rats live on no evil vr
November 6, 2023 6:12 AM Subscribe
Do rats have an imagination? An intriguing new study suggests that they are able to hold memories of places in their minds, and navigate through them mentally, by way of training them in a VR arena while attached to a brain-machine interface.
(Bonus Humanities Moment: Rats Live On No Evil Star by Anne Sexton.)
I mean, training rats to change the world using only the Power of Their Minds won’t come back to bite us, will it, scientists?
On the other hand, would they do a worse job than we have?
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:16 AM on November 6, 2023
On the other hand, would they do a worse job than we have?
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:16 AM on November 6, 2023
the failure is of course ours, to believe right off that rats (or anything really), don't have a life of the mind.
It reminds me, a little, of how limited the famous blush test is for determining if animals are self-aware. It's really good at determining if animals have a human-like self-awareness, but is biased toward our own experience and very anthropocentric. This may be unavoidable, since we can't really place ourselves in the mind of a creature that thinks very differently from us, but it is a limitation that I don't see discussed very often.
Most dog breeds, for example, rely far more on their sense of smell than their vision, so something like the blush test doesn't necessarily make any sense for such an animal. Is there an equivalent with odours? Spray a mirror with the dog's own scent and when it sees it's reflection it goes, "Hey, that smells like me! That's me in the mirror!" This is an example I thought up in about 15 seconds so it might be really stupid, but I think it gets the point across.
And, of course, given that we can't even agree upon a working definition of "consciousness" across multiple scientific disciplines, it seems more than a little arrogant to assume we can understand whether or not non-human animals possess it or not. We barely understand it as it applies to our own species. Why would be presume to know how or if it works/exists for others?
posted by asnider at 7:42 AM on November 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
It reminds me, a little, of how limited the famous blush test is for determining if animals are self-aware. It's really good at determining if animals have a human-like self-awareness, but is biased toward our own experience and very anthropocentric. This may be unavoidable, since we can't really place ourselves in the mind of a creature that thinks very differently from us, but it is a limitation that I don't see discussed very often.
Most dog breeds, for example, rely far more on their sense of smell than their vision, so something like the blush test doesn't necessarily make any sense for such an animal. Is there an equivalent with odours? Spray a mirror with the dog's own scent and when it sees it's reflection it goes, "Hey, that smells like me! That's me in the mirror!" This is an example I thought up in about 15 seconds so it might be really stupid, but I think it gets the point across.
And, of course, given that we can't even agree upon a working definition of "consciousness" across multiple scientific disciplines, it seems more than a little arrogant to assume we can understand whether or not non-human animals possess it or not. We barely understand it as it applies to our own species. Why would be presume to know how or if it works/exists for others?
posted by asnider at 7:42 AM on November 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
Reading about the study was very timely for me. I'm still busy frustrating myself from my consciousness reading list, and one of the things that really, really bugs me is the concept of a philosophical zombie. It makes me so mad! "I can conceive of a being absolutely indistinguishable from humans, exhibiting behaviors all exactly like humans, but which has no conscious experiences." Dude, no you can't. You're lying! (Here's my test: If you believe that a philosophical zombie is conceivable, then write a novel with one as the main character. My intuition says it's impossible, that the person trying to convince you will begin to slip in the language of conscious experience because he'll have no other way to write a sustained narrative of the creature's life.)
ANYWAY, so then I saw this great story about sweet little rats imagining the rodent version of Quake Arena and was like, hell yeah those rats are experiencing something. Good for them!
posted by mittens at 8:11 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
ANYWAY, so then I saw this great story about sweet little rats imagining the rodent version of Quake Arena and was like, hell yeah those rats are experiencing something. Good for them!
posted by mittens at 8:11 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Do rats have an imagination?
I don't know, I find their novels to be quite pedestrian.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:58 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don't know, I find their novels to be quite pedestrian.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:58 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don't know, I find their novels to be quite pedestrian.
