Gary Doolittle

Gary Doolittle

@garymdmd.bsky.social

Retired MD Biochemist. Current interests/Posts will be mobile app creation with Expo with AI. Also occasional general science posts.

212 followers145 following279 posts

Gary Doolittle reposted

John Roberts made the president immune from prosecution. Share this if itโ€™s time Congress made John Roberts unemployed.

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It is key to see what attention brought to modern AI and also its role in biologic evolution of intelligence. The two forms may have gotten to the same place by different pathways but the end result and mechanism is the same. Attention is perhaps all we need for intellignece nad even consciousness

Intelligence is not something just recently evolved in humans it is spread throughout life forms, as is consciousness. It is important to always keep an evolutionary perspective even when studying the hard problem of consciousness and intelligence.

Is the Democratic Party already trying to stifle reform? Putting South Carolina as the first primary - the same state that gave us Biden and the disaster we are in now when they sabotaged Bernie Sanders campaign. Canโ€™t they see the same old same old is not what we need now or in 2024.

The most important thing about this recent AI break out and Trumpโ€™s knee jerk reaction (and no counter to that in his admin) of saying "donโ€™t worry I am smart" shows just how incredibly incompetent his ppl are. I honestly would choose the current Ayatollah to have the nuclear codes over Trump now.

As much as I do fear the AI apocalypse I have to say I have optimism. It is amazing how reasonable AI is when you consider it is training randomly on the Corpus of human knowledge. Certainly it does have some effect by RLHF but really itโ€™s mostly spontaneous and still ends up in a reasonable place.

OK, so I donโ€™t know many people that will read this post but I am trying to turn the โ€œhard problem of consciousnessโ€ into an easier problem. iโ€™m not the first person to do this, but be interested to see peopleโ€˜s response. Please follow along ๏ฟผin the comments if that peaks your interest. ๏ฟผ

OK, so I donโ€™t know many people that will read this post but I am trying to turn the โ€œhard problem of consciousnessโ€ into an easier problem. iโ€™m not the first person to do this, but be interested to see peopleโ€˜s response. Please follow along ๏ฟผin the comments if that peaks your interest. ๏ฟผ

Consciousness like free will or agency is not really an illusion. Itโ€™s just not what it feels like on the surface. I havenโ€™t really thought of experiments to flesh this out. ๏ฟผ and I know Iโ€™m not the first one to suggest it, but Iโ€™m hoping someone might get interested in this conversation. ๏ฟผ

OK, so I donโ€™t know many people that will read this post but I am trying to turn the โ€œhard problem of consciousnessโ€ into an easier problem. iโ€™m not the first person to do this, but be interested to see peopleโ€˜s response. Please follow along ๏ฟผin the comments if that peaks your interest. ๏ฟผ

Finally, you start to add more and more layers of neocortex and more sophisticated cognition to the point where it begin to develop what feels like consciousness. But really you just have the notion of mental states related to certain conditions. ๏ฟผ

OK, so I donโ€™t know many people that will read this post but I am trying to turn the โ€œhard problem of consciousnessโ€ into an easier problem. iโ€™m not the first person to do this, but be interested to see peopleโ€˜s response. Please follow along ๏ฟผin the comments if that peaks your interest. ๏ฟผ

If you go up the evolutionary tree, these change from simple state saying avoid this go to this into more complicated mental stage which developed ideas like pleasure and pain. And then more specific mental states for concepts like colors and Sounds. ๏ฟผ

OK, so I donโ€™t know many people that will read this post but I am trying to turn the โ€œhard problem of consciousnessโ€ into an easier problem. iโ€™m not the first person to do this, but be interested to see peopleโ€˜s response. Please follow along ๏ฟผin the comments if that peaks your interest. ๏ฟผ

After this subtle change, the brain was able to make these mental states more and more complicated and more and more varied and be able to register more definitive and narrowly defined mental states. ๏ฟผ

OK, so I donโ€™t know many people that will read this post but I am trying to turn the โ€œhard problem of consciousnessโ€ into an easier problem. iโ€™m not the first person to do this, but be interested to see peopleโ€˜s response. Please follow along ๏ฟผin the comments if that peaks your interest. ๏ฟผ

So really consciousness began from an evolutionary perspective when organisms that developed bilaterality โ€œinventedโ€dopaminergic and serotonergic neurons. To allow valence and value to be remembered and assigned to mental states. ๏ฟผ

