Scientific Brain Model Chapter IV-3

 

 CHAPTER IV-3 - The scientific method and how our endless pursuit of happiness naturally leads to the kind of intelligent behavior, that optimizes our standing in the environment.

1. The animal brain is not the only model we can follow to replicate intelligent behavior; but State Formation is another fantastic - far less impenetrable - example, where we observe and from which we can learn how to bring about intelligent behavior.

When, in the middle of the XX century, research in Artificial Intelligence started in earnest, given the daunting difficulty of the endeavor, it was only natural that researchers looked to the animal brain for inspiration. In fact, for many, many centuries, human beings have been building automata and some sort of autonomous machines alike, hoping they would eventually perform some work for their human masters. Yet, as intelligent as we believe to be, we just could not figure out how to get machines to exhibit any sign of intelligence. Despite how much we tried, machines would not even be able to understand directions! We knew, however, that such an ambitious objective was attainable, since the animal brain was living proof of it. If only we could fathom out how the brain works, we would just have to replicate the model. In fact, exciting early neurophysiological studies were able to identify a number of truly fundamental principles of how the brain works. For instance, as we discuss in detail in the previous chapter, the brain builds a model of the outside world, through the competition and cooperation among neurons. Still, it soon became apparent that, beyond these cardinal principles, it was not realistic to expect, that our investigation of the brain would reveal much detail on the exact neural processes responsible for intelligent behavior. Fascinatingly, however, the brain is not the only model we can use to replicate intelligent behavior. As we saw in the previous chapter, State Formation is another fantastic - far less impenetrable - example, where we observe - and from which we can learn - how intelligent behavior is brought about. Indeed, at this point it is worth considering what is intelligent behavior really about? It is certainly difficult to reach a consensus on such a sensitive and relevant subject; but it seems reasonable to say that we will recognize a living being is acting intelligently, if it exhibits a remarkable ability to devise a strategy to achieve a certain crucial complex goal; where, for a living being, there is undoubtedly no objective as crucial and complex as to prevail in Nature's competition for survival. Now, given that we can very well conceive human societies as living beings, it would then be reasonable to say that a state acts intelligently, if it exhibits a remarkable ability to devise strategies leading to the florescence of the society.

2. As State Formation shows, a collectivity will exhibit the most "intelligent" behavior (i.e. optimize its probability to succeed in the most complex and critical of endeavors), if the members of said collectivity follow their instinct in pursuit of their very own, selfish interests, but along the process keep looking for ways to cooperate with other members with whom they share interests. Indeed, since one generally achieves the greatest benefit (if not in the short run, most definitely in the long run) through cooperation with other individuals, it is just a matter of time before someone will try a long term strategy to achieve its goals, by talking other members into a mutually-beneficial cooperation. Moreover, since strength is in numbers, the more members find benefit in joining a given strategy, the stronger this will grow in the competition against all other strategies. Finally, as Nature's 'survival of the fittest' will always ultimately confirm, true democracy (as opposed to fake-Democracy) represents the magical recipe for a collectivity's success, in that the very simple dynamics followed by all the collectivity's members is best described by the realization that the good of the whole is the most effective strategy to secure one's own success.

The advantage of using State Formation as our model of intelligent behavior is obvious: whereas it is extremely difficult to get any insight on how individual neurons behave or how they interact with one another, the historical record has endless data on human conducts as well as how the competition and cooperation among humans led to the rise of the State. Now, it would here be reasonable to argue, that whether a kingdom flourished or not was just a matter of how intelligent the king was. We would then be back to explaining the origin of intelligent behavior by the existence of a magical intelligent agent. However, as discussed in previous chapter's example model of State Formation, the historical record speaks against this argument, since we would be really hard pressed to find any king, who ever genuinely sought the wellbeing of His subjects, instead of strictly His Majesty's Kingdom's prosperity. Absolutely, if we consider the historical record, the hypothesis that everybody was seeking his or her own benefit certainly feels more accurate. Still, at a first glance, it may be hard to see how the collectivity would flourish, if everybody is pulling his or her own way, pursuing his or her very own selfish interests; however, it is here important to keep in mind that one often achieves the greatest benefit if he or she cooperates with other individuals. Definitely, if we consider the historical record, it seems safe to assume that whenever a king implemented policies to improve the wellbeing of His subjects, it was just because he predicted in the long run such strategy would lead to His Majesty's Kingdom's prosperity.

