This is why the reductionist argument of "your brain is reducible to a computer with inputs/outputs like any other, all we have to do is reimplement it" of AGI proponents always fell flat to me.
It's now becoming clear that we can't just take the brain in isolation, treating the spinal nerve like a PCI-E lane - the gut has to come with it. And if the gut comes with it, all the other organs (skin top of the list) probably do as well.
Now to model a human brain, you need to model an entire human, along with all the complexity of the microbiota, interactions of the organs with the environment... it all just falls apart.
Neuroscientist here: There is no such thing as a mind-body duality. Your body is your mind and your mind is your body. Full stop.
We are still in the very infancy of the study of the mind body and brain. We're finally uncovering some of the most basic tools that will serve us for millennia to come. Imagine trying to understand a 2022 Ford F-150 with only a 7/16ths wrench and a flat-head screwdriver: You can get pretty far, but you're not getting anywhere near the cylinders. It's going to take along time to even get the tools to understand the brain.
For example: We don't even have all the basic circuit components that the brain has. We have resistors, capacitors, and inductors. All things that the electrical systems of the brain have analogs to (very very roughly, I am simplifying a lot here). But we're missing the memristor. We know the brain has a memristor, it's the synapse, but we don't really have ones to play around with and use as tools. Yes, you can model these things in software. But then you miss out on most of the ugly reality that is hard/wetware; and that's where all the magic happens.
But that's just the electrical parts of the nervous system. Most of what is happening is in the electrically dark chemistry. Heck, we can't even agree on what percentage of the brain is glia. Is it 50%, is it 90%? Whose paper should you trust? We don't even have a good census of what is in the damn thing!
But of course you can't take the brain in isolation. The inputs and effects on it are still nearly completely unknown to us. And that's not hyperbole either. We really are mostly in the dark as to what effects the brain. Just look at temperature. We know that the rate of firing of neurons goes as T ^ 4. Yes, that's the hypercube of temperature. Even the slightest change in temperature has massive changes to firing rates. How in God's name do any of us function on a hot or cold day!? We haven't the foggiest idea.
So again, we're in the absolute infancy of our study of the brain. Fortunately, most of us HNers are going to live to see a lot of progress in this science. It's an exciting time to be alive.
"your brain is reducible to a computer with inputs/outputs like any other, all we have to do is reimplement it"
It still is though, you will reach human intelligence by just modeling the brain. The problem is that you probably won't reach an emotionally stable human since you'll be missing all the emotional/hormonal signaling that comes from the rest of the body, but we can emulate that without having to model the full complexity of the gut.
The argument stays the same though. Your body is reducible to an input/output mechanism.
In terms of complexity, since we haven't solved brain yet, it doesn't matter that much that there's also other parts of the body involved, as we don't even know the exact complexity of the brain, but the argument stays the same.
In theory we are input/output mechanism, possible to emulate if there's enough capacity.
But in addition AGI wouldn't require many traits that humans have since it doesn't need the same evolutionary survival mechanisms. It only needs part of it.
Yes you are probably right, but generally I don't get why AGI needs to be 100% mimicking every aspect of human, just better/faster. Like proverbial skynet can have extreme excellence in one/few aspect of general intelligence but can be muted to almost 0 on everything else, say emotions, yet still be falling into AGI behavior and could take over the world. It doesn't need to simulate gut interactions to get there.
And I think for such an entity we may be closer to emerging than we like, especially if it can traverse whole internet including this comment and make summaries out of it out of reach to mere mortals.
Also see the "somatic marker hypothesis"[1][2] by neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio. It's about how various internal body "markers" deeply influence decision-making. I first read it in his 1991 book, Descarte's Error.
Quoting from here[1]:
"Somatic markers" are feelings in the body that are associated with emotions, such as the association of rapid heartbeat with anxiety or of nausea with disgust. According to the hypothesis, somatic markers strongly influence subsequent decision-making. Within the brain, somatic markers are thought to be processed in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the amygdala. [...]"
