Transient global amnesia and determinism

[Theofrak]

Transient global amnesia is a condition in which a person temporarily loses the ability to create new memories. One of the hallmarks of the disorder is that the patient's short term memory periodically resets, frequently resulting in the patient getting stuck in a loop. Unlike Phil, Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day, the patient doesn't remember events from cycle to cycle. However, observers get taste for Phil's surreal experience as they watch the patient repeat the same questions, statements, and behaviors over and over again like a broken record.

An episode of Radiolab (at 7:15) features a woman suffering from transient global amnesia, whose memory resets every 90 seconds. Her daughter recorded the exchange with her mother, which replayed almost verbatim every 90 seconds over the course of several hours:

• Mother: "What's the date?"
• Daughter: August 24
• Mother: My birthday has already passed?
• Daughter: Yes
• Mother: "Darn" (same inflection) (laughs)
• Mother: "What happened?"
• Daughter: "You were working in the garden ... I called the paramedics"
• Mother: (eyes widening) "This is so creepy"
• [Reset]

Dr. Jonathan Vallejos, who treated the woman, has seen a number of these cases. According to Dr. Vallejos:

Everyone becomes a broken record, down to the phrasing of the sentences. It makes the brain seem a little more like a machine. You give the machine exactly the same set of inputs and see if the output ever varies. It doesn't. It almost seems like the patient has no free will.

I would agree with Dr. Vallejos if he removed "little more" and "almost." The brain is a machine. The patient does not have free will. If there is any better evidence that the brain is computer and performs determined actions in response to external input, I have not seen it.

Link

 

[Pulvinar]

I would agree with Dr. Vallejos if he removed "little more" and "almost." The brain is a machine. The patient does not have free will. If there is any better evidence that the brain is computer and performs determined actions in response to external input, I have not seen it.

That's been my observation too. Our (normally) continual recording of new experience masks that, but there's nothing that precludes a computer from being programmed to record experience.

The other major component of what we see as free will is the "hard-wired" desires, which in a computer are normally effectively to please us. Change those to self-serving desires and add learning from its mistakes, and you've given a computer as free a will as we ever have.

 

[Theofrak]

That's been my observation too. Our (normally) continual recording of new experience masks that, but there's nothing that precludes a computer from being programmed to record experience.

The other major component of what we see as free will is the "hard-wired" desires, which in a computer are normally effectively to please us. Change those to self-serving desires and add learning from its mistakes, and you've given a computer as free a will as we ever have.

Interesting thought.

A computer will always start from some known initial state and behave in predictable ways. Evidently, the behavior of a person without access to long term memories is just as easy to predict.

Does long term memory make things indeterminate, or simply more difficult to predict?

 

[Pulvinar]

Interesting thought.

A computer will always start from some known initial state and behave in predictable ways. Evidently, the behavior of a person without access to long term memories is just as easy to predict.

Does long term memory make things indeterminate, or simply more difficult to predict?

A computer will behave predictably for a given set of inputs, but if one of those inputs is from a pure-random number generator it can be as unpredictable as any brain could be. Assuming the computer's program includes an associative memory algorithm with random noise added in and winner-take-all voting logic, how much stronger the winning rule is relative to the next-best choice determines how predictable it will be. Same as in a brain.

 

[MattusMaximus]

What was this thread about?

 

[PixyMisa]

I would agree with Dr. Vallejos if he removed "little more" and "almost." The brain is a machine. The patient does not have free will. If there is any better evidence that the brain is computer and performs determined actions in response to external input, I have not seen it.

And indeed a similar situation applies with computers. When they are working (if you have no prior knowledge, and don't look too closely) they might as well run on magic. It's when they malfunction that the mechanics of their operation is exposed.