141–150 of 153 posts
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Good point - maybe the analogy to computation arises simply because digital computation and the synthesis of DNA, RNA and proteins are all performed by discrete-state machines?
does DNA/RNA keep state other than the position of the read head?
If you believe in Dust Theory then yes life could be a form of computation where consciousness is just a pattern of discrete states.
I try not to believe in things from sci-fi stories.
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I think the issue with this way of thinking is that humans think in abstractions. Abstractions don't really exist, they're a product of the human mind, but then we apply them to nature. Calling DNA code, comparing NNs and the brain, etc. But those abstractions fall apart when you look a little too deeply at what actually happens in nature. Is DNA code? Or is it more like a machine? Is it neither, or is it something e…
> When you look at the nature of DNA, it does more than simply act as code. > It can edit and self-modify, self-assemble, self-replicate, it can turn genes on and off Unless my knowledge of biology is very outdated or incomplete, all of those things you cited are done to DNA. They don't happen spontaneously. DNA doesn't self-replicate, a whole bunch of enzymes come and actively copy it. Genes don't spontaneously turn…
This feels like the kind of popsci that's written for people who already agree with the author - there's nothing resembling an argument, or even a definition of "computation." There are nods to Church-Turing, but the leap from "every effectively calculable function is computable" to "life is a computation" is larger than anything you could fit in a book.
https://publicservicesalliance.org/2025/05/24/what-is-intell...
This feels like the kind of popsci that's written for people who already agree with the author - there's nothing resembling an argument, or even a definition of "computation." There are nods to Church-Turing, but the leap from "every effectively calculable function is computable" to "life is a computation" is larger than anything you could fit in a book.
Yes, the article appears to be a short excerpt from a book and probably loses a lot of context because of that. I am interested in the questions raised by the author but will wait for the book to come out. The good news is that it appears the book will be open access - MIT Press seems to be encouraging this lately (at least by allowing this as an option for authors).
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Just because something is computational doesn't mean it's deterministic. There are quantum effects and ghosts in the machine. Also, maybe the goal of the computation isn't to generate a deterministic output. Maybe it's just to compress a lot of very random input, in a way that smooths out the noise. In this way life could be essentially random on purpose, because all the varieties of randomness are better at modeling…
> Just because something is computational doesn't mean it's deterministic. There are quantum effects and ghosts in the machine. Maybe? It is correct according to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, but there are other interpretations that are deterministic.
I happen not to believe in this, personally. It seems to me that the non-dual metaphysical teachings of the East show us that determinism happens within a sphere that is subject to free-will. The realm of phenomenology is a subset of something greater, where nothing is bound by conditions. This is the way things necessarily must be for free will to exist, by the way.
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> analog computers don't generally compute by operating on symbols. For example see the classic video on fire control computers https://youtu.be/s1i-dnAH9Y4?t=496 > OP's specific phrasing is that they "map symbols to symbols". Analog computers don't do that. Some can, but that's not their definition. How is that not symbolic? Fundamentally that kind of computer maps the positions of some rods or gears or what have yo…
There's a confusion of nomenclature. Computers are functional mappings from inputs to outputs, sure. Analog fire computers are continuous mappings from a continuum, a line segment (curved about a cam), to another continuum, a dial perhaps. Symbolic operations, mapping from patterns of 0s and 1s (say) to other patterns are discrete, countable mappings. With a real valued electrical current, discrete symbols are forced…
> Symbolic operations, mapping from patterns of 0s and 1s (say) to other patterns are discrete, countable mappings.
What definition of "symbolic" are you using that draws a distinction between these two cases? If it means merely something that symbolises something else (as I would usually use it), then both a position on a line segment and a pattern of voltage levels qualify. If you mean it in the narrow sense of a textual mark, that pattern of voltage levels is just as much not a "symbol" as the position on the line segment.
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The only way we "know" is fundamentally not a computation
not sure what you mean. the only "knowing" (that we know of) is when a piece of the universe has an incomplete model of some other portion of the universe which it uses to make predictions (and i suppose toward the same goal, remember the past) in any case, the only pieces of the universe (in turn the only universe we know) are computing all the time. atoms, subatomic particles, are not static, they are interacting a…
I'm not too impressed with this article since it doesn't really give a definition for computing, just picks a few similarities between what we see as computing (in the practical sense) and what cells do. It's a shame because there *has* been a lot of deep work done on what kind of computer life is. People often use the Chomsky Hierarchy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy ) to define the different types…
Shapiro was also the author of one of the two PhD theses that were a major influence to Inductive Logic Programming, a field at the intersection of logic programming and machine learning.
A lot of the kind of "deep work" you mention used to be done in the logic programming and ILP community in times past, before everyone seemingly switched to neural nets and statistical machine learning.
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> Just because something is computational doesn't mean it's deterministic. There are quantum effects and ghosts in the machine. Maybe? It is correct according to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, but there are other interpretations that are deterministic.
Yes, agreed to both points; but generally speaking the consensus is that physics, dealing with immutable laws, pertains to and operates within an assumed context of determinism until proven otherwise. I happen not to believe in this, personally. It seems to me that the non-dual metaphysical teachings of the East show us that determinism happens within a sphere that is subject to free-will. The realm of phenomenology…
Ironically, the Copehhagen interpretation is the relatively easier one to grasp. Other interpretations, such as Many Worlds, make it much more complicated. Can we really speak of free will if we actually make every decision that we possibly could?