Although, experimental evidence is not as yet as robust as it needs to be. See the "Experimental evidence" and "Criticism" sections here[1].
I don't see why this changes anything. There are some, sort-of intelligent networks of cells in the gut that help in digestion and other processes. Doesn't change the fact that consciousness resides in the brain.
Did you read the article?
The gut "brain" can just perform it's own functionality independent of the brain. If anything the article raises the concept that organs can function without being regulated by the brain, which would mean the brains purpose is less to regulate the body and is specifically just for performing computations (and doing whatever consciousness is).
If I am doing math my skin is not being leveraged to help out.
There's also a strange satisfaction when skipping one or two meals. Even though you feel craving food for a little while, there's a feeling of being light, lean and sharp, even mentally.
Article is about cells in the gut that we barely knew anything about, due to stomach acid and bile making it hard to identify their genetic material. Some researchers are making progress in this area and it's amazing.
I’ve recently moved to a meat heavy diet, and that pretty much fixed my ibs completely. I still get flare ups if I eat too many oranges or bananas, but eating meat on every meal is absolutely essential.
I'm the opposite, leaving out red meat made my gut feel a lot better. I do still eat the occasional beef burger, but mostly it's either vegan or fish/chicken.
This is the thing that's tripping up health professionals about gut health, people's guts are really different and there's no official accepted way of testing what kind of diet works for who.
Except for long-term experimentation and elimination and that's not "scientific", so we don't do that. Doctors just want to prescribe a pill that' fits everyone[0] and call it a day.
[0] everyone they bothered to test it on, so mostly white western males
Quitting drinking for three years fixed mine, an unexpected side effect. Going keto also taught me that wheat gives me heart burn, which again, wasn’t an expected side effect. I drink and eat small amounts of wheat now without issue.
Having been skeptical, I think I would recommend elimination diets to people just to see if there’s an unexpected benefit to cutting an unexpected item
Oranges and bananas are out for me too, because of histamine intolerance, which correlates heavily with gut issues. Sharing to help others since I wish I had known sooner!
I sometimes eat meat (chicken) and feel really good, but I alternate with rice and fruits. Fruits require exercise outdoor, that's where they work well, fruits indoor all day is not good from my xp
So this is really cool. I've been super interested in this one gene mutation called LRRK2 which has a really bizarre link to details in contentious debates over history (too long to include in this comment).
The gene mutation is connected to both Crohn's disease and Parkinson's.
So after seeing this article about how glial issues are connected to Crohn's, my immediate thought was - well, what about Parkinson's?
And indeed, it looks like the LRRK2 mutation contributes to Parkinson's by screwing up the glial cells:
There was something about the vegus nerve being influenced by gut microbiota so it's also the parasympathetic not just the enteric nervous system but this is all hard to study I subscribed to u-Boime for a couple of years until that imploded spectacularly and the few snapshots I had are not enough of a sample size this whole field is so data poor and uncertain.
Then there's something about Heart Rate Variability (HRV), the vagus nerve, parasympathetic nervous system, and gut biome all being connected. I can measure one of those relatively easily with a chest strap.
It seems like the only thing we do know at this point is that we don't know anything. This is an interesting TEDx talk from Eran Segal "What is the best diet for humans?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z03xkwFbw4
My current conjecture / conspiracy theory / understanding includes:
* Bacteria near the roots of plants generate electricity.
* Plants grow faster in electrified soil.
* Electrical brain stimulation can enhance brain function.
* There are processes and interactions happening in our gut that we really don't understand yet.
* Many ubiquitous things in our environment wreak havoc on our gut biomes (e.g. chlorine, emulsifiers).
* There may be more to establishing and maintaining a healthy gut biome than simply consuming foods rich in pre/probiotics. The right kind of exercise and stress may play essential role in keeping it all humming along.
The vagus nerve is the weirdest thing. Had to dig into it a bit to figure out my acid reflux.
Basically if I eat stuff that doesn't digest well, my stomach bloats and causes a mild hiatal hernia, which in turn presses on the vagus nerve that travels right next to it.
