Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 17/02/2008, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Lanier's rainstorm argument is spurious nonsense.
That's the response of most functionalists, but an explanation as to
why it is spurious nonsense is needed. And some such as Hans Moravec
have actually conceded that the argument is valid:
http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1998/SimConEx.98.html
If I can see the folly in Lanier's argument, and Moravec cannot, then
more's the pity for Moravec.
The first problem arises from Lanier's trick of claiming that there is a
computer, in the universe of all possible computers, that has a machine
architecture and a machine state that is isomorphic to BOTH the neural
state of a brain at a given moment, and also isomorphic to the state of
a particular rainstorm at a particular moment.
This is starting to be rather silly because the rainstorm and computer
then diverge in their behavior in the next tick of the clock. Lanier
then tries to persuade us, with some casually well chosen words, that he
can find a computer that will match up with the rainstorm AND the brain
for a few seconds, or a few minutes ... or ... how long? Well, if he
posits a large enough computer, maybe the whole lifetime of that brain....?
The problem with this is that what his argument really tells us is that
he can imagine a quasi-infinitely large, hypothetical computer that just
happens to be structured to look like (a) the functional equivalent of a
particular human brain for an indefinitely long period of time (at least
the normal lifetime of that human brain), and, coincidentally, a
particular rainstorm, for just a few seconds or minutes of the life of
that rainstorm.
The key word is "coincidentally".
When people like Lanier allow themselves the luxury of positing
infinitely large computers (who else do we know who does this? Ah, yes,
the AIXI folks), they can make infinitely unlikely coincidences happen.
He then goes on to draw an inference back from the infinitely unlikely
coincidence to one of the things involved in the coincidence: to wit,
the rainstorm.
If you insert nonsense into your proof, you can prove nonsense.
Richard Loosemore
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singularity
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