Why does our brain have intelligence?

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Only the lazy is not currently discussing the future associated with AI - artificial intelligence. Companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in software development and new technologies for the interface (communication) of the machine and the human brain. And some argue that AI will soon surpass humans. In reality, this is not just an illusion, but a fundamental delusion, the cause of which lies in an elementary mistake, but repeated by all developers. In this article, I'll tell you about this fundamental reason that, for many companies, makes it meaningless to expect rapid progress in the coming years.

What is modern AI (artificial intelligence)?
We are surrounded by a huge variety of outwardly smart devices. Smart home, all sorts of assistant robots, self-driving cars, and a bunch of fashionable electronic gadgets. All these are fairly simple devices, but there are also real computing monsters, such as the Summit supercomputer, which is located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA). This giant is capable of performing 200 quadrillion calculations per second, which means that it is at least a million times faster than any modern home computer.

What distinguishes and unites all these different "intelligent" devices?
They have a lot of differences: the power of processors, the amount of memory, and other features of the hardware, but the main thing is the different organization of the algorithms.

But there is only one thing in common - the presence of these very algorithms. At the same time, the AI that is embedded in them is a whole group of methods for building and managing these algorithms and a set of approaches that involve machine learning. Do not be confused by the word training, since there is no cognitive component at the heart of such training, but there are all the same algorithms that mathematically train some functions to work better and faster as experience and comparative base accumulate.

Anatomy of delusion
Programmers argue that algorithms using the machine or deep learning in their specifics resemble the work of the human brain and, given the necessary computing power, such algorithms can be taught to solve problems of any complexity.

Unfortunately, this is still no more than a fantasy, since in practice we are faced with one important and so far completely insurmountable problem - the inability to interpret the actions of the human brain when solving a problem of comparable complexity. It turns out that there is no way to create a group of algorithms capable of repeating a process that we do not understand at the core.

In other words, programmers simply do not know that neurophysiologists do not understand why a person has intelligence at all. And this is not just an annoying gap, but a fundamental problem that only gets stronger as new data accumulates. Despite the fact that we can disassemble the human brain down to a single neuron, we do not understand the main thing - how this system creates a stream of consciousness.

Why is that?
The work of AI, perceived by us as an intelligent activity, a priori should be based on a deep understanding of how the human thought process associated with the presence of consciousness works. Figuratively speaking, if you want to teach a car to swim, you first need to understand what water is and why some objects do not sink. You should not guess but know for sure why, for example, a log floats and a stone sinks.

In the case of the work of the human brain, it is precisely the lack of understanding of the basic principle of its work that is the main and so far insurmountable obstacle. We know what neurons (cells of the human brain) are and have learned to identify which group or area of neurons is activated or activated when performing certain tasks, such as reading, singing, or working with our hands, but we absolutely do not understand how coordination and self-organization of all these functions occur into a single the stream of consciousness that each of us possesses.

What does science know?
Physiologists say that a kind of "light spot" of activity moves in our brain. Depending on what we are doing, one or another area of activity is switched on in our brain, and if we imagine the cerebral cortex as a certain graphic area, we could observe a moving concentrated excitation spot that moves along the cerebral cortex as we move from one activity to another.

When, for example, we speak, we activate Broca's area, but this group of neurons can be compared with a microcircuit that controls the parameters of a speaker (sound, timbre), and not with a processor capable of creating the text itself and the meaning of what the speaker sounds like. It turns out that the "light spot" and the whole concept of active zones of the brain now known are service or conditionally technical functions, and we do not know where the coordinating center is located.

We know that there are 86 billion neurons in the human brain, while only 16 billion belong to the cerebral cortex, and all of them are included in one or another functional zone of activity. In other words, all neurons serve technical functions, while the coordination center is hidden somewhere, but in reality, we simply do not have a reserve of unexplored and unidentified cells to which the functions of such a coordinator could be attributed.

We simply do not understand how such a resource-limited system as our brain is generally able to contain and control consciousness. It is known that if we take the intellectual power of the human brain combined with energy consumption, then in comparison with modern computers our head is at least 50 thousand times stronger! At the same time, such an inconceivably efficient system, consuming energy like a small light bulb and relying on a limited volume of neurons, is capable of supporting consciousness, imaginative thinking, memory, the most complex spatial orientation, and a bunch of any interrelated functions in real-time without freezing and overload problems.

