Re: A comment on Mauldin's paper “Computation and Consciousness”
Hi Brent, Does your reasoning allow for the chance that Tegmark's paper is rubbish? Does your reality allow for these sorts of realities? http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/quantum-birds/ ? http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/quantum-photosynthesis/ ? Birds eye’s are a tad bit hotter than our brains... If the entanglement that I am considering is nothing more than randomness, then we should have any random noise source added to a computation would be fine for supervenience. Is that your claim? I do not see how it change Maudlin’s construction and not preserve the assumption of the principle of locality and the non-relativity of simultaneity. It may just double down on an already bad bet! Why do we want our brain to be classical so badly? I am somehow not grasping the evolutionary viewpoint on this issue. Onward! Stephen -Original Message- From: Brent Meeker Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 11:20 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: A comment on Mauldin's paper “Computation and Consciousness” Note that the kind of entanglement you're talking about is the same as randomness. Bohm's version of QM makes this explicit. There's a deterministic wave function of the universe so that everything effects everything else instantaneously (which is why there's no good Bohmian version of QFT) and quantum randomness is just a consequence of our ignorance of the complete wave function. But Tegmark's paper shows that quantum effects must be very small and the brain is essentially classical - which makes sense from an evolutionary viewpoint. You want your brain to be classical, except for a very rare randomness to avoid the problem of Buridan's ass - and you don't even need brain randomness for that, there's plenty of randomness in the environment. Brent On 1/31/2011 6:27 PM, Stephen Paul King wrote: Hi David, You just happened to mention the 800kg Gorilla in the room! While we can rattle off a sophisticated narrative about decoherence effects and quote from some Tegmark paper, the fact remains that entanglement is real and while we can argue that its effects could be minimized, we cannot prove that it is irrelevant to supervenience. This is a game-changer for physical supervenience arguments. But the problem is much worse! It is becoming harder to how up Tegmark's prohibition on quantum effects. Just recently an article appeared in some peer-reviewed journal discussing how entangled states are present for macroscopically significant periods of time in the eyes of birds. Don't they have a higher average body temperature than humans? -Original Message- From: David Shipman Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 7:41 PM To: Everything List Subject: Re: A comment on Mauldin's paper “Computation and Consciousness” On Jan 30, 4:13 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Jan 25, 9:04 am, Stephen Paul King stephe...@charter.net wrote: Dear Bruno and Friends, While we are considering the idea of “causal efficacy” here and not hidden variable theories, the fact that it has been experimentally verified that Nature violates the principle Locality. Therefore the assumption of local efficacy that Mauldin is using for the supervenience thesis is not realistic and thus presents a flaw in his argument. Local supervenience doesn't have to be argued from fundamental physics. It can be argued from neurology. Mental states arent affected by what goes on outside the head unless information is conveyed by the sense This isn't true, is it? So we have two particles (A and B) that are entangled. Entanglement is never destroyed, it is only obscured by subsequent interactions with the environment. Particle A goes zooming off into outer space. 10 years later, Particle B becomes incorporated into my brain. The next day, an alien scientist measures the entangled property on Particle A. This will have an immediate non-local effect on Particle B won't it? And since B's state has been altered, and it is part of my brain, then my brain state has been altered as well, hasn't it? Maybe only a tiny amount, obscured by the many environmental interactions that the two particles have been subjected to since the initial entanglement, but in a way that is real and at least conceivably significant. And if that is true, then to the extent that mental states supervene on brain states, my mental state would also have been altered by non- local effects. Or is that wrong? Regards, David -- 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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to
Re: Maudlin How many times does COMP have to be false before its false?
On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 3:00 PM, ColinHales col.ha...@gmail.com wrote: There seems to be a profound, institutionalized failure within scientists that results, for whatever reason, in an inability to distinguish between the actual natural world and a (mathematical) model of its behaviour, as apparent to a scientist. If you model a natural environment presenting some problem to a human within that environment, the simulated human will arrive at the same solution as the real human would have. If intelligence is problem-solving behaviour, there is therefore no difference between the natural world and the model provided that the model is in fact a good one. Your claim that computers cannot replicate human intelligence is thus equivalent to a claim that there is some process in the human brain which is not Turing emulable. What process do you think that might be? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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.