As a matter of fact, still unresolved remains the whole problem of how to come up with a good strategy to achieve one's goals. Certainly, the hypothesis is not that there is no grey matter involved and we just randomly try out stuff. Rather, as it was discussed in detail in the previous chapter, the hypothesis is that the brain builds a model of the outside world. Indeed, the hypothesis is that the scientific method represents the best description of how the brain brings about intelligent behavior. Not unlike a scientific model predicts future observations, if our brain is able to accurately predict what is going to happen, intelligent behavior becomes just a matter of selecting the action predicted to yield the greatest benefit. Undeniably, it feels an impossible miracle that dynamics as simple as competition and cooperation between billions of neurons would lead to intelligent behavior; but who would have guessed ten thousand years ago that the competition and cooperation between billions of humans, each pulling his or her own way, seeking his or her own benefit, would down the road eventually lead to modern complex societies, whith sophisticated systems and institutions of health care, education, justice, transportation, etc.. As impossible as it would have felt, fact of the matter is this is exactly what happened and that was exactly how it happen. If kings ordered the construction of roads, it was not because His Majesty thought it would enhance the lives of His subjects; but so that He could efficiently move His armies wherever He needed them to be. If kings established some law and provided justice to their subjects, it was not out of concern for their wellbeing; but because His Majesty predicted that folks would be willing to accept and submit to His authority, if He ensured a safe and peaceful environment. If medieval English land-owners agreed to pay tribute to their Anglosaxon kings, it was because they understood the Danegeld was necessary to fund mercenary armies and defensive fleets against Viking raids. They certainly could have never thought (neither could they probably have cared less...) that those taxes would down the road be the motivation and ultimate reason, why England developed the most efficient administration and became one of the most wealthy and powerful kingdoms in Europe. If American colonial, landed, slave-owning magnates offered freedom to those slaves, who enlisted to fight in the war for independence; it was obviously because they wanted to free themselves from the obligation to pay the taxes demanded by the English Parlament. As a matter of fact, the success of the American Revolution became the big exception to the rule: If almost all revolutions turned out so traumatic, it was because - as much as everybody claimed to seek the good of the nation - everybody was actually pulling in his or her very own direction, indeed. This fact is blatant in our fake-Democracy system: in theory we elect the candidate or party we believe will best steer the nation into prosperity; but in practice we vote for whoever we reckon will favor our very own standing. Evidently, we are constantly looking for ways to advance our particular interests: If Czar Alexander II abolished serfdom, it was because the Crimean War made it clear that His Highness' empire would be stronger, if more people had an opportunity to contribute to it. Indeed, slavery was only abolished in the United States once the American Civil War proved the North's slavery-opposed ideology was stronger than the South's ideology of keeping black folks enslaved. 

Yes, it is good to elaborate a strategy, but we should not forget that  what we really need is a successful strategy. Yet, how can we know if a given strategy is going to work or not? After all, a strategy is nothing but an hypothesis on how to achieve a certain goal; thus, we can never be sure whether a hypothesis is always going to work or not, because - as we saw in the previous chapter - we will never be able to be sure, whether a hypothesis is always going to be correct or not. This is the recurrent caveat of supervised learning: if we seek to attain a certain goal, supervised learning is the natural way to go; but supervised learning requires a supervising expert, knowledgeable enough to be able to tell us whether our hypothesis was correct or not. The problem is that more often than we wish - especially when it comes to abstract goals -, it is not at all straightforward to tell whether our strategy was successful or not. Indeed, how on Earth will you be able to know if a given food provided the nutrints your organism  needs? How can you be sure that the pill you took was really the cause why your health improved? Does that special person really love you? Moreover, the mother of all questions: are you happy? As a matter of fact, for better or worse, when it comes to living things fighting to prevail in the competition for survival, such a reliable, knowledgeable supervising expert does exist: namely, Nature's 'survival of the fittest rule'. Yes, Nature's 'survival of the fittest' is always the incorruptible judge, who ultimately determines which are the best strategies: namely, did you survive or did you go extinct? Needless to say, Once truth has been spoken, it is only intelligent to join the camp of the most successful strategy.   

It all comes to show that a collectivity will maximize its probability to succeed in the most complex of endeavors, if the members of said collectivity follow their instinct in pursuit of their very own, selfish interests, but along the process keep looking for ways to cooperate with other members with whom they share interests. In other words, as anybody could have guessed, true democracy (as opposed to fake-Democracy) represents the magical recipe for a collectivity's success, in that the very simple dynamics followed by all the collectivity's members is best described by the realization that the good of the whole is the most effective strategy to secure one's own happiness. To make a long story short, as any careful analysis of Nature shows, optimal designs are defined by a perfect balance of competition and cooperation among all the components of the system. 

3. Neurons compete and cooperate with one another as they seek to replicate as faithfully as possible, how things work and stuff comes about. Once there is such a model of the world, all there is left is to find a purpose.

Admittedly, though, when it comes to human societies, it is easy to visualize how the competition and cooperation among humans shape the strategies and policies followed by the collectivity. But, what exactly does it mean competition and cooperation among neurons? More precisely, how does the competition and cooperation among neurons shape the strategies, behaviors and actions of the individual organism? Probably the best answer to this question is that the firing of a neuron represents a vote in a true democratic society. According to this view, a neuron's firing conveys the neuron's belief, that a certain stimulus is present in the surroundings, or calls for the execution of a certain action. Indeed, the model of the world built by the brain has a perceptual side and a motor side. On one hand the model represents the current state of the environment and, on the other hand, codes the dynamics that the environment is going to follow. Now, if we know the current state and we understand how the thing works, all what there is left is to decide which way we want the thing to go; that is, what is our objective?

