How does thought work?

[rousseau]

Forgive all the threads and posts, slow week at work so finding some ways to kill time.

The question is, if we start from the assumption that we don't have control over what we think, how does thought and it's associated behaviors work? In other words, if one was to build an algorithm toward the end of maintaining homeostasis, and reproduction, how would this component of our nervous system work toward that end?

 

[Jokodo]

Forgive all the threads and posts, slow week at work so finding some ways to kill time.

The question is, if we start from the assumption that we don't have control over what we think, how does thought and it's associated behaviors work? In other words, if one was to build an algorithm toward the end of maintaining homeostasis, and reproduction, how would this component of our nervous system work toward that end?

Evolution doesn't build algorithms towards ends. It tries stuff and keeps what seems to work more often than not.

You may even have to put the emphasis on "seems". Very often, the correlation between the trigger and "target" of a behavior or other plastic trait are only correlated by historical contingency in a species' habitat. In a different habitat, what appears as highly adaptive feature can become the random noise it always was.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Forgive all the threads and posts, slow week at work so finding some ways to kill time.

The question is, if we start from the assumption that we don't have control over what we think, how does thought and it's associated behaviors work? In other words, if one was to build an algorithm toward the end of maintaining homeostasis, and reproduction, how would this component of our nervous system work toward that end?

As if I was going to tell you.
EB

 

[steve_bank]

Forgive all the threads and posts, slow week at work so finding some ways to kill time.

The question is, if we start from the assumption that we don't have control over what we think, how does thought and it's associated behaviors work? In other words, if one was to build an algorithm toward the end of maintaining homeostasis, and reproduction, how would this component of our nervous system work toward that end?

To kill dome time the same response as always. However we perceive thoughts it is all a function of the brain. There is no neural model yet that models thought or any other function.

It is brain chemistry. Alcohol and drugs affects thought.

 

[rousseau]

Forgive all the threads and posts, slow week at work so finding some ways to kill time.

The question is, if we start from the assumption that we don't have control over what we think, how does thought and it's associated behaviors work? In other words, if one was to build an algorithm toward the end of maintaining homeostasis, and reproduction, how would this component of our nervous system work toward that end?

To kill dome time the same response as always. However we perceive thoughts it is all a function of the brain. There is no neural model yet that models thought or any other function.

It is brain chemistry. Alcohol and drugs affects thought.

The question is not about how thoughts are produced biochemically.

The question starts from the assumption that thought is a chemical, automatic process, then asks how thought, both sub-conscious and conscious, achieves the goal of homeostasis and reproduction.

 

[DBT]

Neural pathways and pattern recognition/memory function combining information in new or different ways, some of which is being represented in conscious form as thought?

 

[steve_bank]

Forgive all the threads and posts, slow week at work so finding some ways to kill time.

The question is, if we start from the assumption that we don't have control over what we think, how does thought and it's associated behaviors work? In other words, if one was to build an algorithm toward the end of maintaining homeostasis, and reproduction, how would this component of our nervous system work toward that end?

To kill dome time the same response as always. However we perceive thoughts it is all a function of the brain. There is no neural model yet that models thought or any other function.

It is brain chemistry. Alcohol and drugs affects thought.

The question is not about how thoughts are produced biochemically.

The question starts from the assumption that thought is a chemical, automatic process, then asks how thought, both sub-conscious and conscious, achieves the goal of homeostasis and reproduction.

Causal chains of thoughts was historically under metaphysics and today psychology. I know little of either. Metaphysics is about abstract thought systems.

 

[fromderinside]

A thought about thought. A neuron at a receptor, basilar membrane, terina, taste bud, all seem to organize along neural information processing rules. Enhance what is there, restrict that which is internal artifact, sort to functions related to process. Further there's lateral inhibition, core augmentation, feature sorting, routing time, place and feature with area and time. Thoughts come as the result of being processed through these known receptor and neuron features. Now we identify oxygen uptake with activity related to what we know elements of the brain process.

