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The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

plato.stanford.edu

31–40 of 82 posts

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically Christian apologetics. We've collectively thought we were special for so long that must now go through increasingly complex mental gymnastics to prove to ourselves that we are somehow uniquely sentient, despite increasing evidence to the contrary.

This is neuroscience. I don't give a damn about Christianity. And nothing here says humans are special. Only that biology broadly is different than computing.

I agree that it's a bit reductionist to boil this down entirely to "Christian Apologetics," I think you'd have to do some serious rationalizations to see how the notion of human finitude, time as the limit of cognition, is not originally a Christian notion, or at least is not informed by secular interpretations of theology such as the first place where this claim is made, Being and Time. Which is even more interesting because even Heidegger moved away from time as binding finitude and eventually came to the position that cybernetics would replace philosophy, that fundamental ontology would not withstand technological advancement.

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#32
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Danny Hillis' Connection Machine have a von Neumann bottleneck? Do transputer arrays separate processing and memory? When custom silicon is made to speed up LLM behaviour doesn't that operate fully parallel with mixed memory and processing? When real time remote sensing signal processing pipelines are built isn't it possible to parallel in the kinds of filters that "anticipate" the expected future (and highlight…

Yes... when these things are done, we can talk. Which is why I said "I believe machines could be made that think". They can be. We just haven't done it yet.

> Yes.

To which question?

The Connection Machine CM-2 (1987) has a non von Neumann architecture and mixes memory and processing .. so that's been done, 40 years ago.

Anticipating the future in real time remote sensing signal processing pipelines has been about for at least [redacted] decades.

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#33

Just as the amplitudes program suggests that spacetime itself may be an emergent structure rather than the fundamental substrate of reality [1], the computational theory of mind may be mistaking an emergent representation for the source of consciousness. A more fundamental theory must therefore treat neural computation as an emergent interface within conscious-agent relations, rather than as the mechanism that genera…

I can prove things are the way they are outside my mind's perception of them, through the use of extra sensory devices.

Even in a Donald Hoffman esque icon:hardware situation - and I think he said - "I don't take the icon literally, but I do take it seriously" meaning that even though it's an illusion, it still performs the function, I have trouble with mind preceding matter.

It's the same trouble I have with human-like intelligence preceding worlds.

People come out of worlds, not the other way around.

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically Christian apologetics. We've collectively thought we were special for so long that must now go through increasingly complex mental gymnastics to prove to ourselves that we are somehow uniquely sentient, despite increasing evidence to the contrary.

This is neuroscience. I don't give a damn about Christianity. And nothing here says humans are special. Only that biology broadly is different than computing.

Yet, evolution, the foundation of modern biology is easily simulated by any decent coder in 10 minutes - lookup weasel program.

The audacity to still claim biology is broadly different than computing is commendable.

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is neuroscience. I don't give a damn about Christianity. And nothing here says humans are special. Only that biology broadly is different than computing.

Yet, evolution, the foundation of modern biology is easily simulated by any decent coder in 10 minutes - lookup weasel program. The audacity to still claim biology is broadly different than computing is commendable.

Evolution is very far from just being natural selection. It’s a quite complicated field with many mechanisms. And when simulated on a computer we have not gotten anything similar to real biology yet. So we have more to learn.

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, evolution, the foundation of modern biology is easily simulated by any decent coder in 10 minutes - lookup weasel program. The audacity to still claim biology is broadly different than computing is commendable.

Evolution is very far from just being natural selection. It’s a quite complicated field with many mechanisms. And when simulated on a computer we have not gotten anything similar to real biology yet. So we have more to learn.

No. Only 3 mechanics: replication, mutation and natural selection.

Write a weasel program and you will see for yourself.

current = "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

target = "THE LORD OF THE RINGS"

loop {

  replicas = replication(current)
  replicas = mutation(replicas)
  current = naturalSelection(replicas)

  print("generation", i, current)
  
  if (current == target)
     break   
}

You can thus make "Dog" turn into a "Cat". I rest my case :)

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#40
My thinking, tangential to the temporal section, is an Implementation Trilemma, a CAP style theorem. An implementation map can be:

1. instantaneous and faithful, at the cost of depending upon substrate-specific persistence parameters;

2. faithful and substrate-neutral, at the cost of requiring historical information;

3. instantaneous and substrate-neutral, at the cost of losing faithfulness.

No implementation map can satisfy all three simultaneously.

https://philarchive.org/rec/GIOTIT

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