And the most important thing is that the speed of the nerve impulse is only 270-280 km per hour, while in any computer the signal travels at a speed of 300 thousand km/sec. The neural network of our brain transmits an electrical signal 3 million times slower than a simple metal communication cable, but for some reason, it still manages everything.

The main conclusion that programmers do not know
The simplest and most obvious conclusion that needs to be drawn in this situation will be simply shocking. Everything we know about the human brain suggests that it is only part of the system.

There is something else that is functionally integrated with our neurons and it is this union that creates the stream of our consciousness. In other words, we (conditionally) dismantled a biological device to a screw, which seemed to us like a computer and now we clearly see that it is only a monitor.

The human brain simply must have another functional system that plays the role of an integrated and highly efficient coordinating center responsible for most of the higher nervous activity and the stream of consciousness itself. It is this second system that allows us to think, dream, and be aware of ourselves as intelligent beings. We can only guess how complex and unusual this structure is, despite the fact that so far we cannot even find a place where it is located.

In this situation, it is completely meaningless to say that we are able to create a machine or a set of self-learning algorithms that can surpass the human brain.

All we can do today is build initially programmed algorithms that will repeat and modify, within a certain framework, those rules, and patterns that their creators will prescribe. Such systems cannot have any even the most remote resemblance to real human intelligence.

Companies investing in AI need to start from the other end and instead of modeling new multilevel algorithms, focus their attention on how the human brain creates our consciousness.

As soon as we discard the illusions and realize that we do not see the whole system, we will need to concentrate on the only question - how and from where the neural network of our brain receives functional support that allows us to form the stream of consciousness.

American inventor and futurologist Raymond Kurzweil, known for his high-profile prophecies, assured that in 2045 there will come a moment of technological singularity when man will finally lose control over the development of the scientific base that forms the basis of our civilization. Artificial intelligence AI will take over the functions of the engine of progress, and humans will lose not only the leading role but also the ability to understand the essence of the ongoing changes, innovations, and discoveries made by AI without the help of humans.

Literally, Kurzweil predicted the following:
“I set the date for the Singularity — the deep and disruptive transformation of human capabilities — in 2045. The non-biological intelligence created this year will be a billion times more powerful than the total human intelligence today. "
Despite the fact that some AI specialists consider such a prediction unlikely, most are nevertheless confident that humanity is really on the verge of a discovery that will turn the world upside down and most likely lead to the formation of a new reality.

In this article, we will understand what exactly awaits us, try to understand the essence of the upcoming discovery and some of the features of a new type of AI.

Is AI Computing or Creativity?
The most famous definition of artificial intelligence today belongs to the American computer scientist John McCarthy, who in 1956 at a conference at the University of Dartmouth said the following about AI:

"Artificial intelligence is the property of intelligent systems to perform creative functions that are traditionally considered a human prerogative ..."
An important clarification was made in 1980 by John Searle in his definition of so-called strong AI:

"A properly programmed computer with the necessary inputs and outputs will be intelligence, in the sense that the human mind is intelligence."
This definition, despite a number of alternative interpretations, perfectly illustrates the main misconception that has been pursuing all AI developers without exception from then to the present day.

The main mistake
Everyone thinks that the brain is a biological analog of a computer operating according to certain algorithms, and that means the mind can be compiled using two main tools: high computing power and a set of complexly organized interconnected algorithms.

In reality, there is no evidence or even objective prerequisites for the concept linking intelligence and computational functions based on algorithms.

Neurophysiologists have studied quite well the reflex - a stereotyped reaction of a living organism to any impact. This is a universal principle for organizing the nervous system that really resembles the principle of an algorithm. But all this is true only if we are talking about the nervous system of an animal or a neural network devoid of intelligence. With the human mind, everything is much more complicated.

What is special about the human brain?
This is where we come to the main fork that has taken almost all AI developers down the wrong path. They represent the human brain as a single system that works the same way as the brain of any living organism on Earth, but only more intensively or with greater operational power.