We do know that thought is part of the physical process of related information processing and that there are many activities that come near mirroring ideals we find in mechanics and dynamics. We are a bit slow. We may confuse preconception with what is actually happening then get slapped int e face with obvious things like same cells processing information for what one is doing and what one perceives others as doing and change our orientation to another magic bullet like the notion of empathy. We have ourselves to blame and congratulate for what we do know. We already know it is certain that what will be known will obey scientific and physical law.

As for how thought works it probably comes down to the prop[er partitioning of available capacities of brain and chemical, relations between particular systems and and capabilities coming into agreement or at least direction. After enough trial and error some things stand out and survive other change. We' need to adjudicate proper relations among systems so we can sort out internal and external motive and action to finally arrive at a description that satisfies most every demand imposed within the organism to produce what is thought.

At the base of it all thought is something that can be described as resulting from inputs into ongoing porcusses toward some definable end. It is our task to make these description in as complete a form as possible to convince most that we know what goes in to making a particular thought.

Our firs task to to agree that it is not the function of the brain to produce thought. Rather it is the function of the brain to produce outcomes permitting the individual to execute what is necessary for it to survive and attain as much of what is deemed necessary to ensure as best possible the continuation of the individual.

As far as I'm concerned all mobile organisms on this planet are probably at some level capable or thought.

 

[Treedbear]

...
The question is, if we start from the assumption that we don't have control over what we think, how does thought and it's associated behaviors work? In other words, if one was to build an algorithm toward the end of maintaining homeostasis, and reproduction, how would this component of our nervous system work toward that end?

There's the big question of how the brain creates models of its environment (and of which thought is composed) and how they come to interact. That aside, I think the main mechanism for homeostasis is provided by the glial cells and other neural support structures which govern neural network activity levels. I think there must be some way for the brain to monitor the overall use of energy and subsequent heat generation. In other words there needs to be a feedback mechanism which tends towards minimum conflict between these models. I think this is the main evolutionary driver of brain size and density as well as complexity. So your algorithm would first need a way to monitor energy usage on various levels.

 

[steve_bank]

Temperature control is a feedback system. As is balance.

 

[fromderinside]

...
The question is, if we start from the assumption that we don't have control over what we think, how does thought and it's associated behaviors work? In other words, if one was to build an algorithm toward the end of maintaining homeostasis, and reproduction, how would this component of our nervous system work toward that end?

There's the big question of how the brain creates models of its environment (and of which thought is composed) and how they come to interact. That aside, I think the main mechanism for homeostasis is provided by the glial cells and other neural support structures which govern neural network activity levels. I think there must be some way for the brain to monitor the overall use of energy and subsequent heat generation. In other words there needs to be a feedback mechanism which tends towards minimum conflict between these models. I think this is the main evolutionary driver of brain size and density as well as complexity. So your algorithm would first need a way to monitor energy usage on various levels.

Oh shit. You both need to get something straight. The brain is not a machine, a system. It is a collection of ad hoc solutions based properties of nervous tissue. Not much is really integrated since not much came about at the same time. There are likelihoods that one solution wold b e near another just because nervous tissue is involved. Random migration of snippets of code can be replicated. accidentally, in one mode or another and become part of that mode if the snippet ads value to how that mode performs.

The point is all thought about design needs be dismissed and replaced with what a tinker - there is no master tinker - might find at hand at this or that place or time. Yes structures that seem to have specific functions have evolved which have subsequently been reconfigured for other purposes just because.

But to think of the brain as a designed system is going to lead everyone astray of what is the poliglot nervous system and endocrine system combination driving our bodies around.

We have capabilities, capacities. That does not mean CNS-ES are designed systems (again)!

Gad. It as if Utopia were a realizable construct. Get real. Unless this is a philosophy forum - it isn't I checked - discussions of design need much rethinking.

However steve-bank is right. Most control solutions are feedback mechanisms requiring very little real estate and capability and CNS-ES can have a shitpot load of them.

