Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Polanyi’s Paradox

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 48 posts

Re: Polanyi’s Paradox

#21

Post by sdenton4 »

beaconstudios wrote: post #19

I've been reading Alan Watts' "the way of Zen" recently and this point forms a strong central pillar of his explanation. What we think of as our mind or our self, the conscious mind, seems to be basically a paper thin director on top of all the real functionality which is much more powerful and evolutionarily much older. Relatedly, our use of language to describe and identify things and phenomena falls prey to the ma…

Consciousness is a tiny aperture through which the universe looks at itself...

(Watts is great.)

Re: Polanyi’s Paradox

#22

Post by lisper »

I don't understand why this is a paradox. Isn't it just obvious that no system can contain a complete model of itself? That would be an infinite regress and hence would require infinite information.

Re: Polanyi’s Paradox

#23

Post by natosaichek »

lisper wrote: post #22

I don't understand why this is a paradox. Isn't it just obvious that no system can contain a complete model of itself? That would be an infinite regress and hence would require infinite information.

A human contains code that can recreate a complete model of that human....

Maybe you're saying that a human can't fit into a human? I agree it's not a paradox, but not for the reasons you seem to be implying.

Re: Polanyi’s Paradox

#24

Post by naringas »

H8crilA wrote: post #5

Next time someone asks me how does a modern artificial neural network really work - I'll just ask them "how do you know that my face does indeed look like mine?". Or "how do you recognize people by their voices?". Or this creepy one: "can you consciously stop decoding the English I'm speaking now?". This Wikipedia page can serve as an extension of the argument.

> "can you consciously stop decoding the English I'm speaking now?"

as a speaker of English as a second language this used to happen to me once I was sufficiently tired.

I can almost do it in my native language if I am distracted "just right" (easier if it's being spoken with a different accent)

Re: Polanyi’s Paradox

#25

Post by naringas »

natosaichek wrote: post #23
lisper wrote: post #22

I don't understand why this is a paradox. Isn't it just obvious that no system can contain a complete model of itself? That would be an infinite regress and hence would require infinite information.

A human contains code that can recreate a complete model of that human.... Maybe you're saying that a human can't fit into a human? I agree it's not a paradox, but not for the reasons you seem to be implying.

what code are you refering to?

if you mean DNA, then humans do not "speak" (nor think in) this code, heck... teams of people with post-docs don't even really understand it.

Re: Polanyi’s Paradox

#26

Post by lisper »

natosaichek wrote: post #23
lisper wrote: post #22

I don't understand why this is a paradox. Isn't it just obvious that no system can contain a complete model of itself? That would be an infinite regress and hence would require infinite information.

A human contains code that can recreate a complete model of that human.... Maybe you're saying that a human can't fit into a human? I agree it's not a paradox, but not for the reasons you seem to be implying.

> A human contains code that can recreate a complete model of that human

That's true, but irrelevant. We're talking about modeling a system here, not reproducing one. Those are not the same thing.

Re: Polanyi’s Paradox

#27

Post by JoeAltmaier »

naringas wrote: post #25
natosaichek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A human contains code that can recreate a complete model of that human.... Maybe you're saying that a human can't fit into a human? I agree it's not a paradox, but not for the reasons you seem to be implying.

what code are you refering to? if you mean DNA, then humans do not "speak" (nor think in) this code, heck... teams of people with post-docs don't even really understand it.

Further, most of the 'program' is in the cellular mechanics. DNA does nothing just sitting on a table. It must have a machine to 'execute on', and the cellular machinery is a whopper.

I liken DNA to a paper tape with two punches: one for 'man' and one for 'mouse'. You run it through an enormous machine, and depending on which hole is punched you get a man or a mouse. But the paper tape is an almost trivial part of the process.

Re: Polanyi’s Paradox

#28

Post by sixplusone »

pedro1976 wrote: post #4

I prefer Slavoj Zizek classification into knowns and unknowns. - Known-Knowns: things we know that we know - Known-Unknowns: things that we know we don’t know - Unkown-Unknowns: things we don’t know we don’t know - Unknown-Knowns: “The things we don’t know that we know-which is precisely, the Freudian unconscious, the “knowledge which doesn’t know itself,” as Lacan used to say. “. This is better known as culture.

I think it's more like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

We are be born with some functions at level 4, as well as acquire new skills without going through stages 1-3, otherwise there's no possible bootstrapping mechanism.

At bottom, the reason is always "because the structures in my brain create a signal pattern". Understanding that is really the ultimate knowledge.

Re: Polanyi’s Paradox

#29

Post by komali2 »

lisper wrote: post #22

I don't understand why this is a paradox. Isn't it just obvious that no system can contain a complete model of itself? That would be an infinite regress and hence would require infinite information.

Humans don't need to self-contain an entire model of a human in their brain. Multiple humans can come together and write disparate information down, for example.

Re: Polanyi’s Paradox

#30

Post by rdtsc »

pedro1976 wrote: post #4

I prefer Slavoj Zizek classification into knowns and unknowns. - Known-Knowns: things we know that we know - Known-Unknowns: things that we know we don’t know - Unkown-Unknowns: things we don’t know we don’t know - Unknown-Knowns: “The things we don’t know that we know-which is precisely, the Freudian unconscious, the “knowledge which doesn’t know itself,” as Lacan used to say. “. This is better known as culture.

Well he was mocking Rumsfeld there a bit, and added "Unknown-Knowns" to fill in the last quadrant of the 4x4 matrix, basically saying it is the ideology or subconscious at work.

But I think the idea is a bit different in that Polanyi's paradox is at a higher level of awareness. Say if someone can play chess but may not able to effectively teach it. Or the linked article in the wiki has jigsaw puzzles as an example.

Žižek was talking about deeper processes. Things like people acting according to say Christian ethics while rationally disavowing them and saying they oppose them. His traditional joke about is Niels Bohr with his horseshoe above the door: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTAp3KZwYl0

Post reply on HN