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The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

plato.stanford.edu

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Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#51

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

randomImmigrant wrote: post #19

I believe machines could be made that think. But not purely digital ones. The brain most certainly isn’t a thinking machine precisely because it doesn’t have the luxury of unlimited time. Its design is not based on executing best algorithms, but rather finding good enough solutions among many time constrained but interlinked signal cascades. The brain and body instead construct time, a cohesive internal one,from the…

Machines already do think.

Any reasonable definition of "thinking" includes what LLMs do. One would have to craft a rather arbitrary and tortured definition of "thinking" to include human thinking but exclude LLM thinking.

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#52

Post by ChaitanyaSai »

Self Plug Alert!

For those interested in topic, our book Journey of the Mind would be a great introduction from a systems-thinking perspective. As you'll see on goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60500189-journey-of-t... the reaction tends to be a bit bimodal, so at least some of you will find it absolutely fascinating.

We go from the simplest possible model of a mind (a single sensor and doer coupled together,separate from the world around them)to consciousness and beyond.

I am quoting a couple because I find it fascinating how readers have such widely differing reactions. (JoM actually does have an explanation for this: we are each a unique bundle of experiences cohering into an identity and a perspective)

"This book is both dense with biology and science as well as equally dense with a holistic philosophy that will genuinely shift your perspective on your place as a human, person and animal."

"Written in a cutesy, "fellow kids" tone that feels less like a serious exploration of the mind and more like someone trying to pander to what they imagine zoomers want. The style makes it almost unreadable and wastes your time. "

"We are all neurons in a (currently diseased) supermind. We are not just ourselves but collectively a Self, made of past and present (and artificial) intelligence. Collectively, a God that dictates the fate of other neurons, life forms, and ultimately, the universe at its whim. Without a doubt, this is one of the best books I have ever read."

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#53

Post by cgio »

elendilm wrote: post #50
cgio wrote: post #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…

To anyone who has ever built, designed or debugged physical hardware, the paper's "groundbreaking conclusion" is a mundane reality of physics that a state isn't practically a state unless it lasts long enough to be read.

Exactly the intent of it! Does not claim inventing any physics, just relating it to implementation in philosophy. The graded theory is a bit more advanced on the physics front but not ready yet.

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#54

Post by CMay »

bofadeez wrote: post #15
timshell wrote: post #14

This was the core premise behind my research during grad school and beyond. My favorite project — which ultimately became my dissertation — was a proposal to connect reinforcement learning algorithms, neuronal data, psychological behavior, and phenomenology. Specifically, the idea was the feeling of cognitive fatigue is a mathematical signal to ‘rest’, in which the value of rest is defined by offline mechanisms that…

That's not going to work: https://vod.video.cornell.edu/media/1_sfv907qp Conscious agents are creating spacetime. Not the other way around: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4060643/

Is this a misunderstanding of what the double slit experiment actually means, or am I misinterpreting it? If this is based on the idea that reality changes strictly as a result of a conscious observer existing and it is somehow related to consciousness, etc, that is not accurate.

I learned this years ago from Philip Ball, one of the editors of Nature. There have been other scientists helping to clear up the confusion recently, though.

Here is Sean Carroll explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNOJV4G7Ips

Here is Sabine Hossenfelder explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npc6Mn2CZV8

Philip Ball explained it in Beyond Weird: https://www.audible.com/pd/Beyond-Weird-Audiobook/B07L5XK4BL

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#55

Post by lioeters »

elendilm wrote: post #39
ChrisGreenHeur wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

There have been experiments in "digital primordial soup", where primitive programs are cultivated under conditions with evolutionary pressure.

Computational Substrates: How Well-formed, Self-replicating Programs Emerge from Simple Interaction - https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.19108

Brainfuck, Forth, Subleq, and most recently Z80 assembly programs with mutations, interactions, and self-modification. Z80 has an LDIR instruction that copies a block of data from one location in memory to another, which allows the "organisms" to reach/discover reproduction quicker and more reliably in repeated experiments. As soon as that happens, it inevitably takes over the "world".

Hm, sounds more like "Lord of the Flies" than Rings.

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#56

Post by elendilm »

cgio wrote: post #53
elendilm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To anyone who has ever built, designed or debugged physical hardware, the paper's "groundbreaking conclusion" is a mundane reality of physics that a state isn't practically a state unless it lasts long enough to be read.

Exactly the intent of it! Does not claim inventing any physics, just relating it to implementation in philosophy. The graded theory is a bit more advanced on the physics front but not ready yet.