This causes the _exact_ same symptoms as a panic attack. Cold hands and feet, the feeling of an increased heart rate etc. Not super fun when you have a history of actual panic attacks.
Then I take some medicine to forcibly relax the esophageal sphincter on top of the stomach and within 10-15 minutes I can literally feel the warmth getting back to my limbs just because of the decreased vagus nerve pressure...
Breaking down food requires coordination across dozens of cell types and many tissues — from muscle cells and immune cells to blood and lymphatic vessels. Heading this effort is the gut’s very own network of nerve cells, known as the enteric nervous system...
One of the things being studied is the involuntary contractions that move food through the gut.
I really don't understand why it has taken health research this long to focus on the digestive system. Obviously, it's all hindsight - but the system that controls processing the entirety of our nutrients seems like it would clearly be a lot more important than it has been treated.
I don't think it has rather they have forgotten in the past looking at your shit was a very common way to diagnose your illness. At least that is the case in all old medical systems from Asia.
Gut health is absolutely linked to mental health. Besides actual scientific research that backs this up, I didn’t really get my mental health under control until I took care of my gut issues like IBS and stuff. Also avoiding certain foods, not gluten obviously that’s a crock of shit, but things that obviously don’t work with my body like cream sauces or whatever
Celiac disease [1] is a real and potential serious autoimmune disorder. Whether non-celiac gluten intolerance is a real thing is another question, though there's some evidence for it.
I didn’t really get my mental health under control until I took care of my gut issues like IBS and stuff.
Honestly, if you had some chronic, untreated issues with your ankle and foot - something that plagued you daily - it would be hard to take care of your mental health too. Same if you had lupus, for example. Having something wrong with you - especially something chronic - always makes it hard to take care of your mental health. It makes sense that when you don't have the stress of pain and the other things that go with it, you find the mental energy to work on the brain.
Yours just happened to be in the gut, which makes it seem like these articles might be talking about you.
I like to say "the gut is the first brain". There's a reason we perform "gut checks" and "go with our gut" -- it's the first instinct, while the second is the rational systems overlaid on the initial reaction that serve to verify or correct them. Compare with Kahnemann's System 1 and System 2.
Really exciting findings. Especially given that just last year there were similar threads here where many completely rejected the idea that the gut is a second brain. We live in a very exciting time for science. Especially given we have some initial tools for understanding our guts.
That's why the sitting position is not great, you shouldn't sit on your 2nd brain door! Seriously squatting, kneeling (like Japanese people) has immense benefits for digestion, aside from what you eat too obviously (as natural things as possible)
This should be taken into account when researching the health effects of coffee. I can drink about as much tea as fits into my stomach without too many mental effects, but coffee (or lack thereof) has strong effects. Just caffeine cannot explain this.
I started getting panic attacks about 10 years ago and narrowed it down to coffee, so I went from 2-3 cups per day, to 1 cup before noon only and that helped.
Then my life got a lot harder and panic attacks came back, so I'm on strictly decaf for the last 3 years. No more panic. Noticeably less anxiety. It's so directly related for me that sometimes I'm on vacation and have regular coffee. After 2-3 days of relaxing my decaf-only rule, I feel it coming.
Evolutionarily, I would assert this is our first brain, and the cerebral brain is the jumped-up newcomer. It started as a glorified video card peripheral and motion tracker/planner, and developed delusions of grandeur.
I took antibiotics more than 2 years ago and after about 4 days I was a wreck. I was anxiety riddled for a bit over a year. Thankfully, I feel normal again! But yea, scary stuff.
Try putting some iogurt after soap for 2 minutes just before the final cleansing in the shower. You might, like me, start thinking beyond the second brain idea. It is all connected.
[+] [-] belugacat|2 years ago|reply
It's now becoming clear that we can't just take the brain in isolation, treating the spinal nerve like a PCI-E lane - the gut has to come with it. And if the gut comes with it, all the other organs (skin top of the list) probably do as well.
Now to model a human brain, you need to model an entire human, along with all the complexity of the microbiota, interactions of the organs with the environment... it all just falls apart.