Re: A comment on Mauldin's paper “Computation and Consciousness”
So there are non-local effects on the brain - but these effects are random and aren't distinguishable from local quantum randomness. To the extent that the human brain is resistant to local quantum randomness, it is equally resistant to non-local quantum randomness. When the alien scientist makes a measurement on Particle A, he is changing the quantum state of the entangled A-B pair. But since the outcome of his measurement is random, it's effect on Particle B is random - and afterwards Particle B's behavior is entirely consistent with what it *could* have been even is the alien scientist had not made his measurement. Though Particle B's behavior after the measurement is possibly not what it *would* have been if the alien scientist had not made his measurement. But, regardless, due to the brain's resistance to quantum randomness, the measurement is unlikely to have any impact on my behavior, UNLESS it happens to occur in a way that breaks the deadlock of a Buridan's ass scenario. Is this correct? On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 11:20 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.comwrote: Note that the kind of entanglement you're talking about is the same as randomness. Bohm's version of QM makes this explicit. There's a deterministic wave function of the universe so that everything effects everything else instantaneously (which is why there's no good Bohmian version of QFT) and quantum randomness is just a consequence of our ignorance of the complete wave function. But Tegmark's paper shows that quantum effects must be very small and the brain is essentially classical - which makes sense from an evolutionary viewpoint. You want your brain to be classical, except for a very rare randomness to avoid the problem of Buridan's ass - and you don't even need brain randomness for that, there's plenty of randomness in the environment. Brent On 1/31/2011 6:27 PM, Stephen Paul King wrote: Hi David, You just happened to mention the 800kg Gorilla in the room! While we can rattle off a sophisticated narrative about decoherence effects and quote from some Tegmark paper, the fact remains that entanglement is real and while we can argue that its effects could be minimized, we cannot prove that it is irrelevant to supervenience. This is a game-changer for physical supervenience arguments. But the problem is much worse! It is becoming harder to how up Tegmark's prohibition on quantum effects. Just recently an article appeared in some peer-reviewed journal discussing how entangled states are present for macroscopically significant periods of time in the eyes of birds. Don't they have a higher average body temperature than humans? -Original Message- From: David Shipman Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 7:41 PM To: Everything List Subject: Re: A comment on Mauldin's paper “Computation and Consciousness” On Jan 30, 4:13 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Jan 25, 9:04 am, Stephen Paul King stephe...@charter.net wrote: Dear Bruno and Friends, While we are considering the idea of “causal efficacy” here and not hidden variable theories, the fact that it has been experimentally verified that Nature violates the principle Locality. Therefore the assumption of local efficacy that Mauldin is using for the supervenience thesis is not realistic and thus presents a flaw in his argument. Local supervenience doesn't have to be argued from fundamental physics. It can be argued from neurology. Mental states arent affected by what goes on outside the head unless information is conveyed by the sense This isn't true, is it? So we have two particles (A and B) that are entangled. Entanglement is never destroyed, it is only obscured by subsequent interactions with the environment. Particle A goes zooming off into outer space. 10 years later, Particle B becomes incorporated into my brain. The next day, an alien scientist measures the entangled property on Particle A. This will have an immediate non-local effect on Particle B won't it? And since B's state has been altered, and it is part of my brain, then my brain state has been altered as well, hasn't it? Maybe only a tiny amount, obscured by the many environmental interactions that the two particles have been subjected to since the initial entanglement, but in a way that is real and at least conceivably significant. And if that is true, then to the extent that mental states supervene on brain states, my mental state would also have been altered by non- local effects. Or is that wrong? Regards, David -- 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.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at
Re: Maudlin How many times does COMP have to be false before its false?
