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Computation as a universal and fundamental concept

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Re: Computation as a universal and fundamental concept

#161

Post by Diogenesian »

MAESTRO1955 wrote: post #157

Computation cannot simulate consciousness! https://deepmind.google/research/publications/231971/

Read the title a little more closely :) As far as we know computation actually can simulate consciousness:

- given any system of quantum particles, a sufficiently large Turing machine can solve the matching system of Schrodinger equations

- the human body, including the brain, is certainly a system of quantum particles

- even if you think quantum behavior is directly relevant to consciousness (I don't) certainly there is nothing "beyond" quantum mechanics that would be necessary to explain it, so our system of Schrodinger equations should be able to model human consciousness

- so a Turing machine can simulate a human, including consciousness

The paper argues that this simulation of consciousness is not the same thing as actual consciousness.

Re: Computation as a universal and fundamental concept

#162

Post by Robotbeat »

BirAdam wrote: post #73
Diogenesian wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information and computation are not the same thing. I was very specifically talking about Turing machines and other theoretical models of computation. That said, you are still making the same mistake I pointed out, elevating human symbolic information to a higher plateau than it deserves. I think it's because you're being too vague about the connection, when it's fairly mundane. The "fundamental connection" is that p…

I’ve always hated the use of the word “information” in relation to things like spin. Information and order are effects of human perception and preference. They exist as abstractions in the mind and not in reality.

Landauer’s Principle (a direct consequence of the Second Law of thermodynamics) shows there’s a very clear physical manifestation of information and information theory, it is not just human perception and preference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle

Re: Computation as a universal and fundamental concept

#163

Post by Twey »

masfuerte wrote: post #118
Twey wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet there is a correct algorithm — it's either the const yes algorithm or the const no algorithm. We don't _know_ which algorithm it is, but that's not relevant to the definition of undecidability, which only requires that the algorithm exist.

Cheers, I had missed the nuance.

In constructive mathematics I think you'd be right: to call a problem decidable would require you to produce the algorithm that decides it, so you couldn't call the Collatz conjecture decidable (nor could you call it undecidable!). But the usual definition of decidability is classical.

This is slightly bizarre now I think about it: the definition of decidability allows the algorithm selection to be undecidable!

Re: Computation as a universal and fundamental concept

#164

Post by chriswarbo »

peter_m1 wrote: post #114
chriswarbo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way to empirically spot an uncomputable process, since it would require infinitely-many observations. For example, if aliens claim their machine solves the halting problem, we could test it on millions of inputs whose halting/not-halting behaviour we already know; but even if it works for all of them, there's no way to know that it works for all inputs. For all we know, it might be a huge lookup table whic…

No, you can prove things hold in the abstract mathematically, don't need to resort to physical systems.

I was responding to this part:

> if our universe is undecidable

My point is, there would be no way to empirically test this; and therefore, it would make no observable difference, there would be no way to exploit/utilise such effects, etc.

In essence: there's no way to tell the difference between a real halting oracle (which would imply an undecidable universe), versus a computable approximation which just-so-happens to be more powerful/sophisticated than the approximations we compare it against.

Sure, we can prove that some abstract systems are undecidable and that others aren't. Yet that distinction is inherently unfalsifiable, and hence physically "useless".

Re: Computation as a universal and fundamental concept

#165

Post by MAESTRO1955 »

Diogenesian wrote: post #161
MAESTRO1955 wrote: post #157

Computation cannot simulate consciousness! https://deepmind.google/research/publications/231971/

Read the title a little more closely :) As far as we know computation actually can simulate consciousness: - given any system of quantum particles, a sufficiently large Turing machine can solve the matching system of Schrodinger equations - the human body, including the brain, is certainly a system of quantum particles - even if you think quantum behavior is directly relevant to consciousness (I don't) certainly ther…

You are right, of course I was in a rush to type, so I misspoke. What I meant to say is that computational simulations of consciousness may make it impossible for anyone to definitively diagnose whether it is a simulation or real consciousness. So, computational simulation of consciousness may render any consciousness detection tools useless. Again, my apologies for my earlier mistake.

Re: Computation as a universal and fundamental concept

#166

Post by GoblinSlayer »

Diogenesian wrote: post #152
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it obvious that scientific method is fallible? It's just statistically better than pure reason, which should be possible to demonstrate statistically. It's a product of trial and error, and there were many errors, I don't think there's much metaphysics there.

The problem is not that it's fallible, but that there's no noncircular explanation for why it seems to work. Inductive reasoning doesn't have a rational explanation, only an intuitive one. I don't think your claim is possible to prove statistically - what does "pure reason" mean? And of course it's "pure reason + empirical observations": even if they're not running reproducible experiments they still see natural phen…

It works because humans looked for a method that works, they tried different methods and chose one that works best, actually it gradually evolved over time.

Pure reason is conjecture with little empirical input (and big intuitive or memey input) and little verification of output, i.e. a large deviation from empiricism.

Re: Computation as a universal and fundamental concept

#167

Post by GoblinSlayer »

voidhorse wrote: post #156
jibal wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your epistemic position is ultimately just as faith based as you claim faith in God etc. This lie is so tiresome. It's notable that science has a history of effectively producing confirmable fact whereas religion produces only falsehoods.

You are missing the point. Let me use "fabulashinaism" which is a theory I just made up that posits that the universe is made up of little gnomes called atoms. There is a sense in which all of my observations hence will be "theory laden". When I seek "proof" i'm likely to do so within the constraints of fabulashinaism. Science proceeds in the same way. Only crises, which are unpredictable and may have much more than…

Observable effectiveness can be demonstrated statistically. The only option I see is if it's unobservably ineffective, which can't be ruled out experimentally.

Re: Computation as a universal and fundamental concept

#168

Post by GoblinSlayer »

RandomLensman wrote: post #158
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decay process is calculated as sqrt(1-exp(-t/T))|1> + sqrt(exp(-t/T))|0>

How do you use that to predict which atom decays next?

The decayed state exists, it's the second term sqrt(exp(-t/T))|0>

Re: Computation as a universal and fundamental concept

#170

Post by deterministic »

Diogenesian wrote: post #49

There are a lot of long comments basically saying what I am about to say so I will try to keep this brief: Computation is a metaphysically universal and fundamental concept, since metaphysics is (tautologically) the domain of humans and we use symbolic communication. So of course very general theories of symbolic processes (e.g. Turing machines) are pertinent to the symbolic methodology we use to understand scientifi…

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