2012/5/29 Colin Geoffrey Hales <cgha...@unimelb.edu.au> > ** ** > > ** ** > > *From:* everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto: > everything-list@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Jason Resch > *Sent:* Tuesday, 29 May 2012 3:45 PM > *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com > *Subject:* Re: Church Turing be dammed.**** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 12:21 AM, Colin Geoffrey Hales < > cgha...@unimelb.edu.au> wrote:**** > > Here's a story I just wrote. I'll get it published in due course. > Just posted it to the FoR list, thought you might appreciate the > sentiments.... > > ======================================================== > It's 100,000 BCE. You are a politically correct caveperson. You want > dinner. The cooling body of the dead thing at your feet seems to be your > option. You have fire back at camp. That'll make it palatable. The fire is > kept alive by the fire-warden of your tribe. None of you have a clue what > it is, but it makes the food edible and you don't care. > > It's 1700ish AD. You are a French scientist called Lavoisier. You have > just worked out that burning adds oxygen to the fuel. You have killed off > an eternity of dogma involving a non-existent substance called phlogiston. > You will not be popular, but the facts speak for you. You are happy with > your day's work. You go to the kitchen and cook your fine pheasant meal. > You realise that oxidation never had to figure in your understanding of how > to make dinner. Food for thought is your dessert. > > It is 2005 and you are designing a furnace. You use COMSOL Multiphysics on > your supercomputer. You modify the gas jet configuration and the flames > finally get the dead pocket in the corner up to temperature. The toilet > bowls will be well cooked here, you think to yourself. If you suggested to > your project leader that the project was finished she would think you are > insane. Later, in commissioning your furnace, a red hot toilet bowl is the > target of your optical pyrometer. The fierceness of the furnace is palpable > and you're glad you're not the toilet bowl. The computation of the physics > of fire and the physics of fire are, thankfully, not the same thing - that > fact has made your job a lot easier, but you cannot compute yourself a > toilet bowl. A fact made more real shortly afterwards in the bathroom. > > It is the early 20th century and you are a 'Wright Brother'. You think you > can make a contraption fly. Your inspiration is birds. You experiment with > shaped wood, paper and canvas in a makeshift wind tunnel. You figure out > that certain shapes seems to drag less and lift more. Eventually you flew a > few feet. And you have absolutely no clue about the microscopic physics of > flight. > > It is a hundred years later and you are a trainee pilot doing 'touch and > go' landings in a simulator. The physics of flight is in the massive > computer system running the simulator. Just for fun you stall your jetliner > and crash it into a local shopping mall. Today you have flown 146, 341 km. > As you leave the simulator, you remind yourself that the physics of flight > in the computer and flight itself are not the same thing, and that nobody > died today. > > No-one ever needed a theory of combustion prior to cooking dinner with it. > We cooked dinner and then we eventually learned a theory of combustion. > > No-one needed the deep details of flight physics to work out how to fly. > We few, then we figured out how the physics of flight worked. > > This is the story of the growth of scientific knowledge of the natural > world. It has been this way for thousands of years. Any one of us could > think of a hundred examples of exactly this kind of process. In a modern > world of computing and physics, never before have we had more power to > examine in detail, whatever are the objects of our study. And in each and > every case, if anyone told you that a computed model of the natural world > and the natural world are literally the same thing, you'd brand them daft > or deluded and probably not entertain their contribution as having any > value. > > Well almost. There's one special place where not only is that very > delusion practised on a massive scale, if you question the behaviour, you > are suddenly confronted with a generationally backed systematic raft of > unjustified excuses, perhaps 'policies'?, handed from mentor to novice with > such unquestioning faith that entire scientific disciplines are enrolled in > the delusion. > > Q. What scientific discipline could this be? > > A. The 'science' of artificial intelligence. > > It is something to behold. Here, for the first time in history, you find > people that look at the only example of natural general intelligence - you, > the human reading this - accept a model of a brain, put it in a computer > and then expect the result to be a brain. This is done without a shred of > known physical law, in spite of thousands of years of contrary experience, > and despite decades of abject failure to achieve the sacred goal of an > artificial intelligence like us. > > This belief system is truly bizarre. It is exactly like the cave person > drawing a picture of a flame on a rock and then expecting it to cook > dinner. It is exactly like getting into a flight simulator, flying it to > Paris and then expecting to get out and have dinner on the banks of the > Seine. It is exactly like expecting your computer simulated furnace > roasting you a toilet bowl. > > Think about it. If there was no difference between a computed physics > model of fire and fire, then why doesn't the computer burst into flames? If > there was no difference between a computed model of flight and flight, then > why doesn't the computer leap up and fly? These things don't happen! Not > only that, any computer scientist would say you were nuts to believe it to > be a possibility. Then that same computer scientist will then got back to > their desk, sit down and believe that their computer program can be brain > physics. > > Now I am all about creating real artificial general intelligence. Call me > crazy, but I find I am unique in the entire world. I am set about literally > building artificial inorganic brain tissue. Like the Wright Bros built > artificial flight. Like the caveperson built artificial fire. I will build > artificial cognition. There will be no computing. There will be the physics > of cognition. > > Ay now here's the rub. > > When I go about my business of organising and researching my artificial > brain tissue I get questioned about my weird approach. I find that I am the > one that has to justify my position! For the first time in history a > completely systemic delusion about the relation between reality and > computing is assumed by legions of scientists without question, and who > fail constantly to achieve the goal for clearly obvious reasons..... _and I > am the one that has to justify my approach_? If I have to listen to another > deferral to the Church-Turing Thesis (100% right and 100% irrelevant) I > will SCREAM! Aaaaiiiiieeeeeiiiiuuuuaaaaaaarrrrgggggh! > > I am not saying artificial general intelligence is impossible or even > hard. I am simply suggesting that maybe the route toward it is through > (shock horror) using the physics of cognition (brain material). Somebody > out there..... please? Can there please be someone out there who sees this > half century of computer science weirdness in 100,000 years of sanity? > Please? Anyone? > ================================================================== > > By Colin Hales > > Natural physics is a computation. Fine. > > But a computed natural physics model is NOT the natural physics....it is > the natural physics of a computer.**** > > > > Colin, > > I recently read the following excerpt from "The Singularity is Near" on > page 454: > > "The basis of the strong (Church-Turing thesis) is that problems that are > not solvable on a Turing Machine cannot be solved by human thought, > either. The basis of this thesis is that human thought is performed by the > human brain (with some influence by the body), that the human brain (and > body) comprises matter and energy, that matter and energy follow natural > laws, that these laws are describable in mathematical terms, and that > mathematics can be simulated to any degree of precision by algorithms. > Therefore there exist algorithms that can simulate human thought. The > strong version of the Church-Turing thesis postulates an essential > equivalence between what a human can think or know, and what is computable." > > So which of the following four link(s) in the logical chain do you take > issue with? > > A. human brain (and body) comprises matter and energy > B. that matter and energy follow natural laws, > C. that these laws are describable in mathematical terms > D. that mathematics can be simulated to any degree of precision by > algorithms > > Thanks, > > Jason > > ========================================**** > > Hi Jason,**** > > Brain physics is there to cognise the (external) world. You do not know > the external world.**** > > Your brain is there to apprehend it. The physics of the brain inherits > properties of the (unknown) external world. This is natural cognition. > Therefore you have no model to compute. Game over.**** > > ** ** > > If you have _*everything*_ in your model (external world included), then > you can simulate it. But you don’t. >
You don't need it, because we don't have to simulate the world we have to interface with it, we simulate consciousness not the world. Quentin > So you can’t simulate it. C-T Thesis is 100% right _but 100% *irrelevant*to > the process at hand: encountering the unknown. > **** > > ** ** > > The C-T Thesis is irrelevant, so you need to get a better argument from > somewhere and start to answer some of the points in my story: **** > > ** ** > > Q. Why doesn’t a computed model of fire burst into flames?**** > > ** ** > > This should the natural expectation by anyone that thinks a computed model > of cognition physics is cognition. You should be expected answer this. > Until this is answered I have no need to justify my position on building > AGI. That is what my story is about. I am not assuming an irrelevant > principle or that I know how cognition works. I will build cognition > physics and then learn how it works using it. Like we normally do. **** > > ** ** > > I don’t know how computer science got to the state it is in, but it’s got > to stop. In this one special area it has done us a disservice.**** > > ** ** > > This is my answer to everyone. I know all I’ll get is the usual party > lines. Lavoisier had his phlogiston. I’ve got computationalism. Lucky me. > **** > > ** ** > > Cya!**** > > ** ** > > Colin**** > > ** ** > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