 

[rousseau]

...
The question is, if we start from the assumption that we don't have control over what we think, how does thought and it's associated behaviors work? In other words, if one was to build an algorithm toward the end of maintaining homeostasis, and reproduction, how would this component of our nervous system work toward that end?

There's the big question of how the brain creates models of its environment (and of which thought is composed) and how they come to interact. That aside, I think the main mechanism for homeostasis is provided by the glial cells and other neural support structures which govern neural network activity levels. I think there must be some way for the brain to monitor the overall use of energy and subsequent heat generation. In other words there needs to be a feedback mechanism which tends towards minimum conflict between these models. I think this is the main evolutionary driver of brain size and density as well as complexity. So your algorithm would first need a way to monitor energy usage on various levels.

Oh shit. You both need to get something straight. The brain is not a machine, a system. It is a collection of ad hoc solutions based properties of nervous tissue. Not much is really integrated since not much came about at the same time. There are likelihoods that one solution wold b e near another just because nervous tissue is involved. Random migration of snippets of code can be replicated. accidentally, in one mode or another and become part of that mode if the snippet ads value to how that mode performs.

The point is all thought about design needs be dismissed and replaced with what a tinker - there is no master tinker - might find at hand at this or that place or time. Yes structures that seem to have specific functions have evolved which have subsequently been reconfigured for other purposes just because.

But to think of the brain as a designed system is going to lead everyone astray of what is the poliglot nervous system and endocrine system combination driving our bodies around.

We have capabilities, capacities. That does not mean CNS-ES are designed systems (again)!

Gad. It as if Utopia were a realizable construct. Get real. Unless this is a philosophy forum - it isn't I checked - discussions of design need much rethinking.

However steve-bank is right. Most control solutions are feedback mechanisms requiring very little real estate and capability and CNS-ES can have a shitpot load of them.

I don't think anyone assumes the brain was designed in concert in it's entirety, but the term 'algorithm' is a good analogy for what the nervous system does and how one might think about describing it's function in laymans terms, rather than in bio-chemistry.

The 'program' is the body moving across space over time, responding to internal and external inputs, and producing outputs to achieve survival and reproduction. So how would thought, or if you want to go there, other components of the nervous system act to achieve that goal?

In terms of thought I must assume that there is a a hierarchy of significance as to what we're attuned to, something like: biological movement, things that are different from other things, things that are moving fast. The conscious and sub-conscious then formulates response using memory. If none of these criteria are relevant then we become aware of internal inputs, which I would again assume hierarchy of significance: For instance, our mind is much more likely to dwell on, say, significant people, than it is completely insignificant things.

 

[Treedbear]

... In other words there needs to be a feedback mechanism which tends towards minimum conflict between these models. ...

Oh shit. You both need to get something straight. The brain is not a machine, a system. It is a collection of ad hoc solutions based properties of nervous tissue. Not much is really integrated since not much came about at the same time.

I don't know what your definition of machine is. As for it not being a system, I think of it very much as similar to an ecosystem where thoughts evolve. And composed of susystems that are highly integrated. And much more so as it evolved over time rather than coming about all at once.

There are likelihoods that one solution wold b e near another just because nervous tissue is involved. Random migration of snippets of code can be replicated. accidentally, in one mode or another and become part of that mode if the snippet ads value to how that mode performs.

I'd be very interested to know how you think "snippets of code" get replicated in the brain. And why call it code if it's not part of a machine that runs code?

The point is all thought about design needs be dismissed and replaced with what a tinker - there is no master tinker - might find at hand at this or that place or time. Yes structures that seem to have specific functions have evolved which have subsequently been reconfigured for other purposes just because.

But to think of the brain as a designed system is going to lead everyone astray of what is the poliglot nervous system and endocrine system combination driving our bodies around.

We have capabilities, capacities. That does not mean CNS-ES are designed systems (again)!

Gad. It as if Utopia were a realizable construct. Get real. Unless this is a philosophy forum - it isn't I checked - discussions of design need much rethinking.

He asked for an algorithm. He's a computer program guy. I gave him an algorithm.