[+] [-] Balgair|2 years ago|reply
We are still in the very infancy of the study of the mind body and brain. We're finally uncovering some of the most basic tools that will serve us for millennia to come. Imagine trying to understand a 2022 Ford F-150 with only a 7/16ths wrench and a flat-head screwdriver: You can get pretty far, but you're not getting anywhere near the cylinders. It's going to take along time to even get the tools to understand the brain.
For example: We don't even have all the basic circuit components that the brain has. We have resistors, capacitors, and inductors. All things that the electrical systems of the brain have analogs to (very very roughly, I am simplifying a lot here). But we're missing the memristor. We know the brain has a memristor, it's the synapse, but we don't really have ones to play around with and use as tools. Yes, you can model these things in software. But then you miss out on most of the ugly reality that is hard/wetware; and that's where all the magic happens.
But that's just the electrical parts of the nervous system. Most of what is happening is in the electrically dark chemistry. Heck, we can't even agree on what percentage of the brain is glia. Is it 50%, is it 90%? Whose paper should you trust? We don't even have a good census of what is in the damn thing!
But of course you can't take the brain in isolation. The inputs and effects on it are still nearly completely unknown to us. And that's not hyperbole either. We really are mostly in the dark as to what effects the brain. Just look at temperature. We know that the rate of firing of neurons goes as T ^ 4. Yes, that's the hypercube of temperature. Even the slightest change in temperature has massive changes to firing rates. How in God's name do any of us function on a hot or cold day!? We haven't the foggiest idea.
So again, we're in the absolute infancy of our study of the brain. Fortunately, most of us HNers are going to live to see a lot of progress in this science. It's an exciting time to be alive.
[+] [-] armada651|2 years ago|reply
It still is though, you will reach human intelligence by just modeling the brain. The problem is that you probably won't reach an emotionally stable human since you'll be missing all the emotional/hormonal signaling that comes from the rest of the body, but we can emulate that without having to model the full complexity of the gut.
[+] [-] mewpmewp2|2 years ago|reply
In terms of complexity, since we haven't solved brain yet, it doesn't matter that much that there's also other parts of the body involved, as we don't even know the exact complexity of the brain, but the argument stays the same.
In theory we are input/output mechanism, possible to emulate if there's enough capacity.
But in addition AGI wouldn't require many traits that humans have since it doesn't need the same evolutionary survival mechanisms. It only needs part of it.
[+] [-] saiya-jin|2 years ago|reply
And I think for such an entity we may be closer to emerging than we like, especially if it can traverse whole internet including this comment and make summaries out of it out of reach to mere mortals.
[+] [-] kashyapc|2 years ago|reply
Quoting from here[1]:
"Somatic markers" are feelings in the body that are associated with emotions, such as the association of rapid heartbeat with anxiety or of nausea with disgust. According to the hypothesis, somatic markers strongly influence subsequent decision-making. Within the brain, somatic markers are thought to be processed in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the amygdala. [...]"
Although, experimental evidence is not as yet as robust as it needs to be. See the "Experimental evidence" and "Criticism" sections here[1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_marker_hypothesis
[2] https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3069187
[+] [-] vacuumcl|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericmcer|2 years ago|reply
If I am doing math my skin is not being leveraged to help out.
[+] [-] MrDresden|2 years ago|reply
Probiotic foods, plenty of water and movement have been key factors there.
[+] [-] agumonkey|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pabloarteel|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomcam|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tokkemon|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bethekind|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mfer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Euphorbium|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theshrike79|2 years ago|reply
This is the thing that's tripping up health professionals about gut health, people's guts are really different and there's no official accepted way of testing what kind of diet works for who.
Except for long-term experimentation and elimination and that's not "scientific", so we don't do that. Doctors just want to prescribe a pill that' fits everyone[0] and call it a day.