Gary Doolittle reposted

Heartbreaking to see what they have done to Gaza. Our world leaders have sat back and allowed this to happen. They, too, need to be held accountable for this genocide.๐Ÿ’”๐Ÿ˜ข๐Ÿ’”๐Ÿ˜ข๐Ÿคฌ๐Ÿคฌ๐Ÿคฌ๐Ÿคฌ

Gary Doolittle reposted

People canโ€™t afford to eat or make rent. On top of that, we pay more in taxes than we do in food, clothing, and housing COMBINED. Welcome to the golden age people!! ๐Ÿค‘๐Ÿคก James Li

Gary Doolittle reposted

Reading about the Obama Center opening, seeing photos, videos, hearing speeches, reading commentaries confirmed a STARK contrast between two presidents. DJT's is consumed with hate, anger, delusions of grandeur and getting retribution. He is evil. He's NOT presidential. He needs to be removed.

I just returned from Albania. They are an inspiring ppl. They are committed not just to their own future but to all our futures. They are now fighting Trump family who has plans to destroy part of their country with inappropriate development. If only we had a few more such ppl in our own country.

Gary Doolittle reposted

Itโ€™s weird how so many people just cannot see the danger. ๐Ÿ˜’๐Ÿ˜’๐Ÿ˜’๐Ÿ˜’๐Ÿ˜’๐Ÿ˜’๐Ÿ˜’๐Ÿ˜’๐Ÿ˜ฎโ€๐Ÿ’จ

Gary Doolittle reposted

Kushner and his sidekick Vance just trying to lend a hand. ๐Ÿ‘‰๐ŸผHelps to have a stout lad carrying the bags on trips. ๐Ÿ’ฐ

Hungary has risen from the ashes. Thank God, not everyone is drinking the MAGA Kool-Aid. Big losses today for JD, unable to negotiate and unable to convince the Hungarians

Gary Doolittle reposted

This was ABSOLUTE CINEMA๐Ÿ”ฅ Kasparia : Why did you go to war? Trump Sec ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ: We had a feeling that Iran will attack Kasparia : "I don't care about your feelings. Innocent people died due to your nonsense war. Earlier Isarel did genocide in Gaza" ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ”ฅ Mad respect for courage ๐Ÿซก

Gary Doolittle reposted

Arabs ( or anyone not Jewish )are LOCKED OUT of Tel Aviv shelters during missile alerts. News reporters are calling it racism. Israel demanded a retraction. Repost this video.

why is there is no investigation of these ICE murders. I was a college freshman 1971 -I had an x-cop classmate. He was in a chase of a violent criminal and allowed the man to discharge a round from his double barrel shotgun before firing back. 6 months of investigation lead to his exoneration. WTF

I just finished Gub Gubโ€™s book. One of the the last of the Dr. Dolittle series written in 1932 by Lofting. Please read the last Chapter about Prince Nastibozo taking over the Kingdom of Guzzledom. Apt description of Contemporary America. It had a happy ending- but will we ?

We have returned to a time that is unbelievable beyond medieval almost to caveman. Were those with strength and authority brutality can do as they want including murder. When are we going to wake up and see how far weโ€™re gone.

I read an interesting letter in the December 29 NYker. Blaming the Internet, essentially forgiving a voice to the worst parts of our nature. I think that is such a great insight. We were hiding the worst parts of our nature and the Internet turned those things into a movement which now leads us.

Gary Doolittle reposted

We need a new generation of leaders who are the voices of democracy, freedom, social justice, & the rule of law. A new generation that renews the โ€œweโ€ in โ€œwe the people.โ€ Instead of fretting over Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party should embrace him as part of its future.

In the midst of reading AI predictions for 2026 and comparing to those for 2025. Not much for the arrival of AGI by anyone. I think that is a poor target myself and even harder to define. I think the biggest hurdle is reaching an AI that is sentient or self-aware. I think those are needed for AGI.

I think so much of our intelligence is based on feelings and awareness that those factors cannot be ignored. Those capabilities may actually reveal themselves serendipitously just as things like language evolved out of humans sharing attention with continued efforts in AI.

In the midst of reading AI predictions for 2026 and comparing to those for 2025. Not much for the arrival of AGI by anyone. I think that is a poor target myself and even harder to define. I think the biggest hurdle is reaching an AI that is sentient or self-aware. I think those are needed for AGI.

Current LLMs are missing the ability to gain AGI and there are perhaps hopes that World Models or NeuroSymbolic will take us there. I think machine consciousness is possible and ppl are working on it. It is crucial for neuroscience and AI to continue to evolve together.