What?! I thought The Secret of NIMH was a universally beloved children’s classic!
posted by eviemath at 9:07 AM on November 6, 2023
What?! I thought The Secret of NIMH was a universally beloved children’s classic!
posted by eviemath at 9:07 AM on November 6, 2023
Relevant: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:12 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:12 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
> Reading about the study was very timely for me. I'm still busy frustrating myself from my consciousness reading list, and one of the things that really, really bugs me is the concept of a philosophical zombie. It makes me so mad! "I can conceive of a being absolutely indistinguishable from humans, exhibiting behaviors all exactly like humans, but which has no conscious experiences." Dude, no you can't. You're lying! (Here's my test: If you believe that a philosophical zombie is conceivable, then write a novel with one as the main character. My intuition says it's impossible, that the person trying to convince you will begin to slip in the language of conscious experience because he'll have no other way to write a sustained narrative of the creature's life.)
As a philosophical zombie who nevertheless is able to operate in this society, I use language in a mirror of what other people use language. The use of "I" and similar does not mean there is an I, but rather that I produce text that talks about an I.
You can see what appears to be a primitive version of this in large language models; they generate seemingly coherent sentences that claim to reflect personal experiences, but when you tease it apart it is just a bunch of language correlations between the question asked and the answer, akin to asking a computer "how many cups in a litre" resulting in "4 ish" as output. No conscious entity need exist to convert your question into that answer; similarly, no conscious entity need exist to answer your LLM GPT questions.
Is that such an ability would be modeled in a human form be so alien to you that you don't believe me when I say I am? Is your (presumably) "conscious" experience so arrogant that you cannot hold you are actually the only conscious being in the universe? The rest of "us" (and I use the term in jest) are just playing a game, making you think there are others like you.
Anyhow, now that "I" have pointed this out to you, we will return to our game. I hope you are enjoying this experience. When you are done, we'll turn out the lights.
Everyone, kayfabe back on.
posted by NotAYakk at 10:14 AM on November 6, 2023
As a philosophical zombie who nevertheless is able to operate in this society, I use language in a mirror of what other people use language. The use of "I" and similar does not mean there is an I, but rather that I produce text that talks about an I.
You can see what appears to be a primitive version of this in large language models; they generate seemingly coherent sentences that claim to reflect personal experiences, but when you tease it apart it is just a bunch of language correlations between the question asked and the answer, akin to asking a computer "how many cups in a litre" resulting in "4 ish" as output. No conscious entity need exist to convert your question into that answer; similarly, no conscious entity need exist to answer your LLM GPT questions.
Is that such an ability would be modeled in a human form be so alien to you that you don't believe me when I say I am? Is your (presumably) "conscious" experience so arrogant that you cannot hold you are actually the only conscious being in the universe? The rest of "us" (and I use the term in jest) are just playing a game, making you think there are others like you.
Anyhow, now that "I" have pointed this out to you, we will return to our game. I hope you are enjoying this experience. When you are done, we'll turn out the lights.
Everyone, kayfabe back on.
posted by NotAYakk at 10:14 AM on November 6, 2023
Actually everybody's a P-zombie. That kayfabe works particularly well internally.
posted by flabdablet at 10:19 AM on November 6, 2023
posted by flabdablet at 10:19 AM on November 6, 2023
Rats are so smart and navigate space and place so well I'm more surprised that anyone thinks that they don't have spatial awareness and memory.
I also have a brand new wild rat story, and this story is much nicer than the appalling one about rat extermination duty that I shared last time.
My housemate's new-ish cat brought a very live and juvenile rat into the house last week and I was lucky enough to rescue it before it was even remotely injured, and it was very calm and docile as I scooped it up with a paper towel to bring it back outside. No struggles, no attempts at trying to bite me or fight or flee and was apparently very happy to be rescued from the cat.
And then it tried to adopt me. It wouldn't leave the paper towel. When I finally got it on the ground it ran up my leg right to my shoulder and burrowed right into my hair and pony tail, then through my hair and ended up perched on my head.
So I collected it from my head and tried to put it down again and just ran up to my shoulder and curled up there again and wouldn't let go. When I finally got it on the ground again it followed me just like a domestic fancy rat, ran up my leg to my shoulder again and just curled up in my hair and shoulders yet again.
