“Here is a thought experiment. Let's place Rodolpho Llinas's jarred-brain on top of a body (Fig. 1). I bet Llinas would argue that his jarred-brain retains its own consciousness, and the android body is a simple machine. In other words, placing the same brain over different bodies will NOT change a thing in the exhibited android’s personality. Based on the importance of feedback, my prediction is the brain should change its ‘consciousness’ when its body is changed. That is, a brain will have to change to behave and think like an android because of the feedback through the body.” (Lewis L. Chen, Aug. 20, 2017)
Ergo, as discovered by Geoffrey Hinton, the father of AI, the brain is not a computer (Hinton 2024/YouTube). And this idea has received overwhelming support from work done on brain-computer interfaces (Birbaumer 2006; Fetz 1969; Tehovnik and Chen 2015). Feedback (through learning) shapes all organisms. This is why even identical twins are not identical (also see Footnote 1).
Footnote 1: “Yerkes (1912) trained an earthworm to choose one arm of a T-maze, using electric shock as punishment for error and the moist burrow as reward for correct choice. The habit was acquired in twenty trials, 2 days at ten trials per day, about what might be necessary for the laboratory rat. No errors were made on the third day, though the behaviour was somewhat inconsistent in the following week as between good days and bad days (even worms have them). Yerkes then removed the brain, or principal ganglia, by cutting off the head—the anterior four and a half segments. The animal continued to respond correctly, showing that there were sufficient synaptic modifications in the remaining ganglia to mediate the response—until the new head regenerated, at which time the habit was lost. The noise generated by the new ganglia, the irrelevant neural activity of the uneducated brain, was sufficient to disrupt learning completely.” (Hebb 1961, p. 78) In the foregoing, the new brain cells of the worm had to be reprogrammed by the new feedback coming through the body.
Figure 1: A brain that can be plugged into any body such that the body will assume the personality of the brain automatically. Many in the AI community (but not Geoffery Hinton; but see Nicolelis 2011, p. 61) believe that the brain works this way.
Dear Edward J Tehovnik ,
I believe these mechanisms involve the organism's interactions with its environment and internal processes, where signals and responses help regulate and adapt to changes.
In biological systems, feedback loops control processes like hormone regulation, homeostasis, and neural activity, ensuring that the organism maintains stability and functions optimally.
In this sense, feedback is fundamental to the development, maintenance, and adaptation of an organism, playing a key role in defining its overall constitution.
Regards,
Shafik