4. Hypothesis: Our endless pursuit of happiness represents the relentless effort to optimize our standing in the environment.

  

Yes, the intelligent men of Civilization have always instructed us to ask ourselves, what is our objective. All to then immediately tell us the answer: For a very long time we had to win Heaven. However, since the advent of fake-Democracy, we are instead instructed to strive for the nation's supremacy over the rest of the world. It is just too bad that those most intelligent among us at the top of the social hierarchy never want to join into the effort, by paying their share of taxes. Indeed, it all seems a manipulation scheme to have us all do as they say, because it really does not feel it takes a privileged mind to figure out the answer to the question: namely, we just want to be happy, do we not?

Now, this really seems to be the big question: how do we find happiness in life? If we conclueded State Formation is an excellent source of inspiration on how the brain works - since we could identify a truly remarkable parallelism between the brain of an animal organism and the state of a nation -; we may be able to find a good, strong hypothesis to such a paramount question, if we consider what leads a nation to happiness. In point of fact, in this other case the answer does not look that convoluted. Indeed, it stands to reason to hypothesize that nations could feel something very similar to happiness whenever they attain supremacy over the rest of the world. For example, the citizens of Rome definitely were ecstatic when they received the news of the fall of Carthage. It therefore likewise stands to reason to hypothesize that throughout evolution living beings evolved to feel happy, whenever they attain a good standing in the environment. This hypothesis in fact follows our other previous hypothesis, according to which Nature's survival-of-the-fittest rule forces living things to follow optimal designs. Indeed, the evolutionary advantage for an animal which feels happy whenever it achieves a strong standing in the environment, is that it would not need to die in order to get to grips with the fact, that it was following a terribly misguided survival strategy. It is important to keep in mind, however, that this is just a hypothesis and, as it was discussed in the previous chapter, it is therefore most absolutely reasonable to disagree with it. There is not a good reason to get all rod up over any such disagreement, though. As the scientific method prescribes, in order to clarify the matter, all what we need to do is to test whether the model replicates the data or not.

5. In order to resolve a complex task, it is only smart to break it down in smaller subproblems.

Be that as it may, our hypothesis implies that the fight to prevail in the competition for survival becomes represented by our endless pursuit of happiness. The conundrum therefore gets a bit simplified: if happiness means being in good standing in the environment, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that we will find happiness if we feel loved, obtain food, feel healthy, reach sexual climax, attain power, feel safe, etc.. As a matter of fact, we probably did not need any prior hypothesis, but it was already intuitive that whatever improves our fitness would contribute to our happiness. Thus, the next question then becomes how to we attain all these other abstract subgoals?

6. Natural language is a formidably powerful tool to represent knowledge on how any concept works and how to resolve any task. But, how is such knowledge acquired?, how do concepts form?; that is, how did our collective conceptual framework slowly developed throughout our history, and how does each of us learn our own individual copy?

Yes, it certainly felt daunting to define happiness, but it is not exactly straightforward either to spell out in words abstract concepts, such as love, health, power, safety, etc.. In any case, as we can see, as we hypothesized in the previous chapter, our natural language is a formidable coding scheme to represent all this kind of information: namely, what is happiness?, how to we achieve happiness?, what is love?? how do we win the love of another person?, what is food? how can we get some food?, what is sex? how do we gain power over other folks?, etc.. Lo and behold, we run into our conceptual framework!

 

Our conceptual framework is our repository of information of the world around us. It is the knowledge we are conscious about; that is, our "conscious" knowledge. As discussed in earlier sections, it does not constitute all our knowledge, but only the part that is coded with words. It is therefore made up of the conclusions we have reasoned out, as well as the knowledge we have acquired from other people. Our need of love, our pursuit of pleasure and all other factors contributing to our level of happiness will always remain the ultimate (unconscious) motives and driving forces of our behaviors; however - to the extent that Civilization has little by little indoctrinated us to value our reasoned-out (conscious) knowledge over our instinct - our conceptual knowledge functions as our operating system. Yes, our pursuit of happiness will always be the ultimate motive and driving force of our behaviors and actions; but, then again, how do we achieve happiness?

  

It would be fair to say that the model of the world our brain slowly builds throughout our lives is actually aimed at finding out how happiness comes about. Now, for better or worse, this learning process is not a merely individual, but a collective endeavor. Indeed, since the definitions of the concepts in our conceptual framework are coded in natural language, our understanding of how things work and how stuff comes about will naturally be profoundly shaped by the information we receive from other people. This obviously has the advantage that we will benefit from the research billions of other human beings conducted prior to us; but we should always keep in mind that the information we receive from other people sometimes is not as reliable as they say. Be that as it may, we are finally ready to address the crucial question of how our (collective) conceptual framework slowly developed throughout Evolution.