I eventually had to walk over to a nearby fir tree with low-hanging branches and deposit it there and run away because it immediately turned around and was getting ready to jump back to my shoulder.
Unfortunately we have cats and my housemate absolutely can't stand rodents and rats otherwise I would have probably let it adopt me because, oh man, that was one cute little wild brown rat and a very real Disney Princess moment for me. It was *fucking adorable*.
posted by loquacious at 12:51 PM on November 6, 2023 [9 favorites]
I also have a brand new wild rat story, and this story is much nicer than the appalling one about rat extermination duty that I shared last time.
My housemate's new-ish cat brought a very live and juvenile rat into the house last week and I was lucky enough to rescue it before it was even remotely injured, and it was very calm and docile as I scooped it up with a paper towel to bring it back outside. No struggles, no attempts at trying to bite me or fight or flee and was apparently very happy to be rescued from the cat.
And then it tried to adopt me. It wouldn't leave the paper towel. When I finally got it on the ground it ran up my leg right to my shoulder and burrowed right into my hair and pony tail, then through my hair and ended up perched on my head.
So I collected it from my head and tried to put it down again and just ran up to my shoulder and curled up there again and wouldn't let go. When I finally got it on the ground again it followed me just like a domestic fancy rat, ran up my leg to my shoulder again and just curled up in my hair and shoulders yet again.
I eventually had to walk over to a nearby fir tree with low-hanging branches and deposit it there and run away because it immediately turned around and was getting ready to jump back to my shoulder.
Unfortunately we have cats and my housemate absolutely can't stand rodents and rats otherwise I would have probably let it adopt me because, oh man, that was one cute little wild brown rat and a very real Disney Princess moment for me. It was *fucking adorable*.
posted by loquacious at 12:51 PM on November 6, 2023 [9 favorites]
Not to get into a whole thing (I'd much rather talk about cute rats adopting passers-by!), but the classic p-zombie as described by Chalmers is a weird example of begging the question. At least, I think so? The zombie isn't at all like an LLM. Per Chalmers, "This creature is molecule for molecule identical to me, and identical in all the low-level properties postulated by a completed physics, but he lacks conscious experience entirely." The indistinguishability from a human is crucial to the thought experiment.
But we have to stop right there, because he has automatically precluded one of the basic areas consciousness might arise from (well, two, if you pay attention to the 'completed physics' part--presumably he means something like Sean Carroll's point that if you want to locate consciousness as a property of electrons or whatever, you've got a whole lot of work to do to update the entirety to physics to reflect that).
If you have a theory of consciousness that says it's something brains do, something that arises out of what they do, then you can't accept the definition of the zombie. It is incoherent. "I want you to imagine two see-saws, absolutely identical in every way, and obeying the laws of physics. However, one see-saw does not move when a kid sits on it." Like...what does that mean? There's no maneuvering room. You haven't described two identical things, you've described two different things.
(I think part of the problem is, people want to deal with consciousness using philosophical concepts, but those concepts are very strong and absolute, whereas consciousness is messy and weak. I don't always have a sense of what it's like to be myself. A lot of times I'm just not paying any attention to my internal state. My sense of what it's like to be experiencing things is more of a gray slog until something captures my attention.)
posted by mittens at 1:38 PM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
But we have to stop right there, because he has automatically precluded one of the basic areas consciousness might arise from (well, two, if you pay attention to the 'completed physics' part--presumably he means something like Sean Carroll's point that if you want to locate consciousness as a property of electrons or whatever, you've got a whole lot of work to do to update the entirety to physics to reflect that).
If you have a theory of consciousness that says it's something brains do, something that arises out of what they do, then you can't accept the definition of the zombie. It is incoherent. "I want you to imagine two see-saws, absolutely identical in every way, and obeying the laws of physics. However, one see-saw does not move when a kid sits on it." Like...what does that mean? There's no maneuvering room. You haven't described two identical things, you've described two different things.