On 01 Feb 2011, at 07:51, Colin Hales wrote: Hi Bruno, I have been pondering this issue a bit and I am intrigued about how you regard the problem space we inhabit. When you say things like ... Are you aware that If comp is true, that is if I am a machine ... I cannot fathom how you ever get to this point. By looking at amoeabs, then reading book on molecular genetics, smelling Turing universality, then by reading Gödel's proof and the discovery of how to handle self-duplication and self-reference in representational machine, ... I did not take this too much seriously until my understanding of Church thesis deepens. The closure of computerland for diagonalization makes universal machine extremely universal, if I can say. This is a presupposition that arises somehow in the lexicon you have established within your overall framework of thinking. It has lead me to some interest with that hypothesis. Let me have a stab at how my view and yours correlate. In my view A) There is a natural world. We, Turing machines dogs, computers are all being 'computed' by it. This is a set of unknown naturally occurring symbols The natural 'symbols' interact naturally. This is 'natural computation'. NOT like desktop computing. Universe U ensues. Scientist S is being computed within U Scientist S can observe U from within. U makes use of fundamental properties of the symbols to enable observation, from within. Call this principle P-O If by natural world you mean the world of the natural numbers with addition and multiplication, I am OK. I can picture your A). If by natural world you mean the physical worlds as seen by 'numbers', what you say might be locally correct, but that remains to be proved (assuming comp). B) This is a symbolic description of U created by S from within U S can concoct a description of the natural symbols in (A) It need not be unique, many (B) correspond to one (A) S can never know if it's completely done. S can never know the real nature of the sybols in (A) Descriptions (B), with P-O, explains observation and the observer S C) There is a _second_ description It is also concocted by S These are the normal empirical laws we all know so well ? It describes how the U appears to S from inside It need not be unique, many (C) correspond to one (A) No (C) ever explains observation. In this framework (i) a computer running description/rules (B) is not the natural world. OK. With the two sense of natural world I accept above. (ii) a computer running description/rules (C) is not the natural world. OK. (iii) a computer running descriptions (B) or (C) is 'artificially computing' Yes. it is an isolated malin génie. (iv) (C) is physics that present day scientists construct I don't get C. (v) (B) is physics of a natural world prior to an observer. This exist for Löbian machine (although they can find it looking inward). (vi) (A) is 'NATURALLY computing' in the sense that it is literally 'computing' scientist S. = OK. These options are the logically justifiable position we can take when we are, as we are, inside U trying to work U out from within, using an observation faculty provided by U as part of (A). Empirical evidence justifying (C) is normal overvation (contents of one or more observer-agreed conscious experisnces). Empirical evidence justifying (B) is implicit in the existence of an observer concocting a set (C). You can't be confused about an bservation unless there is an observer to be confused. = All that said.now You mention digital physics. You say Are you aware that If COMP is true, that is if I am a machine ... In terms of my frameworkyou are speaking of ...what? I postulate, eventually, only natural numbers and addition and multiplication. Then from this (it is not obvious but standard in good logic textbook) you can show that the arithmetical relation (defined with + and *, and classical logic) emulate all computations. Physics or the natural world is never emulated (but often simulated by malin génie program). Physics is what appear from inside taking the first person indeterminacy inyto account. A priori the natural world is not a computational object. (1) A 'Turing machine (digital computer)' inside U running (B) descriptions? (2) The natural computation itself, of kind (A)? I suspect (3) Some kind of magical 'computer' in idea-space computing us as (A)? i.e. A 'virtual machine' that 'acts as if' it generates an arbitrary number of different U? The COMP I talk about having refuted is in (i) or (ii) above. I suspect this is not the COMP you are speaking of... The comp I talk about is the assumption that my (generailzed) brain
Re: Maudlin How many times does COMP have to be false before its false?
Colin, thanks for reflecting to my post.
You asked: when does observation and criticism bicome diatribe?
I think when it indulges in topical/symbolic applications what the reader
cannot comprehend well.
Or: when the reader reflects to a discussion in a language he is not
sufficiently familiar with and uses words of inaccurate meaning.