In fact, this is the main mistake. The human brain is morphologically or structurally similar to the brain of any mammal, but functions according to a fundamentally different scheme.
What's the Difference?
The reflex, as we found out, is the basic and universal functional control scheme for all living organisms. It is based on a reflex arc, which can be schematically represented as a response or reaction of a neural network to a stimulus or any incoming sensory information. As soon as there is a change or need, the living organism acts. It is important to understand that the number of neurons involved in the response and the complexity of the analysis does not play a role in the choice of the response.

A reflex is always a clear sequence: stimulus - neural network - reaction. In other words, the brain chooses the best and most effective tactics based on the situation in which it is at a given moment. A reflex stereotype is a tactic of actions within the paradigm of real events.

The human brain also often acts according to the traditional scheme of reflex response, except for situations when we turn on the mind.

And then everything changes exactly the opposite!
Mind or intellect (a stream of consciousness) is a fundamentally different reaction scheme. In a variant of a reasonable model, a person forms an abstract image that replaces the sensory component of objective reality for us and then, after the implementation of dynamic modeling of the development of the situation, forms a decision in the form of a sequence of actions.

In other words, the intellect is always the creator of its own reality, it seems to stand above the process itself invented by it and therefore can identify itself as the creator. A consequence of this model is the fact that the mind is able to create images and situations that are completely divorced from reality and even ignore the factors of the surrounding world.

But most importantly, this model allows the formation of a stream of consciousness that identifies itself as something that exists parallel to objective reality.

What does it mean?
This means that the human brain is a double system, both halves of which work in completely different ways, despite the fact that formally the reflex system is a subordinate part. The stream of consciousness or mind is able to influence some of our actions, despite the fact that the main activity of the central nervous system still uses the reflex mechanism as the main one. At the same time, the division is so clear that most of the functions of the reflex system, such as controlling the body's work (digestion, heartbeat, breathing, etc.), remained completely inaccessible to influence from the intellectual component.

Mind and reflex are not just different schemes of organizing nervous activity - they are, in fact, opposite models, which probably for this reason cannot mix at all.

The reflex is always inside the situation and is looking for a way out, while the mind, on the contrary, is always outside and models its own vision of the problem and ways to solve it.
Schematically, we can represent the mind as a rider who rides a horse which is the reflex activity of the brain. Unable to control the movement of the horse's legs, the mind controls only the direction of movement in general, while the horse, in principle, is not able to comprehend the rider's motivation.

Symbiosis instead of evolution
Such a binary system very clearly corresponds to the biological logic of symbiosis when we are dealing with a binary organism, but it is definitely impossible as a result of the standard evolutionary process of a functionally unified CNS system.

The evolutionary process involves sequential change when new organs or functions provide an immediate competitive advantage, which increases the chance of survival and procreation. Otherwise, such traits have no chance of gaining a foothold in the population.

In the case of our brain, the opposite is true. Reflex is almost three times faster than reasonable activity (220 versus 550 milliseconds of response) and has clear tactical advantages since it is designed to solve problems of the current moment as quickly as possible, and not to waste time on abstract modeling.

All this suggests that the intelligence that a person possesses is not the result of gradual changes of an evolutionary nature, but a second functional system that appeared suddenly and did not go through the standard process of evolutionary consolidation. The second or intellectual part of the human CNS behaves like a classical symbiont, which is a limited volume that has acquired the ability to control the first (reflex) evolutionary formed part of the nervous system.

This is a very important conclusion that will allow us to get an answer to the main question: what will actually happen, and what technology will allow us to create AI of a new biological type.
AI capable of fantasy and delusion
Since our central nervous system is, in fact, a two-component system, it means that the future AI system should also be double. Developers of a new type of AI will have to create a two-component system in which one of the components (the executive part) relies on its work on algorithms, and the second (command) works only with images collected in an associative sequence.

In this case, the main work will be performed by the subordinate (executive) part, which is forced at certain moments to adjust its work in accordance with the decision of the command part. As a result, we will observe the creation of the first intellectual system, working on the neurophysiological principle.

