141–150 of 166 posts
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You've just described a way go store, process, and/or retrieve information. A lossy and generative one. We've modelled similar ones on both digital and analog machines. It not being a conventional implementation doesn't mean what it's doing isn't computation.
I didn't say it wasn't computation. I said it wasn't a computer.
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This caused me some indigestion. I don't consider myself either for or against Fodor's argument but I think the summary does great injustice to his arguments. Fodor does claim that, for what he describes as language, systematicity and compositionality are essential features. However, the "evidence" he cites isn't from a study. It is primarily from facts about language. To use one of his favorite examples, take these…
> He takes those facts to be uncontroversial, and he says that that is what he means by systematicity and compositionality. Right, but Chemero's point is that that premise is not so empirically grounded; it is an a priori assumption. I am not familiar with this literature, but it's ultimately the same point that he makes against Chomsky's poverty of the stimulus argument (the literature on which I know much better):…
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The day before this article appeared, I participated to a talk about consciousness, and the presented dismissed the functional approaches to explaining consciousness. That is, if consciousness processes information, it is not a information processor LIKE the computer is. You can not define a thing by what it does, but only what it is. The electron is not something that moves through space, but something that has mass…
This triggered a thought in my head, that homo sapiens are basically "better" consciousness machines where as a chimpanzee or dolphin a slightly less powerful conscious machine, and so on down to a cockroach which is a tiny pre-programmed micro-controller. This would imply some of us are less conscious than others to some degree. However, I now see the crux of the issue you've discussed by asking, "How do I measure c…
I'd even argue that people who never ever ponder their existence aren't conscious at all. They simply execute their DNA, nothing more, nothing less. On the other side are the few whose DNA and upbringing have enabled them to act on themselves. I see this as the main difference between conscious and unconscious people: the former take in their surroundings and the voices in their head to draw certain conclusions based on which they set certain actions on said voices, whereas the latter is happy with the reward and punishment system nature has laid out in our brains.
Then of course, there's everything in between, mixed-and-matched wildly, leading to the gradient that is consciousness (quite literally a gradient, slipping off is very easy, climbing back onboard can be damn near impossible).
- Good models are important While the traditional computer model is good at explaining behavior, it doesn't help us ask new questions. And no matter how well what we currently know brain fits the traditional computer model, if it can't be used to inspire new questions then we need to explore new models. Feynman explains this better [https://youtu.be/NM-zWTU7X-k]. Even though our finite non-magic brains could fit in a computer, a computer isn't the best metaphor.
- Computers don't act like brains by themselves. In any FUZZY LOGIC compiled and ran on a computer, all your code is translated into functions and data. LOSSY COMPRESSION is actually the application of experiments on perception, and not an inherent property of computers. A jpg is designed to look the same while using less space, but the information from it is not integrated in the same way as a human. Our MEMORY is not like a computer's. It is shockingly constructive, something that isn't expected with the computer model.
- New programming paradigms might be better models. My beef with the metaphor is that is has very separate memory and computation. I don't think the brain "reads and writes from memory". I think it creates and updates a mesh of functions. Something like FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING could be used to model this. What if instead of looking for a neural hard drive, we treat each neuron as a function? What if generation of a dollar bill is actually OPTIMIZATION of our recognition function? What if we are a PIPELINE of functions, each feeding into the next from retinas to occipital lobe to thalamus to motor cortex to muscles? I would rather see new ideas coming from us than holding on to an outdated metaphor.
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I think that's a way too restrictive definition of computation. I'd argue genetic code (messenger RNA) is a program and inputting genes and outputting proteins is a form of computation.
So with that definition, how is fire not computation?
BTW, I don't believe in free will. You mentioned earlier that there needs to be some magic somewhere and I don't think there is magic. Occam's razor and all that...
There are certainly odd things in this article. What I think the author wants to get at:
We don't store specific information like "on a dollar bill, there's a line going from x of the left side to y of the bottom side with a curvature of z" in a specific container labeled "info about dollar bills", to be read out everytime you interact with one.
Instead, each time we pay using such a bill, the chain of neurons firing from the moment you open your purse to the moment you get your receipt, as a whole, is responsible for your internal representaion of a dollar bill: (1) first glimpse of sheets of paper in purse (2) fumble indivual sheets to examine more closely (3) recognize key elements like green colour, rectangular, famous bust in the center (4) in case you didn't, now you know you've got cash in there (5) remember the total, do some arithmetic to figure out which bills to hand over (6) extract bills from purse (7) extend hand to hand cash over to cashier (8) wait for receipt/pack things (9) get receipt (10) purchase complete.
This entire chain (which is obviously incomplete for the sake of demonstration), with all the completely unrelated stuff about rummaging in a purse or human interaction, comes together to form what you think of as a dollar bill. This is how we store information, by relating it to stuff we already know.
Which is why it makes sense that babies come into this world with only the bare minimum. We don't pop out ready made, that's the whole point of childhood and adolescence. We build ourselves, unconsciously incorporating our surroundings into our personality, by constantly relating to what we know, comparing new things to old things. This implies that a faulty impression early on has disastrous consequences in whatever is built afterwards, meaning most of it.
(edit) just came up with a nice formulation: the brain doesn't store raw data as in pixels or decimal values, it stores characteristics and rebuilds the thing you're thinking about as well as your medium of expression allows it to (which is why you can always think about something, but when asked to draw or describe it, it just seems impossible). This explanation is far from perfect, and I don't understand how our notions of numbers for example comes to be, but seeing as maths is really just a load of charateristics giving intersting results when combined, I see no problem.
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So with that definition, how is fire not computation?
Where is the computation in fire? BTW, I don't believe in free will. You mentioned earlier that there needs to be some magic somewhere and I don't think there is magic. Occam's razor and all that...