However steve-bank is right. Most control solutions are feedback mechanisms requiring very little real estate and capability and CNS-ES can have a shitpot load of them.

As I stated above ... there needs to be a feedback mechanism which tends towards minimum conflict between these models.

 

[steve_bank]

...
The question is, if we start from the assumption that we don't have control over what we think, how does thought and it's associated behaviors work? In other words, if one was to build an algorithm toward the end of maintaining homeostasis, and reproduction, how would this component of our nervous system work toward that end?

There's the big question of how the brain creates models of its environment (and of which thought is composed) and how they come to interact. That aside, I think the main mechanism for homeostasis is provided by the glial cells and other neural support structures which govern neural network activity levels. I think there must be some way for the brain to monitor the overall use of energy and subsequent heat generation. In other words there needs to be a feedback mechanism which tends towards minimum conflict between these models. I think this is the main evolutionary driver of brain size and density as well as complexity. So your algorithm would first need a way to monitor energy usage on various levels.

Oh shit. You both need to get something straight. The brain is not a machine, a system. It is a collection of ad hoc solutions based properties of nervous tissue. Not much is really integrated since not much came about at the same time. There are likelihoods that one solution wold b e near another just because nervous tissue is involved. Random migration of snippets of code can be replicated. accidentally, in one mode or another and become part of that mode if the snippet ads value to how that mode performs.

The point is all thought about design needs be dismissed and replaced with what a tinker - there is no master tinker - might find at hand at this or that place or time. Yes structures that seem to have specific functions have evolved which have subsequently been reconfigured for other purposes just because.

But to think of the brain as a designed system is going to lead everyone astray of what is the poliglot nervous system and endocrine system combination driving our bodies around.

We have capabilities, capacities. That does not mean CNS-ES are designed systems (again)!

Gad. It as if Utopia were a realizable construct. Get real. Unless this is a philosophy forum - it isn't I checked - discussions of design need much rethinking.

However steve-bank is right. Most control solutions are feedback mechanisms requiring very little real estate and capability and CNS-ES can have a shitpot load of them.

I attended a presentation by a guy developing equiopment to quantitqaively evaluate athletic dcapabilitues.

A device he prototyped evaluated balance. It consisted of a balance board held level by pins that could be retracted electrically.

You stand on the board and without warning the pins are retracted. The position or angle of the board is measured versus time as you recover to a level position.

The plots showed a control systems textbook second order system response with damping. It was remarkable to see that. An exponentially decaying sine wave.

The indented use was for football, hockey, and downhill skiing.

 

[fromderinside]

I don't know what your definition of machine is. As for it not being a system, I think of it very much as similar to an ecosystem where thoughts evolve. And composed of subsystems that are highly integrated. And much more so as it evolved over time rather than coming about all at once.

That a thing that serves related but changing function over time is what I see changing. that 'thing' is NS and ES which subserve directing motor and sustaining system functions. As for snippets I wasn't talking of information I was referring to genetic misadventure of which  Williams syndrome stands as a large snippet example.

For just the brain Crick, a long working investigator of the origins in brain of the generations of control of consciousness, points out there are indications of claustrum bidirecitonal interaction with both arousal and decision making areas of the cortex: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569501/ . And now Milardi et all https://watermark.silverchair.com/b...ETpeUXleUf6TklosRmsGLcnl74YjXAeWriqVArEWimsPA

demonstrate the anatomical extent of these interacting connections. They conclude:

I caution on trying to produce systematics of all this this with evidence of changes caused by genetic misadventure with such as Williams Syndrome with I provide reference to above.