The second difference will concern the incredible speed of the new type of AI. Any modern AI system conducts analysis using algorithms that determine the parameters of the response before there is perfect action. The new system will act fundamentally differently.

First, there will be an action determined by the stereotypical reaction, and only later will there be an analysis that, in fact, will influence such decisions in the future.

The concept of the double structure of the human central nervous system will change our understanding of the human essence, and subsequently, lead to the creation of AI built according to a new biological scheme.

Science is on the verge of tremendous upheaval in the field of knowledge in anthropology, neurophysiology, and the evolution of our species. A person's ability to think reasonably, create tools of labor and be aware of himself as a person may not be the result of a long evolutionary path, but the result of a symbiosis of two independent and fundamentally different nervous systems. At the same time, one of them has such amazing properties that at the current level of development of experimental neurophysiology, we can only record the fact of the operation of the connecting interface, literally penetrating the tissue of our biological brain through and through.

The discovery, which will be made from the results of just one research project, has a chance to become the loudest victory of scientific and technological progress in the current century.

The result of a detailed study and analysis of the mechanisms that control the activity of synapses (connections of neurons) in the working brain will reveal the secret about who we really are and why, despite the genetic similarity with primates, in real life, people are so different from their fellow.

Science can confirm the existence of a double nervous system in humans.
Symbiosis or mutually beneficial cooperation is common in nature. More than 500 species of bacteria are human symbionts. But new data suggests that we not only digest food but also think with the help of another organism - a neuro-symbiont.

Most scientists today believe that human evolution has been driven by an increase in the size and complexity of our brains over the past 2-3 million years.

The rest of the changes in anatomy and physiology, according to this concept, were due to the growing appetites of a disproportionately large nervous system. But in recent years, there has been increasing evidence to the contrary.

It seems that in reality everything was completely wrong and intelligence is not a deservedly earned reward in the process of evolutionary transformations.

Fresh analysis and new theory suggest that intelligent consciousness was the result of a sudden and most likely violent event, during which the brain of our ancestors became the object of unification from another nervous system, which managed to integrate its interface into the structure of the synapses of the human brain.

What's the matter, let's look at the details ...
The human brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons, of which 16 billion are located in the cerebral cortex. Weighing 1.4 kilograms, which is only 2% of the body weight, the brain consumes 20% of the energy available to our body. A fairly accurate RMR (resting metabolic rate) test suggests that for the mental activity we need 12 to 20 watts, and for the whole body to work from 60 to 100 watts. At the same time, the energy consumption of the brain practically does not depend on what we are doing: solving a complex puzzle or just sleeping. There is a difference, of course, but according to the results of many studies (for example, Stroop task), it ranges from insignificant to small.

In fact, there is no energy signature for intellectual effort.
"The dependence of energy consumption on the degree of complexity of the mental tasks is weak and is more associated with such parameters as age, personality characteristics and the intensity of glucose metabolism" - writes Leigh Gibson of the University of Roehampton in London (UK) in a special review on the relationship metabolism of carbohydrates and cognitive performance.
It turns out that the brain spends energy not on mental efforts, but simply on maintaining itself in an active state.

This in itself is amazing and shows that the brain works in a completely different way than a computer, for example. It is known, for example, that an average PC in sleep mode consumes only 10-20 watts, and when resource-intensive programs are running, its power consumption jumps to 200 watts.

At the same time, it is completely unclear why, in the case of the human brain, energy consumption grows so insignificantly, because, in fact, a nerve impulse is a very energy-intensive process that requires massive movement of ions through the membrane of a nerve cell and the simultaneous movement of neurotransmitters at the junctions of neurons (in synapses). The lack of an energetic signature of creative processes suggests that more than 100 trillion neural connections in the brain (synapses) work in approximately the same way, regardless of the complexity of the task being processed by the brain.

But this, as it turned out, is only part of the physiological riddle of intelligence. Its second half has become known literally in the last few years.

The story that our brain has a record of energy consumption rate in comparison with other mammals turned out to be a myth!
It turned out that the human brain is inferior in "gluttony" to the brain of many monkeys, lemurs, and even some relatives of primates. This, in fact, refutes the theory that human evolution proceeded in accordance with the growth of the brain.

