# Technology
**URL:** https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045
**Category:** Science!
**Created:** [August 23, 2019, 10:24pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045 "2019-08-23T22:24:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@TristanMisja](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/TristanMisja)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:04pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/67 "2022-12-06T19:04:11Z")
They don’t copy neurons, though. You don’t understand how they work. Neural networks are essentially just equations converted into electric currents and run through a massive array of silicon.
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### Author:  [@fralegend015](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/fralegend015)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:05pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/68 "2022-12-06T19:05:11Z")
That’s like saying “Biological neurons can’t make a conscious beings, that’s just silly, or else any form of brain could become conscious.”
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### Author:  [@TristanMisja](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/TristanMisja)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:06pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/69 "2022-12-06T19:06:17Z")
But any form of brain can be conscious? You’re misunderstanding me. What neural networks do is pretty much no different from what Microsoft word does. It’s just doing some basic math and memory management using semiconductors.
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### Author:  [@fralegend015](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/fralegend015)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:06pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/70 "2022-12-06T19:06:54Z")
What the human brain does is fundamentally the same as what a worm’s brain does. It’s just processing inputs and generating outputs.
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### Author:  [@TristanMisja](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/TristanMisja)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:08pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/71 "2022-12-06T19:08:44Z")
Yup, and what Minecraft does is fundamentally the same as what a artificial neural network does. If a worm brain was scaled up it could become sapient. But if you give Minecraft more processing power it doesn’t become sapient, does it? Computers work much differently from brains.
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### Author:  [@fralegend015](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/fralegend015)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:10pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/72 "2022-12-06T19:10:24Z")
> [@TristanMisja](#):
>
> If a worm brain was scaled up it could become sapient.
No it couldn’t because it would still lack the necessary structures that allows for a deeper level of thinking which we associate to sapience, just like scaling up minecraft wouldn’t make it sapient because it lacks the necessary structures to be so.
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### Author:  [@TristanMisja](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/TristanMisja)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:12pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/73 "2022-12-06T19:12:09Z")
What necessary structures does it lack? Work neurons are nearly identical to human ones. The main difference is how they organize themselves. If you were to grow a worm brain to the size of a human brain, it could become sapient.
ANNs can behave indistinguishably from something sapient, just like a physics simulation can behave indistinguishably from a real environment. That doesn’t make a physics simulation a real environment.
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### Author:  [@fralegend015](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/fralegend015)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:17pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/74 "2022-12-06T19:17:26Z")
> [@TristanMisja](#):
>
> What necessary structures does it lack?
The ones that the worm doesn’t have because it doesn’t need them.
> [@TristanMisja](#):
>
> If you were to grow a worm brain to the size of a human brain, it could become sapient.
No, the worm’s brain wouldn’t just suddenly form completely novel structures out of nowhere just because it’s bigger.
> [@TristanMisja](#):
>
> ANNs can behave indistinguishably from something sapient
Then they are sapient. If I were to say “Humans aren’t sapient, they just act indistinguishably from a sapient being.” I would be wrong, wouldn’t I?
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### Author:  [@50gens](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/50gens)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:19pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/75 "2022-12-06T19:19:14Z")
If the brain is indistinguishable from the non brain (in terms of what it does), how were we able to say “the brain is different” in the first place?
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### Author:  [@TristanMisja](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/TristanMisja)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:23pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/76 "2022-12-06T19:23:05Z")
> [@fralegend015](#):
>
> Then they are sapient. If I were to say “Humans aren’t sapient, they just act indistinguishably from a sapient being.” I would be wrong, wouldn’t I?
That’s true, I’ve been using the wrong word. I meant something along the lines of sentient or self-aware. Basically having a subjective experience.
> [@fralegend015](#):
>
> The ones that the worm doesn’t have because it doesn’t need them.
> [@fralegend015](#):
>
> No, the worm’s brain wouldn’t just suddenly form completely novel structures out of nowhere just because it’s bigger.
But which structures specifically? What structures are in human brains that the neurons of a worm brain couldn’t grow into?
Anyways, you’ve yet to actually make an argument that electrons flowing through silicon and silver can be sentient.
