Levels and loops: the future of artificial intelligence and neuroscience

Abstract

In discussing artificial intelligence and neuroscience, I will focus on two themes. The first is the universality of cycles (or loops): sets of variables that affect each other in such a way that any feed–forward account of causality and control, while informative, is misleading. The second theme is based around the observation that a computer is an intrinsically dualistic entity, with its physical set–up designed so as not to interfere with its logical set–up, which executes the computation. The brain is different. When analysed empirically at several different levels (cellular, molecular), it appears that there is no satisfactory way to separate a physical brain model (or algorithm, or representation), from a physical implementational substrate. When program and implementation are inseparable and thus interfere with each other, a dualistic point–of–view is impossible. Forced by empiricism into a monistic perspective, the brain–mind appears as neither embodied by or embedded in physical reality, but rather as identical to physical reality. This perspective has implications for the future of science and society. I will approach these from a negative point–of–view, by critiquing some of our millennial culture's popular projected futures.