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Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

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Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#41

Post by justinpaulson »

theaiguy wrote: post #20
justinpaulson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was mainly commenting on the OP's position that the author was 'not trained in CS'. Here is a list of things I believe that the human brain performs outside of computation: The irrational motivations that take us over when we feel love. The way that our mood can affect a decision. Taking a walk to enjoy the beauty of the sunset. Writing a satirical short story to express a political fallacy. Painting an image that…

Ultimately these arguments come down to qualia. But there is no reason to think qualia is a) present in other brains except your own, but b) not present in any non-brain information processing system. Philosophers of mind have tried to make that argument, but end up appealing to intuition. In terms of computability, folks like Boden and Sloman showed in the 90s that emotion is compatible with computability. Even more…

Firstly, I never said my opinion was humble.

Secondly, a good argument is not a proof. We have such a limited understanding of our own emotion and cognition that it is impossible to say that we have proven anything about how compatible emotion is with computation. Hands are continually waved over the existence of qualia and the argument, like you presented yourself, is that we have no way of proving that qualia won't exist for an artificial intelligence that has been programmed for emotional compatibility. I believe that is a fallacy, and it is side-stepping the root of the argument about qualia, and the real root of what self-realization and consciousness is. By saying, look I can make this machine do everything you do and act as if it feels like you do, you are not proving that you have encapsulated all that is cognition. You are only proving that you can mimic cognition. It could be retorted "Well how do you know this machine doesn't really feel like you feel?" I don't know that. But we really aren't learning anything about consciousness by ignoring the question with such a fallacy.

I believe AI has a very important role in rapidly evolving our way of life as we continue in this technological evolutionary cycle. However, I think it does nothing to teach us about ourselves and how our minds actually work. It is nothing more than mimicry. And nothing can be proven based on how an AI bot operates for the materialist or the idealist, so it is aimless to think that AI is how we will understand our own cognition.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#42

Post by justinpaulson »

TickleSteve wrote: post #28
justinpaulson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that simulation still ignores a certain qualia that has grown from our existence. There is something else happening that we don't understand and I think it is a bit short-sighted to assume that we can simulate it, definitely not now, and possibly never.

your argument is equivalent to "we dont understand it, therefore it must be super-natural".

No, my argument is that we don't understand it, therefore we can't assume that our simulation is anything close to the same process.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#43

Post by [deleted] »

justinpaulson wrote: post #10
sudo_free_cake wrote: post #2

This is why people not trained in CS shouldn't speculate on it, when they do you get garbage like this. The brain performs computation, it is by definition a computer. Before modern computers there was a human job, called, computer. One who performs computations. The analogy of the brain to a computer is perfect, because the brain is a computer.

Except the author does in fact have a BS in CS. IMO, the brain does far more than performing computation. Sure humans were once "computers," but our ability to perform computation is not a valid argument to that computation, or the inner workings of our mind, being the same as digital computers performing computation. You failed to look up the author's credentials and I feel like you may have also failed to read the…

[deleted]

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#44

Post by sudo_free_cake »

theaiguy wrote: post #20
justinpaulson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was mainly commenting on the OP's position that the author was 'not trained in CS'. Here is a list of things I believe that the human brain performs outside of computation: The irrational motivations that take us over when we feel love. The way that our mood can affect a decision. Taking a walk to enjoy the beauty of the sunset. Writing a satirical short story to express a political fallacy. Painting an image that…

Ultimately these arguments come down to qualia. But there is no reason to think qualia is a) present in other brains except your own, but b) not present in any non-brain information processing system. Philosophers of mind have tried to make that argument, but end up appealing to intuition. In terms of computability, folks like Boden and Sloman showed in the 90s that emotion is compatible with computability. Even more…

^this guy, thank you

Philosophy of mind should be part of education so that people learn duality is bullshit.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#45

Post by sudo_free_cake »

wwweston wrote: post #23
sudo_free_cake wrote: post #2

This is why people not trained in CS shouldn't speculate on it, when they do you get garbage like this. The brain performs computation, it is by definition a computer. Before modern computers there was a human job, called, computer. One who performs computations. The analogy of the brain to a computer is perfect, because the brain is a computer.

