at extremely complex behaviours due to nothing more than the interaction between their component parts following very basic rules. As a basic example of such emergent behaviour, your ant colony analogy is perfect.

"The queen does not give direct orders and does not tell the ants what to do. Instead, each ant reacts to stimuli in the form of chemical scent from larvae, other ants, intruders, food and build up of waste, and leaves behind a chemical trail, which, in turn, provides a stimulus to other ants. Here each ant is an autonomous unit that reacts depending only on its local environment and the genetically encoded rules for its variety of ant. Despite the lack of centralized decision making, ant colonies exhibit complex behavior and have even been able to demonstrate the ability to solve geometric problems. For example, the ant colonies routinely find the maximum distance from all colony entrances to dispose of dead bodies" (under Emergence on Wikipedia).

Ok, so quoting from Wikipedia isn't the best research ever, but I am at work.....

The point is, in systems such as these, the interaction between these agents is what causes the behaviour of the system of a whole. There are a virtually limitless number of other examples. Termite mounds, the stock market arriving at equilibrium, a school of fish being attacked by dolphins forming a near perfect sphere etc.

I would say our own consciousness is such a construct. It's not centralized, it arises from the interaction between the neurons in our brains, each of which is merely responding to electrical impulses. Hence consciousness itself is an emergent behaviour. Granted, the human brain has evolved that way over millions of years, giving us inbuilt behaviours and instincts. However, in the case of the WWW, where each neuron is a human brain, acting on it's own and responding to different inpulses coming over the communication channels of the net, the degree of adaptability of the overall system is hugly increased. I don't think it's too big a step to argue that (at least theoretically) this could lead to a decentralized consciousness emerging from the interactions between humans.

Do I sound like a hippy?

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?

 Written by: SamboFlux




"The queen does not give direct orders and does not tell the ants what to do. Instead, each ant reacts to stimuli in the form of chemical scent from larvae, other ants, intruders, food and build up of waste, and leaves behind a chemical trail, which, in turn, provides a stimulus to other ants. Here each ant is an autonomous unit that reacts depending only on its local environment and the genetically encoded rules for its variety of ant. Despite the lack of centralized decision making, ant colonies exhibit complex behavior and have even been able to demonstrate the ability to solve geometric problems. For example, the ant colonies routinely find the maximum distance from all colony entrances to dispose of dead bodies" (under Emergence on Wikipedia).



But the ant colony is, in many regards, an example of a "superorganism" in exactly the same sense that I'm rejecting the view of the WWW or "Gaia" or whatever as a "superorganism." An ant colony is a very good approximation of an organism scaled up so that ants act as cells. In the human body, there is no central organizing cell, either. Each cell acts in response to signals sent out by other cells, whether it's during development or the immune response to something or whatever. Ant colonies are SO highly specialized that they can properly be considered "superorganisms."

But this is not true of humans. Humans don't behave in rigid, stereotyped, and predictable ways. Humans aren't nearly as specialized as ants. And so as such we're much more reminiscent of a colony of organisms, like a coral, than a true organism.

 Written by:


The point is, in systems such as these, the interaction between these agents is what causes the behaviour of the system of a whole. There are a virtually limitless number of other examples. Termite mounds, the stock market arriving at equilibrium, a school of fish being attacked by dolphins forming a near perfect sphere etc.



Again, you're mixing your systems up. Termite mounds and beehives, great example of "super organisms." Schools of fish and stock market? "Emerging complexity." It depends on the specialization of the individual units. Stock brokers aren't that specialized. Nor are the fish in the school. But termites specialize in a method similar to how ants do. Same with bees.



I would say our own consciousness is such a construct. It's not centralized, it arises from the interaction between the neurons in our brains, each of which is merely responding to electrical impulses. Hence consciousness itself is an emergent behaviour. Granted, the human brain has evolved that way over millions of years, giving us inbuilt behaviours and instincts. However, in the case of the WWW, where each neuron is a human brain, acting on it's own and responding to different inpulses coming over the communication channels of the net, the degree of adaptability of the overall system is hugly increased. I don't think it's too big a step to argue that (at least theoretically) this could lead to a decentralized consciousness emerging from the interactions between humans.