> [@50gens](#):
>
> If the brain is indistinguishable from the non brain (in terms of what it does), how were we able to say “the brain is different” in the first place?
You can’t, really. But we all have a subjective experience. That how we know that brains can be sentient.
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### Author:  [@hhyyrylainen](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/hhyyrylainen)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:27pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/77 "2022-12-06T19:27:32Z")
@TristanMisja I’m going to tell you to stop with the brain topic unless you have some really good research to back yourself up with what counts as consciousness (i.e… why a machine emulating biological things wouldn’t be conscious), as I sure haven’t seen any.
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### Author:  [@fralegend015](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/fralegend015)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:33pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/78 "2022-12-06T19:33:29Z")
> [@TristanMisja](#):
>
> Anyways, you’ve yet to actually make an argument that electrons flowing through silicon and silver can be sentient.
You have yet to make an argument for the contrary, your thoughts are electrons flowing through synapses, you have to explain to me how that makes it but when it’s on silicon and silver it doesn’t.
> [@TristanMisja](#):
>
> That’s true, I’ve been using the wrong word. I meant something along the lines of sentient or self-aware. Basically having a subjective experience.
So, you are wrong on principle then. To make an explample: “You are not self-aware, after all I’m only capable of experiencing MY self-awareness, as such that must mean you aren’t and that when you claim to be you are just emulating what a self-aware person would say.”.
And don’t come at me saying “Well, since other humans have similiar brains we can assume that they are self-aware too.” because at that point you are going in a domain dangerously close to the one of racial discrimination “Only the ones that have the same characteristics as me can be people, and the ones that are different instead are inferior.”
Also, to be consistent with this logic you should claim that any aliens we encounter can’t be self-aware since their brains would have different structures.
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### Author:  [@TristanMisja](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/TristanMisja)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 7:54pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/79 "2022-12-06T19:54:43Z")
Going from “brains can have subjective experiences” to “only people like me can have a subjective experience” is a pretty big jump.
I guess we just don’t know. But in my opinion, I don’t think AI, _as it exists today_, can be sentient, only pretend to be.
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### Author:  [@fralegend015](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/fralegend015)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 8:07pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/80 "2022-12-06T20:07:17Z")
> [@TristanMisja](#):
>
> Going from “brains can have subjective experiences” to “only people like me can have a subjective experience” is a pretty big jump.
Not really, after all, both sentences are saying the same thing.
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### Author:  [@hhyyrylainen](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/hhyyrylainen)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2022, 8:12pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/81 "2022-12-06T20:12:28Z")
Please just stop the conversation, before it is known what is sentience, and how to objectively measure / test it, this is the worlds most pointless discussion.
Edit: I will delete any posts of people trying to continue the argument (I already deleted one).
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### Author:  [@Centarian](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/Centarian)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2022, 4:22pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/83 "2022-12-13T16:22:22Z")
One random technology that is a little odd, and depending on who you talk to, a little unethical:
You can use the neurons of an unborn fetus as an alternative to artificial intelligence, someone took like 100 human neurons and made them play pong, they compared them to mouse neurons with the same test, ours are better at adapting.
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### Author:  [@TristanMisja](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/TristanMisja)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/84 "2022-12-13T20:57:17Z")
Or maybe it’s because those neurons have _only_ played pong, and have no body to regulate and control. Brains in animals have lots and lots of tasks, while the pong brain only has to play pong.
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### Author:  [@Centarian](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/Centarian)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/85 "2022-12-13T21:06:31Z")
That’s kind of the point. They took 100 human neurons and 100 rat neurons and had them play pong, the human neurons could get farther faster than the rat ones and could consistently beat the rat neurons.
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### Author:  [@fralegend015](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/fralegend015)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2022, 9:09pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/86 "2022-12-13T21:09:39Z")
They compared them to 100 mouse neurons playing pong.
Also, I forgot about this but different species’ neurons have a different amount of synapses and capable of creating different amounts of connections between eachother.
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### Author:  [@TristanMisja](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/TristanMisja)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2022, 9:29pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/technology/2045/87 "2022-12-13T21:29:58Z")
Oh, I misunderstood. I thought they taught a mouse to play pong.
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