“We have shown that humans do not have a uniquely voracious brain. This calls into question one of the cornerstones of modern anthropology and the history of human evolution, ”says Doug Boyer of Duke University in Durham, USA.
After analyzing the parameters of cerebral circulation, the scientists calculated exactly how many calories the human brain receives (adjusted for the difference in weight) and compared these data with 15 species of primates and other mammals. The result was very unexpected.

On the one hand, the human brain actually consumes several times more energy (in proportion to body weight) than the brain of a chimpanzee, mouse, or rabbit.

On the other hand, many other species of monkeys and even lemurs and tupai, in fact, have even more "voracious" nervous systems. However, all these species do not shine with cognitive skills and are not considered "intellectuals" among animals.

It is worth recalling here that the idea of the existence of a connection between intelligence and the development of the cerebral cortex was previously refuted. In humans, it is this region that is really well developed and contains about 16 billion neurons, in comparison, the gorilla's cerebral cortex has only 9 billion. But it turned out that there are animals with the same or even larger cerebral cortex. The common grind or black dolphin has 37 billion neurons in the cerebral cortex, and the simple porpoise has almost 15 billion, despite the fact that the body of this animal weighs only 50 kilograms.

We are forced to state that intelligence is not associated with either the size or structure of the brain or with its energy consumption.
A similar result, according to biologists, suggests that real human evolution was fundamentally different from the picture that anthropologists paint. It was not brain enlargement that made it possible to organize society, put together stable groups of hunters, and learn how to produce tools, but on the contrary - all these skills allowed human ancestors to maintain the brain and develop civilization.

But then the main question arises, how and thanks to what a person has such strong cognitive abilities if neither the size nor the parameters of the brain have anything to do with it?

We will find the answer in biology, and it will be defined by just one word - symbiosis.
In evolutionary theory, there are three practically proven cases of symbiotic interactions between two organisms, which, as a result, led to the emergence of a new type of biological construct.

This happened when the cell nucleus, mitochondria, and chloroplasts appeared. Each time, evolution did not follow the path of gradual changes, but the method of combining ancient cells into one new biological system with previously unattainable competitive advantages.

Combining organisms seems to be the standard way of developing life, and in the case of the human brain, this is the only way to explain the riddle of intelligence.

Intelligence does not depend on the size of the brain and is not determined by the peculiarities of the organization of nerve cells. Moreover, the very fact of the work of the intellectual component does not have significant energy consequences - why?

Because this is the result of the second system.
It turns out that the human CNS is like a box with a double bottom, where, in addition to a biological neural network, there is another hidden structure that actively interacts with the neurons of our brain, in fact, helping us think. This additional structure was not created by gradual adaptive transformations but simply joined the already functioning central nervous system, thus creating a double system of a new type - capable of intellectual activity.

And this is not a shocking hypothesis, but the only answer to the question of how a mediocre brain with unremarkable metabolic activity suddenly became the most powerful cognitive tool on the planet.
And how can this unusual idea be tested experimentally?
A new theory about the dual structure of the human brain could explain how the parts of the brain that participate in symbiosis connect. By knowing how the neurons in our brain work, we can pinpoint the junction.

The only functional part where the structures of the interface (connection) between the additional system (neuro-symbiont) and the biological structure of our brain can work should be synapses (the places where neurons connect to each other). Only there is a physiological possibility to initiate a new nerve impulse of the signal entering the neural network of the brain.

In the near future, we will be able to verify this during the experiment. To do this, it will be necessary to track whether nerve impulses are born in the synapses of the cerebral cortex without the arrival of precursor impulses. If such a fact is discovered, it means a new evolutionary theory explaining reason as a result of the symbiosis of law, and we really get a part of nerve impulses - thoughts in a ready-made form, from the second, until now unknown part of our nervous system.

Then it will become obvious that human intelligence is not a property of an unusually large brain as scientists of the late 19th century believed and not a consequence of high metabolic and synaptic activity as neurophysiologists said at the end of the 20th century, but the result of the symbiosis of two living systems.

One of which is our biological brain, and the second is unknown today, but at the same time a really existing structure.