.
Your 'tabulated' expansion about a natural world is referring still to the
minisolipsically imagined portion of what we think today and applies the
formulations therein. Model -
restrictions applied. Measurement is also a comparison of the already known
items - blown up to truth. Criticism may be more than that, if we do not
stick to (reasonably) scientific.
Sorry,
John
On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 11:30 PM, Colin Hales
c.ha...@pgrad.unimelb.edu.auwrote:
Interleaved...
John Mikes wrote:
Hi, Colin,
I enjoyed your diatribe. (From time to time I accept some of your ideas and
even include them into my ways of thinking - which may be a praise or a
threat).
Question: Could you briefly identify your usage of science - even
scientist?
The following is the *measured, average* generic behaviour which captures
the basic common factors of scientific behaviour across all physical science
disciplines:
*tn*
The natural world in * insert context* behaves as follows: *insert
behaviour*
1.1
*t0*
The natural world in * the context of a human being scientific about the
natural world * behaves as follows: * to create and manage the members
of a set T of statements of type tn, each of which is a statement
predictive of a natural regularity in a specific context in the natural
world external to and independent of the human arrived at through the
process of critical argument and that in principle can be refuted through
the process of experiencing evidence of the regularity*
1.2
T =
{*t0*, *t1*, *t2*, … ,* tn*, … *tN-1*, *tN*}
1.3
**The 'natural world' in this particular instance, is 'the scientist'. *This
is a measurement, not a guess. You empirically sample human scientists and
average across all sciences. t0 is is what you get.*
Behaviour according to *t0* is fundamentally prevented from ever
explaining and observer because it presupposes an observer. (that is
'experiencing evidence')
So, *t0* is what we actually do. What we _should do_ to explain an
observer is a whole other area. It is the difference between the two
activities that I spoke of in the original 'diatribe' . When does
observation and criticism become diatribe? :-)
cheers
colin
(sometimes I consider an 'average' (=multitude of) scientist succumbing
to *conventional *ideas called 'scientific' and working within that
conventional world-view we get in schools).
And thanks for mentioning religion.
Best regards
John M
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Re: Maudlin How many times does COMP have to be false before its false?
On 1 February 2011 22:53, Colin Hales c.ha...@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au wrote: Colin Do forgive me for butting in on an exchange I sometimes only dimly follow, but I think I may possibly see a misunderstanding on your part about what Bruno actually claims about comp (forgive me, both of you, if I'm wrong). As I've understood Bruno over the years, he has never asserted that comp(utational science) necessarily is the fundamental science of body and mind. Rather, he is saying that IF computational science is assumed (e.g. by proponents of CTM) to be the correct mind-body theory, THEN the appearance of the body (and consequently the rest of matter/energy) must emerge as part of the same theory. In other words, EITHER the correctness of comp as a mind-body theory directly implies the emptiness of any fundamental theory of matter; OR alternatively (i.e. accepting a fundamental theory of matter) comp can't be the correct mind-body theory. The establishment of this disjunction depends on a number of logical steps, culminating in a class of reductio thought experiments including Maudlin's Olympia/Klara and Bruno's MGA, the burden of which is to reveal contradictions inherent in any such conjunction of computationalism and materialism. As it happens, Maudlin uses this result to reject CTM, and Bruno follows the opposite tack of rejecting materialism. There is some controversy over these results from supporters of CTM who continue to find ways to dispute them with auxiliary assumptions. Personally, these auxiliaries strike me as being rather in the nature of epicycles, but then I'm hardly an authority. Anyway, forgive me if this was already obvious, but I suppose the conclusion might be that, if you reject fundamental computational science as your basic theory of matter, Bruno would expect you to take the same tack with respect to mind. I'm sure both he and you will put me right on this. David Bruno Marchal wrote: On 01 Feb 2011, at 07:51, Colin Hales wrote: Hi Bruno, I have been pondering this issue a bit and I am intrigued about how you regard the problem space we inhabit. When you say things like ... Are you aware that If comp is true, that is if I am a machine ... I cannot fathom how you ever get to this point. By looking at amoeabs, then reading book on molecular genetics, smelling Turing universality, then by reading Gödel's proof and the discovery of how to handle self-duplication and self-reference in representational machine, ... I did not take this too much seriously until my understanding of Church thesis deepens. The closure of computerland for diagonalization makes universal machine extremely universal, if I can say. This is a presupposition that arises somehow in the lexicon you have established within your overall framework of thinking. It has lead me to some interest with that