Despite the described limitations, CSD tractography approach provided an accurate in vivo reconstruction of the complex network of claustrum pathways in the human brain, including details on interhemispheric claustral connections.From the functional point of view, our findings, in association with results of anatomical and functional studies carried out mainly in animals, confirmed that the claustrum can be considered as a functional bridge among many cortical and subcortical areas of the brain hemispheres.This complex scenery of claustro-cortical and subcortical connections could play a role in responses to salient stimuli,flowing through multiple cognitive channels, before theirexternalization.In clinical setting, the role of claustrum is potentially important and worthy of further and extensive investigations. For instance, since the diffusion of neoplastic cells along the white fiber tracts is well established, extensive claustro-cortical connections are potential pathways of diffusion of high-grade gliomas throughout the entire brain. Consequently, it is necessary to pay attention to this issue in planning surgery, particularly in the presence of insular gliomas invading the claustrum.Future studies are necessary to clarify the role of claustrumin producing visual hallucinations and other cognitive dysfunctions in patients with DBL, PD, AD, and autism.Finally, another important and fascinating area of research will be to dissect the role of claustrum in human consciousness.

Figures included in the article are pretty descriptive and the table is pretty informative of relations among primates and man and man's conscious function.

There are likelihoods that one solution would be near another just because nervous tissue is involved. Random migration of snippets of (genetic) code can be replicated. accidentally, in one mode or another and become part of that mode if the snippet adds value to how that mode performs.

I'd be very interested to know how you think "snippets of code" get replicated in the brain. And why call it code if it's not part of a machine that runs code?

The point is all thought about design needs be dismissed and replaced with what a tinker - there is no master tinker - might find at hand at this or that place or time. Yes structures that seem to have specific functions have evolved which have subsequently been reconfigured for other purposes just because.

But to think of the brain as a designed system is going to lead everyone astray of what is the poliglot nervous system and endocrine system combination driving our bodies around.

We have capabilities, capacities. That does not mean CNS-ES are designed systems (again)!

Gad. It as if Utopia were a realizable construct. Get real. Unless this is a philosophy forum - it isn't I checked - discussions of design need much rethinking.

He asked for an algorithm. He's a computer program guy. I gave him an algorithm.

Then it needs to be a reactive multithreaded algorithm.

However steve-bank is right. Most control solutions are feedback mechanisms requiring very little real estate and capability and CNS-ES can have a shitpot load of them.

As I stated above ... there needs to be a feedback mechanism which tends towards minimum conflict between these models.

That's why I brought up the claustrum material above. If you are interested in why I think we need to consider models other than machine or systems it's because evolution is a multiple randomized set of processes working in individuals where different thermodynamic solutions are in play. It is not about species. Species are a consequence of individual change arbitrated. IOW we are many species in play at once. Whether that is due to our social attributes one can't be certain.

 

[steve_bank]

ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_nervous_system

The autonomic nervous system (ANS), formerly the vegetative nervous system, is a division of the peripheral nervous system that supplies smooth muscle and glands, and thus influences the function of internal organs.[1] The autonomic nervous system is a control system that acts largely unconsciously and regulates bodily functions such as the heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, urination, and sexual arousal.[2] This system is the primary mechanism in control of the fight-or-flight response.

Within the brain, the autonomic nervous system is regulated by the hypothalamus. Autonomic functions include control of respiration, cardiac regulation (the cardiac control center), vasomotor activity (the vasomotor center), and certain reflex actions such as coughing, sneezing, swallowing and vomiting. Those are then subdivided into other areas and are also linked to ANS subsystems and nervous systems external to the brain. The hypothalamus, just above the brain stem, acts as an integrator for autonomic functions, receiving ANS regulatory input from the limbic system to do so.[3]

The autonomic nervous system has three branches: the sympathetic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system and the enteric nervous system.[4][5][6][7] Some textbooks do not include the enteric nervous system as part of this system.[8] The sympathetic nervous system is often considered the "fight or flight" system, while the parasympathetic nervous system is often considered the "rest and digest" or "feed and breed" system. In many cases, both of these systems have "opposite" actions where one system activates a physiological response and the other inhibits it. An older simplification of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems as "excitatory" and "inhibitory" was overturned due to the many exceptions found. A more modern characterization is that the sympathetic nervous system is a "quick response mobilizing system" and the parasympathetic is a "more slowly activated dampening system", but even this has exceptions, such as in sexual arousal and orgasm, wherein both play a role.[3]

There are inhibitory and excitatory synapses between neurons. Relatively recently, a third subsystem of neurons that have been named non-noradrenergic, non-cholinergic transmitters (because they use nitric oxide as a neurotransmitter) have been described and found to be integral in autonomic function, in particular in the gut and the lungs.[9]

Although the ANS is also known as the visceral nervous system, the ANS is only connected with the motor side.[10] Most autonomous functions are involuntary but they can often work in conjunction with the somatic nervous system which provides voluntary control.