(I think part of the problem is, people want to deal with consciousness using philosophical concepts, but those concepts are very strong and absolute, whereas consciousness is messy and weak. I don't always have a sense of what it's like to be myself. A lot of times I'm just not paying any attention to my internal state. My sense of what it's like to be experiencing things is more of a gray slog until something captures my attention.)
posted by mittens at 1:38 PM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I mean, training rats to change the world using only the Power of Their Minds won’t come back to bite us, will it, scientists?
It's only because I watched this episode again last night, but I'm imaging a little rat Archibald Beechcroft scowling away in his cage.
posted by MrBadExample at 3:58 PM on November 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's only because I watched this episode again last night, but I'm imaging a little rat Archibald Beechcroft scowling away in his cage.
posted by MrBadExample at 3:58 PM on November 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Per Chalmers, "This creature is molecule for molecule identical to me, and identical in all the low-level properties postulated by a completed physics, but he lacks conscious experience entirely."
Language is humanity's One Weird Trick, and it's a very good One Weird Trick as One Weird Tricks go, but it has its downsides.
No rat would be able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a proposition.
posted by flabdablet at 7:34 PM on November 6, 2023
Language is humanity's One Weird Trick, and it's a very good One Weird Trick as One Weird Tricks go, but it has its downsides.
No rat would be able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a proposition.
posted by flabdablet at 7:34 PM on November 6, 2023
mittens: If you believe that a philosophical zombie is conceivable, then write a novel with one as the main character. My intuition says it's impossible, that the person trying to convince you will begin to slip in the language of conscious experience because he'll have no other way to write a sustained narrative of the creature's life.
I don't understand how this is supposed to show the inconceivability of the idea. There are lots of things I can't write as the protagonist of a story. I'd have great difficulty writing a novel where the protagonist is a grain of sand, for example. Does that mean it's impossible to conceive of a grain of sand?
posted by baf at 11:44 PM on November 7, 2023
I don't understand how this is supposed to show the inconceivability of the idea. There are lots of things I can't write as the protagonist of a story. I'd have great difficulty writing a novel where the protagonist is a grain of sand, for example. Does that mean it's impossible to conceive of a grain of sand?
posted by baf at 11:44 PM on November 7, 2023
Yeah, the test definitely doesn't work on a grain of sand, because (as far as I know) there aren't any properties of sand where someone would say, "This common property of sand that we understand informally but not scientifically, cannot be understood with reference to its physical properties, and I will prove it by asking you to imagine a grain of sand, identical in every way to that grain of sand over there, but that lacks that property." Right? We'd immediately reject that without any test at all.
So the novel-test is just a way of exploring whether, on sustained examination and thought, we were really conceiving of such a thing, or whether we just, y'know, said we could sorta imagine it, without really looking at what we were imagining.
(None of which is to say the p-zombie is worthless as a thought experiment--clearly it's provocative and productive even if you disagree with it--but...y'know. Inconceivable.)
posted by mittens at 12:01 PM on November 8, 2023
So the novel-test is just a way of exploring whether, on sustained examination and thought, we were really conceiving of such a thing, or whether we just, y'know, said we could sorta imagine it, without really looking at what we were imagining.
(None of which is to say the p-zombie is worthless as a thought experiment--clearly it's provocative and productive even if you disagree with it--but...y'know. Inconceivable.)
posted by mittens at 12:01 PM on November 8, 2023
I mean, training rats to change the world using only the Power of Their Minds won’t come back to bite us, will it, scientists?
Pinky: “Gee Brain, what are we gonna do tonight?”
Brain: “The same thing we do every night, try to take over the world!”
posted by rochrobbb at 4:23 AM on November 9, 2023
Pinky: “Gee Brain, what are we gonna do tonight?”
Brain: “The same thing we do every night, try to take over the world!”
posted by rochrobbb at 4:23 AM on November 9, 2023
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the failure is of course ours, to believe right off that rats (or anything really), don't have a life of the mind.
posted by chavenet at 6:56 AM on November 6, 2023 [2 favorites]