hypothesis. Let me have a stab at how my view and yours correlate. In my view A) There is a natural world. We, Turing machines dogs, computers are all being 'computed' by it. This is a set of unknown naturally occurring symbols The natural 'symbols' interact naturally. This is 'natural computation'. NOT like desktop computing. Universe U ensues. Scientist S is being computed within U Scientist S can observe U from within. U makes use of fundamental properties of the symbols to enable observation, from within. Call this principle P-O If by natural world you mean the world of the natural numbers with addition and multiplication, I am OK. I can picture your A). No. Here's where we part company. This presupposition about the relation between the abstractions for quantity we call numbers, and the natural world is one I do not make. All you can logically claim is that it is made of a large set of 'something', these 'somethings' interact simultaneously, on mass. The 'numbers' do not relate to each other like natural numbers, but they do relate in a way that can be MODELLED using natural numbers. If by natural world you mean the physical worlds as seen by 'numbers', what you say might be locally correct, but that remains to be proved (assuming comp). No. You have it all backwards. You can assume _nothing_ about the natural world and abstract number systems. B) This is a symbolic description of U created by S from within U S can concoct a description of the natural symbols in (A) It need not be unique, many (B) correspond to one (A) S can never know if it's completely done. S can never know the real nature of the sybols in (A) Descriptions (B), with P-O, explains observation and the observer S C) There is a _second_ description It is also concocted by S These are the normal empirical laws we all know so well ? It describes how the U appears to S from inside It need not be unique, many (C) correspond to one (A) No (C) ever explains observation. In this framework
Re: Maudlin How many times does COMP have to be false before its false?
Hi David, All comments appreciated. In Rather, he is saying that IF computational science is assumed (e.g. by proponents of CTM) to be the correct mind-body theory, THEN the appearance of the body (and consequently the rest of matter/energy) must emerge as part of the same theory It's possible that we have fallen foul of our implicit projections onto the words 'correct mind-body theory'. If one was in possession of such a thing, what exactly has one got? Options: (1) appearing things (scientific rule-abidedness of appearances, to an observer/scientist) (2) actual things prior to being observed. (3) The T-computation of rules of appearances (1) (4) The rule-abidedness of actual things (2) _regarded as_ 'computation' (5) The T-computation of (4) rules where (a) T-computation means abstract symbol manipulation of the kind in a standard computer. (b) observation is observational qualia in the scientist, not mere measurement. NOTE: Standard empirical laws of nature are rules in (1). The COMP I and others refute is hypothesis that a (3) is indistinguishable from a (1). The existence and behaviour of scientists and their consciousness proves (1) rules are not the same as (4) rules Is a 'correct mind-body theory' (1) or (4) rules running/not running as per (3) or (5) or ..what? I can't tell. Pick any two and then confuse them with each other, and you can see how many ways there are to be talking at cross purposes. I choose not to conflate any of these things. The words 'assuming comp' sometimes appear to be (1)/(3) confusion and other times seems to be (1)/(5) confusion and other times seems to be T-computation confused with (4) natural rule-abidedness as 'computation'. Any of these conflations lead to an impoverished view based on undiscussed presupposition. If comp is true or false, which of these is being addressed? Not very clear to me. The words 'assuming comp' sound, to me, like 'implicitly confusing THIS with THAT then it follows that ...etc etc ..'. Then, when I try to sort out the confusion, I get told I am confused because I cannot force myself to conflate 2 justifiably different things? Yikes. I am here to finally nut out a design decision before I start to build. That design decision is ultimately what this discussion is about: balancing doubts and then choosing. So here it isBased on typical scientific principles, I'll build my AGI based on the best available well founded analysis (multiple well placed arrows of doubt, zero cases supporting it in any other way other than faith) that indicate my design preference should be not to use (3) or (5) to create an AGI. Emulate, not simulate. BE the thing, don't merely pretend to be the thing to an observer. I have that level of certainty at least. I guess a word of thanks is in order. Thanks! :-) Colin David Nyman wrote: On 1 February 2011 22:53, Colin Hales c.ha...