It's not clear how much the brain is like most of the computers even CS specialists or engineers have encountered. Actually, that's putting it mildly. AFAICT it's pretty accurate to say that the brain is about as far from a Von Neumann computer as it is from older favorite analogies like clockwork. Also, while it's clear the brain can do computation, it's not clear that everything it does is computation.

If you take models of computation you will learn anything that can do computation is a computer. A bag of rocks is a computer, you can add and remove rocks to perform computation.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#47

Post by theaiguy »

justinpaulson wrote: post #41
theaiguy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately these arguments come down to qualia. But there is no reason to think qualia is a) present in other brains except your own, but b) not present in any non-brain information processing system. Philosophers of mind have tried to make that argument, but end up appealing to intuition. In terms of computability, folks like Boden and Sloman showed in the 90s that emotion is compatible with computability. Even more…

Firstly, I never said my opinion was humble. Secondly, a good argument is not a proof. We have such a limited understanding of our own emotion and cognition that it is impossible to say that we have proven anything about how compatible emotion is with computation. Hands are continually waved over the existence of qualia and the argument, like you presented yourself, is that we have no way of proving that qualia won't…

> is that we have no way of proving that qualia won't exist for an artificial intelligence

You misunderstood my objection. The issue is not whether we can prove such a thing, but can we differentiate between different information processing systems in arguments that qualia exist at all. You assume qualia is a thing that brains do. On what basis do you assume anyone other than you have them, such that implies that no other systems do?

Qualia is one of those topics academics tend to roll their eyes at when it is brought up. Because it appears to do a lot, but in most cases is a variation of 'because I feel like it should be true'.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#48

Post by theaiguy »

wwweston wrote: post #29
theaiguy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Can I suggest you read Penrose again with a little more critical thought. There are problems it is possible to prove are not computable. But can you prove that human beings can solve them? Tessellation of the infinite plane? Please demonstrate a person that can solve this (i.e. not that they have a > 99.9% chance of being able to do it, or that you can show they can start out pretty successfully and you assume…

> But can you prove that human beings can solve them? > Tessellation of the infinite plane? Please demonstrate a person that can solve this Penrose himself would seem to be a demonstration that there is at least one person, IIRC. Is your argument that uncomputable really just means no guaranteed success, and that just because some human can get a solution to an uncomputable problem doesn't mean that it isn't followin…

You misunderstand the result Penrose has shown. There are plenty of aperiodic tessellations of the plane that can be computationally generated. The issue is whether a computer can, in all cases, determine if a set of shapes can tile aperiodically.

I don't understand the second bit. But, no. Computability has very specific definition. Getting a solution to an uncomputable problem isn't generally hard. It is trivial to create a program that will solve the halting problem for an infinite class of cases. The issue is that such solutions can be shown not to be general over all cases.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#49

Post by cactusface »

theaiguy wrote: post #47
justinpaulson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, I never said my opinion was humble. Secondly, a good argument is not a proof. We have such a limited understanding of our own emotion and cognition that it is impossible to say that we have proven anything about how compatible emotion is with computation. Hands are continually waved over the existence of qualia and the argument, like you presented yourself, is that we have no way of proving that qualia won't…

> is that we have no way of proving that qualia won't exist for an artificial intelligence You misunderstood my objection. The issue is not whether we can prove such a thing, but can we differentiate between different information processing systems in arguments that qualia exist at all. You assume qualia is a thing that brains do. On what basis do you assume anyone other than you have them, such that implies that no…

If you can simulate matter, certainly you can simulate a brain. Qualia appear not to derive from pixie dust but accumulated experience in the world. You might need to train a brain for a long time to develop qualia. You might not be able to copy qualia from one brain to another. I think these are the main objections, but I'm not sure.

Personally, I'm not convinced that simulating matter is feasible, never mind a living organism, never mind an intelligent living organism, which is what the brain is, when you account for all of it.

We know how far away Andromeda is. We know how to build a spaceship. Therefore, it is possible to go to Andromeda. Is it though? What if the Earth doesn't have enough resources? How big is your brain simulator allowed to be?

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