Again, you have to look at specialization vs. emergence. Yes, in both cases there is emergent behavior of the system. But the brain has specialized neurons to do all sorts of things. And each neuron does really only one or two things. And it has a very limited set of behaviors. This is a feature of these large organized systems, that each component is limited in scope of behavior. When each component gets too complex, then there's too much variation in behavior and it averages out to gobbledeygook.

 Written by:

Do I sound like a hippy?



No, more like a doomsday cultist cum-technophile.

-Mike )'(
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella

"A buckuht 'n a hooze!" -Valura

-Mike )'(
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella

"A buckuht 'n a hooze!" -Valura

-Mike )'(
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella

"A buckuht 'n a hooze!" -Valura

Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can beat the world into submission.

Can I push it? Can I? Oh go on.....

Doc, how did you find out about my doomsday cult? Nobody's supposed to know about that, it's top secr..

*sounds of muffled stuggle*

Ahem, excuse me. Anyway, back to the topic, I hadn't thought of specialization, that does throw a spanner in the works a bit! And seeing the internet as an ecological niche is a really interesting viewpoint.

 Written by: Doc Lightning


This is a feature of these large organized systems, that each component is limited in scope of behavior. When each component gets too complex, then there's too much variation in behavior and it averages out to gobbledeygook.




That's another good point (guess that's why you're the doc and I'm a lowly musician)! For emergent behaviours to manifest, there needs to be the right balance of structure and fluidity in the interacting agents. Any system too chaotic remains that way, any system too rigid can't adapt, hence the term "the edge of chaos", describing the region where the balance is correct, and self-organization occurs. I guess the internet is too chaotic for this to happen.

Another point that just occured to me: could an entity develop conscious/self aware thought without having evolved naturally? I suppose Data from Star trek would be such an entity. Would it be true self awareness or just a simulation, if the entity could learn from the ground up and develop it's own awareness over time?

Hmmmm....

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Nietzsche

OK, after a prologned abscence from this debate due to festival messyness, back to it!

 Written by: dream


Any thoughts on Stuart Kauffman's work around self-organisation, complexity and chaos stemming from his research on Boolean Networks?



I'm familiar with Stuart Kaufmann's work, in fact the reason I think the global brain idea is so good is based on his autocatalytic set theory for the origin of life itself. I've read "Complexity" and am about halfway through "At Home in the Universe", which expands this theory and explains what Prof. Kaufmann calls "Order for Free".

The central idea is that if a network of interconnected componenents hits a critical stage between order and chaos (usually termed "the edge of chaos"), a stunning level of order is the natural result. The system has to lie within certain parameters for this to work, otherwise the system is either too chaotic and will never settle to any form of order, or it is too ordered and will never develop the ability to adapt.

The examples I gave in my previous post (the stock market, our brains, our bodies, the economy etc) were all examples of systems which have the ability to self organise through being at this critical threshold at the edge of chaos, and have stabilised.

Whether the internet can quantifiably be said to lie within these parameters is debatable, but certainly protocols could be set up that enabled each connection in the network to act in this manner. The result would almost certainly be an emergent behaviour of some kind, which in turn would follow the pattern of self organization seen in so many other aspects of nature. Whether this would give rise to consciousness or not I'm not qualified enough to say, but it certainly puts an interesting spin on the whole thing!

As far as computers learning to read our emotions and pre-empt our actions, that is definitely feasible. I would say that would be the first step towards integrating the user to the level required for the global brain to function.

I don't think an individual computer could display true awareness, only an artificial approximation of it. After all, speech recognition software has developed to the point of fooling people into thinking they're talking to a real person, but that's just a very clever algorithm. I think if true consciousness were to arise, it would be the result of the interaction between the millions of computers in the network, and more specifically, the interactions of their human users.

My head is staring to hurt now, so I'll leave Doc to tear me to shreds again!

My Mind is a Ship
Emotions become the Waves
Soul is the Ocean

If a quizz is quizzical, what is a test?