[0] everyone they bothered to test it on, so mostly white western males
[+] [-] petesergeant|2 years ago|reply
Having been skeptical, I think I would recommend elimination diets to people just to see if there’s an unexpected benefit to cutting an unexpected item
[+] [-] QuibbleQuota|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 11235813213455|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrThunder|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kromem|2 years ago|reply
The gene mutation is connected to both Crohn's disease and Parkinson's.
So after seeing this article about how glial issues are connected to Crohn's, my immediate thought was - well, what about Parkinson's?
And indeed, it looks like the LRRK2 mutation contributes to Parkinson's by screwing up the glial cells:
Is Glial Dysfunction the Key Pathogenesis of LRRK2-Linked Parkinson’s Disease? (2023): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9856048/
(I can't wait for LLMs to advance enough that parallel discoveries in subdomains are teased out as further cross discipline research candidates.)
[+] [-] apienx|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimmySixDOF|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gardnr|2 years ago|reply
It seems like the only thing we do know at this point is that we don't know anything. This is an interesting TEDx talk from Eran Segal "What is the best diet for humans?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z03xkwFbw4
My current conjecture / conspiracy theory / understanding includes:
* Bacteria near the roots of plants generate electricity.
* Plants grow faster in electrified soil.
* Electrical brain stimulation can enhance brain function.
* There are processes and interactions happening in our gut that we really don't understand yet.
* Many ubiquitous things in our environment wreak havoc on our gut biomes (e.g. chlorine, emulsifiers).
* There may be more to establishing and maintaining a healthy gut biome than simply consuming foods rich in pre/probiotics. The right kind of exercise and stress may play essential role in keeping it all humming along.
[+] [-] theshrike79|2 years ago|reply
Basically if I eat stuff that doesn't digest well, my stomach bloats and causes a mild hiatal hernia, which in turn presses on the vagus nerve that travels right next to it.
This causes the _exact_ same symptoms as a panic attack. Cold hands and feet, the feeling of an increased heart rate etc. Not super fun when you have a history of actual panic attacks.
Then I take some medicine to forcibly relax the esophageal sphincter on top of the stomach and within 10-15 minutes I can literally feel the warmth getting back to my limbs just because of the decreased vagus nerve pressure...
[+] [-] kthartic|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|2 years ago|reply
One of the things being studied is the involuntary contractions that move food through the gut.
[+] [-] yamrzou|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epgui|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rramadass|2 years ago|reply
1) The Second Brain by Michael Gershon.
2) Gut: The Inside Story Of Our Body's Most Under-Rated Organ by Julia Enders.
[+] [-] thenerdhead|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devmor|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xbmcuser|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asylteltine|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atombender|2 years ago|reply
Celiac disease [1] is a real and potential serious autoimmune disorder. Whether non-celiac gluten intolerance is a real thing is another question, though there's some evidence for it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease
[+] [-] Broken_Hippo|2 years ago|reply
Honestly, if you had some chronic, untreated issues with your ankle and foot - something that plagued you daily - it would be hard to take care of your mental health too. Same if you had lupus, for example. Having something wrong with you - especially something chronic - always makes it hard to take care of your mental health. It makes sense that when you don't have the stress of pain and the other things that go with it, you find the mental energy to work on the brain.
Yours just happened to be in the gut, which makes it seem like these articles might be talking about you.
[+] [-] brohoolio|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doublerabbit|2 years ago|reply
Not really. Gluten makes me ill. I thought it was just the supermarket type bread so I bought my own bread maker.
Still hell.
[+] [-] uoaei|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thenerdhead|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 11235813213455|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darthrupert|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wnolens|2 years ago|reply
I started getting panic attacks about 10 years ago and narrowed it down to coffee, so I went from 2-3 cups per day, to 1 cup before noon only and that helped.
Then my life got a lot harder and panic attacks came back, so I'm on strictly decaf for the last 3 years. No more panic. Noticeably less anxiety. It's so directly related for me that sometimes I'm on vacation and have regular coffee. After 2-3 days of relaxing my decaf-only rule, I feel it coming.
[+] [-] michael1999|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wood-porch|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trash_cat|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] porompompero|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burrish|2 years ago|reply
nice quote nerds