Curious about your paper (assuming you are the author). Clarify if I misunderstood.

Doesn't introducing separate time slices automatically forces you into a continuum of time and therefore the "Instantaneous" requirement "I" become meaningless.

One can't evaluate physical state transitions without continuous time or atleast some form of mathematical ordering.

But if you strip away continuous time and keep only the abstract "ordering", you are again back in the world of pure mathematics where states never decay and memory never fades.

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#57

Post by elendilm »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #7
firasd wrote: post #5

Doesn’t the concept of a subconscious, or inner voice, invalidate any tight analogies to Turing Machines? What logical process is putting the Fur Elise into my head (earworms etc) I think this article is right that definitions really matter here cause one could argue “CTM is trivial, because we can describe almost any physical system as executing computations.” So we have a dual problem here—not just the difficult di…

Wonder if the subconscious could simply be another LLM with a higher temperature setting… Have long thought that creativity is little more than a finely tuned filter driven by noise…

Agreed. Well said.

Trying to maintain that our mind is unreachable by the laws of logic is absurd.

If reachable by laws of logic, then it can be stated. If it can be stated, it can be executed.

Its funny that the very act of chaining sentences is what logic is. And every human thought can be written as a sentence.

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#58

Post by elendilm »

lioeters wrote: post #55
elendilm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

There have been experiments in "digital primordial soup", where primitive programs are cultivated under conditions with evolutionary pressure. Computational Substrates: How Well-formed, Self-replicating Programs Emerge from Simple Interaction - https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.19108 Brainfuck, Forth, Subleq, and most recently Z80 assembly programs with mutations, interactions, and self-modification. Z80 has an LDIR instruc…

The Paper's Scope: Abiogenesis (how self replicating programs emerge).

My Scope: Evolution proper (what happens after a replicator exists).

Once a self-replicating entity exists, the Weasel loop takes over. Conflating the origin of replicators with the mechanics of evolution itself mixes up two different things.

Laws of logic dictates if you can demonstrate E with R, M and N, then any additional variable is neither sufficient nor necessary.

From a strict theory-of-computation standpoint, if the core loop can be executed in code, then biological evolution is fundamentally an informational process, not a mystical "biological-only" phenomenon.

> As soon as that happens, it inevitably takes over the "world".

Agreed :). Looking forward to an epic battle of the pelennor fields.

> sounds more like "Lord of the Flies" than Rings.

Thats hilarious. "Lord of the Flies" it shall be henceforth :))

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#59

Post by cgio »

elendilm wrote: post #56
cgio wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the intent of it! Does not claim inventing any physics, just relating it to implementation in philosophy. The graded theory is a bit more advanced on the physics front but not ready yet.

Curious about your paper (assuming you are the author). Clarify if I misunderstood. Doesn't introducing separate time slices automatically forces you into a continuum of time and therefore the "Instantaneous" requirement "I" become meaningless. One can't evaluate physical state transitions without continuous time or atleast some form of mathematical ordering. But if you strip away continuous time and keep only the ab…

I wouldn’t call an instant as meaningless in a continuum. It is indeed, though, non primitive and idealised as traditionally in physics (the physical state at time t, given as the limit of arbitrarily fine time resolution). If I understand your question correctly, the interesting issue is not whether instants exist as an idealisation, but how independent observations can be synchronised well enough to assess a physical implementation of an abstract mapping. That is a genuinely difficult problem, and one that appears even if time is discrete. It is one of my current work subjects. Anyone who has worked on distributed systems will recognise that ordering events is one thing, establishing a common notion of “now” is another. Once again, no “grand conclusions“ from me!

Re: The Computational Theory of Mind (2015)

#60

Post by fragmede »

elendilm wrote: post #57
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder if the subconscious could simply be another LLM with a higher temperature setting… Have long thought that creativity is little more than a finely tuned filter driven by noise…

Agreed. Well said. Trying to maintain that our mind is unreachable by the laws of logic is absurd. If reachable by laws of logic, then it can be stated. If it can be stated, it can be executed. Its funny that the very act of chaining sentences is what logic is. And every human thought can be written as a sentence.

> every human thought can be written as a sentence.

No they can't. I have things in my brain that I don't have words for, that I'm able to find things other people have done to help me express them. You can attach sentences to music and art, but a picture is worth a thousand words. The thoughts on my head when I saw the latest Banksy, for example. Maybe I'm abberationally ineloquent, but I don't think I'm that exceptional.

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