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AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

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Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#371

Post by somenameforme »

kevin42 wrote: post #348
somenameforme wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think science and consciousness go together quite well at this point. I'll claim consciousness doesn't exist. Try to prove me wrong. Of course I know I'm wrong because I am conscious, but that's literally impossible to prove, and it may very well be that way forever. You have no way of knowing I'm conscious - you could very well be the only conscious entity in existence. This is not the case because I can str…

There are more than one theories, as well as some evidence that consciousness may not exist in the way we'd like to think. It may be a trick our mind plays on us. The Global Workspace Theory addresses this, and some of the predictions this theory made have been supported by multiple experiments. If GWT is correct, it's very plausible, likely even, that an artificial intelligence could have the same type of consciousn…

That again requires assuming your own conclusion. Once again I have no way of knowing you are conscious. In order for any of this to not be nonsense I have to make a large number of assumptions including that you are conscious, that it is a physical process, that is an emergent process, and so on.

I am unwilling to accept any of the required assumptions because they are essentially based on faith.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#372

Post by Dylan16807 »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #337
vidarh wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly don't understand what a function means in this context, as the word function is not used in this thread in the way you appear to think it is used. For starters, to have any hope of having a productive discussion on this subject, you need to understand what "function" mean in the context of the Church-Turing thesis (a function on the natural numbers can be calculated by an effective method if and only if i…

My original reframing was: the only way of showing that artificial intelligence can be constructed is by showing that humans cannot compute more than the Turing computable. I was assuming the word 'compute' to have broader meaning than Turing computable - otherwise that statement is a tautology of course. I pointed out that Turing computable functions are a (vanishingly) small subset of all possible functions - of wh…

You don't need a closed-form solution to calculate trajectories with more precision than you can prove the universe uses.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#373

Post by zapperdulchen »

kolinko wrote: post #166
dragonwriter wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alternatively, in order to not be contradictory doesn't it require the assumption that humans are not "algorithmic"? But does that not then presuppose (as the above commenter brought up) that we are not a biochemical machine? Is a machine not inherently algorithmic in nature? No, computation is algorithmic, real machines are not necessarily (of course, AGI still can't be ruled out even if algorithmic intelligence i…

Using computation/algorithmic methods we can simulate nonalgorithmic systems. So the world within a computer program can behave in a nonalgorithmic way. Also, one might argue that universe/laws of physics are computational.

> Also, one might argue that universe/laws of physics are computational.

Maybe we need to define "computational" before moving on. To me this echoes the clockwork universe of the Enligthenment. Insights of quantum physics have shattered this idea.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#374

Post by somenameforme »

pixl97 wrote: post #340
somenameforme wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciousness is an issue. If you write a program to add 2+2, you probably do not believe some entity poofs into existence, perceives itself as independently adding 2+2, and then poofs out of existence. Yet somehow, the idea of an emergent consciousness is that if you instead get it to do 100 basic operations, or perhaps 2^100 then suddenly this becomes true? The reason one might believe this is not because it's logi…

>Yet somehow, the idea of an emergent consciousness is that if you instead get it to do 100 basic operations, or perhaps 2^100 then suddenly this becomes true Why not? You can do a simple add with assembly language in a few operations. But if you put millions and millions of operations together you can get a video game with emergent behaviors. If you're just looking at the additions, where does the game come from? Is…

You're not speaking of a behavior but of a "thing." Your consciousness sits idly inside your body, feeling as thought it's the driving all actions of its free will. There's no necessity, reason, or logical explanation for this thing to exist, let alone why or where it comes from.

No matter how many instructions you might use to create the most compelling simulation of a dragon in a video game, neither that dragon or any part of it is going to poof into existence. I'm sure this is something everybody would agree with. Yet with consciousness you want to claim 'well except its consciousness, yeah that'll poof into existence.' The assumption of physicalism ends up requiring people to make statements that they themselves would certainly call absurd if not for the fact that they are forced to make such statements because of said assumption!