@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au wrote: Colin Do forgive me for butting in on an exchange I sometimes only dimly follow, but I think I may possibly see a misunderstanding on your part about what Bruno actually claims about comp (forgive me, both of you, if I'm wrong). As I've understood Bruno over the years, he has never asserted that comp(utational science) necessarily is the fundamental science of body and mind. Rather, he is saying that IF computational science is assumed (e.g. by proponents of CTM) to be the correct mind-body theory, THEN the appearance of the body (and consequently the rest of matter/energy) must emerge as part of the same theory. In other words, EITHER the correctness of comp as a mind-body theory directly implies the emptiness of any fundamental theory of matter; OR alternatively (i.e. accepting a fundamental theory of matter) comp can't be the correct mind-body theory. The establishment of this disjunction depends on a number of logical steps, culminating in a class of reductio thought experiments including Maudlin's Olympia/Klara and Bruno's MGA, the burden of which is to reveal contradictions inherent in any such conjunction of computationalism and materialism. As it happens, Maudlin uses this result to reject CTM, and Bruno follows the opposite tack of rejecting materialism. There is some controversy over these results from supporters of CTM who continue to find ways to dispute them with auxiliary assumptions. Personally, these auxiliaries strike me as being rather in the nature of epicycles, but then I'm hardly an authority. Anyway, forgive me if this was already obvious, but I suppose the conclusion might be that, if you reject fundamental computational science as your basic theory of matter, Bruno would expect you to take the same tack with respect to mind. I'm sure both he and you will put me right on this. David Bruno Marchal wrote: On 01 Feb 2011, at 07:51, Colin Hales wrote: Hi Bruno, I have been pondering this issue a bit and I am intrigued about how you regard the problem space we
Re: Maudlin How many times does COMP have to be false before its false?
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 9:53 AM, Colin Hales c.ha...@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au wrote: In relation to Stathis' request: If you model a natural environment presenting some problem to a human within that environment, the simulated human will arrive at the same solution as the real human would have. If intelligence is problem-solving behaviour, there is therefore no difference between the natural world and the model provided that the model is in fact a good one. Your claim that computers cannot replicate human intelligence is thus equivalent to a claim that there is some process in the human brain which is not Turing emulable. What process do you No. This is just plain wrong. You cannot model an observation of something that you have no idea of the evidence of .i.e. You cannot model the unknown. If you could then you'd already know it (the observer and the relationship of the observer to everything else. If you want to get at unknowns, then you have to model a modeller of the unknown ... and then _assume_ that everything in a model captures the reality you are modelling, during the process. Of course you can model the unknown: there would be no point to computer models otherwise. You include in the model the rules determining the system's behaviour, run it, and prepare to be surprised. The non-Turing emulable part of the natural world is the relationship between every little bit X and every other bit of it that is NOT directly related to X. A product of massive parallelism created by a massive collection of the entities of which we are actually made, which is best assumed not to be abstract numbers if you want to understand it. This is something we inherit by 'being' in the world. Something that cannot be simulated. Something that a Turing Machine (computer), totally different to us physically, does not get in its program. By way of example, I have attached a video of a simulated neuron firing. It's from a paper I have in review at the moment. The video depicts the currents originating the biologically realistic EM fields around a neuron due to the ion channels involed in an action potential. It was produce by the package NEURON. In it you will see a pair of red/blue interfaces travelling away from the soma. These interfaces are virtual evanescent current-dipoles. They are mathematically describable, but form no part of the mathematical description that generated them. THAT is what is missing. These are the virtual relationships not accessed by the mathematics of a Turing machine. No matter what is going on in a Turing machine, NONE of this kind of phenomenon are accessed by it. If the NEURON model is good enough then you can use it to simulate a collection of neurons such as the human brain. This would allow you to simulate the motor output of a brain when it is presented with sensory input: in other words, when your model is presented with a problem it will process the data and present you with a solution, the same solution as a biological brain would have. The proviso is, of course, that the model is good enough. Do you think that there is some aspect of neuronal biochemistry that cannot be modelled at all by a computer? The question is 'what is it like to BE those fields'. It cannot be claimed to be like the mathematical description that represents them, nor can it be claimed to be 'like' being the computer running the simulation. We can agree that the simulation of the fields or the ion channels or whatever is not the same thing as the original, but simply predicts how the original will behave. That's sufficient for intelligence. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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.