 

[fromderinside]

I don't think anyone assumes the brain was designed in concert in it's entirety, but the term 'algorithm' is a good analogy for what the nervous system does and how one might think about describing it's function in laymans terms, rather than in bio-chemistry.

The 'program' is the body moving across space over time, responding to internal and external inputs, and producing outputs to achieve survival and reproduction. So how would thought, or if you want to go there, other components of the nervous system act to achieve that goal?

In terms of thought I must assume that there is a a hierarchy of significance as to what we're attuned to, something like: biological movement, things that are different from other things, things that are moving fast. The conscious and sub-conscious then formulates response using memory. If none of these criteria are relevant then we become aware of internal inputs, which I would again assume hierarchy of significance: For instance, our mind is much more likely to dwell on, say, significant people, than it is completely insignificant things.

I dealt with algorithms of "the body moving across space over time" as Human Factors scientist for over 20 years. There is no way such algorithms will ever reflect the nature of thought. In every case the algorithm is an abstraction of a mechanical function meant to model whatever metricized aspect one wishes to model. They serve well for time-space work, even functional modelling of performance, but never do they approach the complexity needed to model conscious thought as other than some impossible multidimensional matrix of what iffs. Thought makes thermodynamic activity on wings look like child's play and it is much more difficult than modelling and predicting weather.

 

[Jokodo]

Oh shit. You both need to get something straight. The brain is not a machine, a system. It is a collection of ad hoc solutions based properties of nervous tissue. Not much is really integrated since not much came about at the same time. There are likelihoods that one solution wold b e near another just because nervous tissue is involved. Random migration of snippets of code can be replicated. accidentally, in one mode or another and become part of that mode if the snippet ads value to how that mode performs.

The point is all thought about design needs be dismissed and replaced with what a tinker - there is no master tinker - might find at hand at this or that place or time. Yes structures that seem to have specific functions have evolved which have subsequently been reconfigured for other purposes just because.

But to think of the brain as a designed system is going to lead everyone astray of what is the poliglot nervous system and endocrine system combination driving our bodies around.

We have capabilities, capacities. That does not mean CNS-ES are designed systems (again)!

Gad. It as if Utopia were a realizable construct. Get real. Unless this is a philosophy forum - it isn't I checked - discussions of design need much rethinking.

However steve-bank is right. Most control solutions are feedback mechanisms requiring very little real estate and capability and CNS-ES can have a shitpot load of them.

I don't think anyone assumes the brain was designed in concert in it's entirety, but the term 'algorithm' is a good analogy for what the nervous system does and how one might think about describing it's function in laymans terms, rather than in bio-chemistry.

The 'program' is the body moving across space over time, responding to internal and external inputs, and producing outputs to achieve survival and reproduction. So how would thought, or if you want to go there, other components of the nervous system act to achieve that goal?

In terms of thought I must assume that there is a a hierarchy of significance as to what we're attuned to, something like: biological movement, things that are different from other things, things that are moving fast. The conscious and sub-conscious then formulates response using memory. If none of these criteria are relevant then we become aware of internal inputs, which I would again assume hierarchy of significance: For instance, our mind is much more likely to dwell on, say, significant people, than it is completely insignificant things.

You're still using the wrong metaphor.

Evolution doesn't design algorithms to solve problem. It grabs into its toolbox and cobbles something together that produces useful ("correct" is not a requirement, more often than not the right ballpark is good enough) output on the current input.