And what is the justification for said assumption? There is none! As mentioned already quantum entanglement is posing major issues for physicalism, and I suspect we're really only just beginning to delve into the bizarro nature of our universe. So people embrace physicalism purely on faith.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#375

Post by catoc »

giardini wrote: post #369
catoc wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That about ‘cogito ergo sums it up’ doesn’t it? Intelligence is clearly possible. My gut feeling is our brain solves this by removing complexity. It certainly does so, continuously filtering out (ignoring) large parts of input, and generously interpolating over gaps (making stuff up). Whether this evolved to overcome this theorem I am not intelligent enough to conclude.

catoc states, amongst other things, that: >"Intelligence is clearly possible." Perhaps not a citation but a proof is required here!

Clearly possible in humans - the statement in the parent I was replying to.

I would indeed definitely like to see proof - mathematical or applied - of in silico intelligence

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#376

Post by aoeusnth1 »

ICBTheory wrote: post #101
like_any_other wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me steal another users alternate phrasing: Since humans and computers are both bound by the same physical laws, why does your proof not apply to humans?

Why? 1. Basically because physical laws obviously allow more than algorithmic cognition and problem solving. (And also: I am bound by thermodynamics as my mother in Law is, still i get disarranged by her mere presence while I always have to put laxatives in her wine to counter that) 2. human rationality is equally limited as algorithms. Neither an algorithm nor human logic can find itself a path from Newton to Einste…

The standard model is computable, so no. Physical law does not allow for non-computable behavior.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#377

Post by _cs2017_ »

vidarh wrote: post #178
_cs2017_ wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you justify the use of the following words in your comment: "largely" and "probably"? I don't see why they are needed at all (unless you're just trying to be polite).

I see the paper as utter twaddle, but I still think the "largely" and "probably" there are reasonable, in the sense that we have not yet actually fully simulated a human brain, and so there exists at least the possibility that we discover something we can't simulate, however small and unlikely we think it is.

I agree that there maybe something we can't simulate. This has nothing to do wtih the paper. The paper makes no contribution to this discussion besides stating the obvious, with no definitions, no non-trivial insights. Moreover, it outright misleads the reader by claiming to "prove" something.

I can write a useless and poorly-argued paper about P != NP (or P = MP), and it would be twaddle regardless of whether or not I guessed the equality / inequality correctly by pure chance.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#378

Post by vessenes »

stevenhuang wrote: post #129
ICBTheory wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure I can (and thanks for writing) Well, given the specific way you asked that question I confirm your self assertion - and am quite certain that your level of Artificiality converges to zero, which would make you a GI without A... - You stated to "feel" generally intelligent (A's don't feel and don't have an "I" that can feel) - Your nuanced, subtly ironic and self referential way of formulating clearly suggests th…

These are.. very weak rebuttals.

Agreed. I thought my followup qs were fair. I'd like to understand the argument, but the first response makes me think it's not worth wading too deeply in.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#379

Post by moomin »

kbelder wrote: post #362
ben_w wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you rarely got to see letters and just saw fragments of words as something like Chinese characters (tokens), could you count the R's in arbitrary words well? While this seems correct, I'm sure I tried this when it was novel and observed that it could split the word into separate letters and then still count them wrong , which suggested something weird is happening internally. I just now tried to repeat this, and…

Counting letters is such a dull test. LLMs generally have a hard time with this question because letters are tokenized before they receive them, and they have to go through an involved reasoning process to figure it out. It's like asking a color blind person what color the street light is, and declaring him unintelligent because he sometimes gets the answer wrong.

I mean, if you don’t want to include tests that LLMs are, by definition, bad at, why don’t we do the same thing for humans?

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#380

Post by alganet »

int_19h wrote: post #361
alganet wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"emergent superintelligent AI" is as much superstition as believing in imaterial souls. One company literally used the term "people spirits" to refer to how LLMs behave in their official communications. It's a cult. Like many cults, it tries to latch on science to give itself legitimacy. In this case, mathematics. It has happened before many times. You're trying to say that, because it's computers and stuff, it's sci…

I didn't say anything about "emergent superintelligent AI".

I'm confused.

We are on a comment section about a post with AGI in the title.

The term is scientifically vague, but it is estabilished in the popular culture that it is related to superintelligence and emerging behavior. If you don't agree, you owe the reader a better definition.

Given this context, if you're not talking about that, what are you talking about then?

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