Re: Maudlin How many times does COMP have to be false before its false?
On 2/1/2011 11:11 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 9:53 AM, Colin Hales c.ha...@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au wrote: In relation to Stathis' request: If you model a natural environment presenting some problem to a human within that environment, the simulated human will arrive at the same solution as the real human would have. If intelligence is problem-solving behaviour, there is therefore no difference between the natural world and the model provided that the model is in fact a good one. Your claim that computers cannot replicate human intelligence is thus equivalent to a claim that there is some process in the human brain which is not Turing emulable. What process do you No. This is just plain wrong. You cannot model an observation of something that you have no idea of the evidence of .i.e. You cannot model the unknown. If you could then you'd already know it (the observer and the relationship of the observer to everything else. If you want to get at unknowns, then you have to model a modeller of the unknown ... and then _assume_ that everything in a model captures the reality you are modelling, during the process. Of course you can model the unknown: there would be no point to computer models otherwise. You include in the model the rules determining the system's behaviour, run it, and prepare to be surprised. The non-Turing emulable part of the natural world is the relationship between every little bit X and every other bit of it that is NOT directly related to X. A product of massive parallelism created by a massive collection of the entities of which we are actually made, which is best assumed not to be abstract numbers if you want to understand it. This is something we inherit by 'being' in the world. Something that cannot be simulated. Something that a Turing Machine (computer), totally different to us physically, does not get in its program. By way of example, I have attached a video of a simulated neuron firing. It's from a paper I have in review at the moment. The video depicts the currents originating the biologically realistic EM fields around a neuron due to the ion channels involed in an action potential. It was produce by the package NEURON. In it you will see a pair of red/blue interfaces travelling away from the soma. These interfaces are virtual evanescent current-dipoles. They are mathematically describable, but form no part of the mathematical description that generated them. THAT is what is missing. These are the virtual relationships not accessed by the mathematics of a Turing machine. No matter what is going on in a Turing machine, NONE of this kind of phenomenon are accessed by it. If the NEURON model is good enough then you can use it to simulate a collection of neurons such as the human brain. This would allow you to simulate the motor output of a brain when it is presented with sensory input: in other words, when your model is presented with a problem it will process the data and present you with a solution, the same solution as a biological brain would have. The proviso is, of course, that the model is good enough. Do you think that there is some aspect of neuronal biochemistry that cannot be modelled at all by a computer? I think it very likely that the brain can be so modeled. But the meaning that simulated brain, as expressed in it's output decisions relative to inputs is dependent on the rest of the world, or at least of it with which the brain will interact - including the past evoutionary history which led up to the brain. Its computations have no canonical interpretation in themselves. Brent The question is 'what is it like to BE those fields'. It cannot be claimed to be like the mathematical description that represents them, nor can it be claimed to be 'like' being the computer running the simulation. We can agree that the simulation of the fields or the ion channels or whatever is not the same thing as the original, but simply predicts how the original will behave. That's sufficient for intelligence. -- 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.