If you want a programming analogy, how about this one:

Don't even think of asking evolution to come up with designing an algorithm to some up all numbers in a text - evolution won't understand your request. If you task it however with determining the number of fruits you ate this week, this is roughly what evolution might come up with:

time echo "today I had 1 apple, yesterday 3 oranges and on Monday 12 bananas" | sed 's/[^0-9]\+/\n/g' | while read n; do sleep $n;  done 2> /dev/null

It'll produce correct results as long as the input is non-negative integers only (with a slightly more complex pattern for sed, it might even work for non-negative reals), and for small enough numbers (e. g. the number of fruits you had this week), it'll do so in a reasonable (-ish) time (16 seconds and a couple dozen milliseconds overhead for the example at hand - good enough if you only need to run it once a week). That's good enough for this purpose and might get stored with a name in put back in the toolbox so next time you grab into it, you can use it too. With a little postprocessing, it even works for results greater than 60.

Is it inefficient? Sure, but not so badly it's useless for the particular kind of input. Does it represent an abuse of the tools at hand? Arguably yes, but evolution doesn't read the docs.

 

[rousseau]

Oh shit. You both need to get something straight. The brain is not a machine, a system. It is a collection of ad hoc solutions based properties of nervous tissue. Not much is really integrated since not much came about at the same time. There are likelihoods that one solution wold b e near another just because nervous tissue is involved. Random migration of snippets of code can be replicated. accidentally, in one mode or another and become part of that mode if the snippet ads value to how that mode performs.

The point is all thought about design needs be dismissed and replaced with what a tinker - there is no master tinker - might find at hand at this or that place or time. Yes structures that seem to have specific functions have evolved which have subsequently been reconfigured for other purposes just because.

But to think of the brain as a designed system is going to lead everyone astray of what is the poliglot nervous system and endocrine system combination driving our bodies around.

We have capabilities, capacities. That does not mean CNS-ES are designed systems (again)!

Gad. It as if Utopia were a realizable construct. Get real. Unless this is a philosophy forum - it isn't I checked - discussions of design need much rethinking.

However steve-bank is right. Most control solutions are feedback mechanisms requiring very little real estate and capability and CNS-ES can have a shitpot load of them.

I don't think anyone assumes the brain was designed in concert in it's entirety, but the term 'algorithm' is a good analogy for what the nervous system does and how one might think about describing it's function in laymans terms, rather than in bio-chemistry.

The 'program' is the body moving across space over time, responding to internal and external inputs, and producing outputs to achieve survival and reproduction. So how would thought, or if you want to go there, other components of the nervous system act to achieve that goal?

In terms of thought I must assume that there is a a hierarchy of significance as to what we're attuned to, something like: biological movement, things that are different from other things, things that are moving fast. The conscious and sub-conscious then formulates response using memory. If none of these criteria are relevant then we become aware of internal inputs, which I would again assume hierarchy of significance: For instance, our mind is much more likely to dwell on, say, significant people, than it is completely insignificant things.

You're still using the wrong metaphor.

Evolution doesn't design algorithms to solve problem.

Yes, that's clear. The analogy was brought up to describe the function of the body after the fact of it's evolution.

Any self-replicating organism needs to function in a way to survive/reproduce across space, over time, which implies input/output and processes. I'm not assuming the organism was designed as an algorithm, but we can assume that the elements evolved within the totality of the body work in concert to produce an outcome based on conditions and inputs, hence the analogy. It's not perfect, but it's a starting point.

I don't care how the body came to be, I care about how it's acting now.

 

[Jokodo]

You're still using the wrong metaphor.

Evolution doesn't design algorithms to solve problem.

Yes, that's clear. The analogy was brought up to describe the function of the body after the fact of it's evolution.

Any self-replicating organism needs to function in a way to survive/reproduce across space, over time, which implies input/output and processes. I'm not assuming the organism was designed as an algorithm, but we can assume that the elements evolved within the totality of the body work in concert to produce an outcome based on conditions and inputs, hence the analogy. It's not perfect, but it's a starting point.

I don't care how the body came to be, I care about how it's acting now.

Those two are tightly related. Also, I believe my post deserves a better reply