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Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

thenewatlantis.com

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Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#51

Post by RivieraKid »

I haven't read that article (yet) but I strongly agree with the title. I've been thinking about this for years and have come to the following conclusions:

* Physics will never be able to explain consciousness. That's because consciousness is fundamentally subjective and therefore out of the scope of science. This is very counterintuitive, because science was able to explain almost everything so far, why would consciousness be different? One way to answer that would be that consiousness has a "meta" relation to science, it's one level above science (in a sense, don't take it too literally).

* The Descarte's mind-matter duality model is correct in principle.

* The solipsism theory is about right too.

(I'm a very rational and sceptical percon btw.)

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#52

Post by RivieraKid »

tikhonj wrote: post #8

It feels like this article sets up something of a straw man. The analogy that a mind is like a computer is just that, an analogy . It's used to present the high-level structure of the brain in a accessible, understandable way, not as a logical argument. This analogy is not the justification for why people believe that "the mind can be replicated on a computer". And yet the article tries to disprove the latter, deep a…

I have a totally opposite view, I think it's almost certain that there's something very special about mind / consciousness.

For example, notice that the content of your conciouness is the only thing that's certain. Law of physics can change. Or you might wake up from matrix (recursively multiple times). Basically anything can happen. But the fact that you feel good (or bad) at this moment is certain. Mind is something like a window to the physical world.

Also, consciousness is subjective, physics cannot describe it, not even in theory.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#53

Post by maxerickson »

RivieraKid wrote: post #52
tikhonj wrote: post #8

It feels like this article sets up something of a straw man. The analogy that a mind is like a computer is just that, an analogy . It's used to present the high-level structure of the brain in a accessible, understandable way, not as a logical argument. This analogy is not the justification for why people believe that "the mind can be replicated on a computer". And yet the article tries to disprove the latter, deep a…

I have a totally opposite view, I think it's almost certain that there's something very special about mind / consciousness. For example, notice that the content of your conciouness is the only thing that's certain. Law of physics can change. Or you might wake up from matrix (recursively multiple times). Basically anything can happen. But the fact that you feel good (or bad) at this moment is certain. Mind is somethin…

Your last statement is only true until it isn't.

(Imagine a device that projects some unknown field at you and can predictably manipulate your subjective experience; it must have a sufficiently complete model of your consciousness and it is difficult to say much more than it is unlikely to be possible)

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#54

Post by eli_gottlieb »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #50
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just the Church-Turing Thesis all over again, with a dash of metaphysical nondeterminism. So far, everything in reality seems to be "made of" either determinism or randomness. There might be a third option (and options beyond that), but we haven't seen one or thought of one yet. So far, computation can model determinism perfectly well (after all, computation is just very orderly, bottled-up determinism harnessed…

Interesting argument. Is it fair to summarise it as: (a) Mathematics models the deterministic and random aspects of reality; (b) Mathematics reduces to computation; (c) Church-Turing says that all computation is equivalent; (d) Therefore a Turing machine[2] can fully model reality. "When you get deep enough, mathematics is in fact reducible to computation (paging Robert Harper)." Could you elaborate on that, as it se…

This Robert Harper, indeed:

http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/the-holy-tri...

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~gds/PLMW/harper-plmw13-talk.pdf

Types are propositions! Programs are mappings! Computation is proof!

These are the truths of this world! Submit to those truths, you webdevs in human clothing ;-)!

(I'm always hoping someone will catch the obscure references I throw into my comments, but alas.)

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#55

Post by Smaug123 »

RivieraKid wrote: post #52
tikhonj wrote: post #8

It feels like this article sets up something of a straw man. The analogy that a mind is like a computer is just that, an analogy . It's used to present the high-level structure of the brain in a accessible, understandable way, not as a logical argument. This analogy is not the justification for why people believe that "the mind can be replicated on a computer". And yet the article tries to disprove the latter, deep a…

I have a totally opposite view, I think it's almost certain that there's something very special about mind / consciousness. For example, notice that the content of your conciouness is the only thing that's certain. Law of physics can change. Or you might wake up from matrix (recursively multiple times). Basically anything can happen. But the fact that you feel good (or bad) at this moment is certain. Mind is somethin…

"notice that the content of your conciouness is the only thing that's certain".

Tell that to someone with multiple personalities. Tell that to someone who has brain injuries reducing them to a vegetable. Trauma applied to the brain directly and (to an extent) predictably causes changes to the consciousness, making its contents anything but certain.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#56

Post by RivieraKid »

Smaug123 wrote: post #55
RivieraKid wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a totally opposite view, I think it's almost certain that there's something very special about mind / consciousness. For example, notice that the content of your conciouness is the only thing that's certain. Law of physics can change. Or you might wake up from matrix (recursively multiple times). Basically anything can happen. But the fact that you feel good (or bad) at this moment is certain. Mind is somethin…

"notice that the content of your conciouness is the only thing that's certain". Tell that to someone with multiple personalities. Tell that to someone who has brain injuries reducing them to a vegetable. Trauma applied to the brain directly and (to an extent) predictably causes changes to the consciousness, making its contents anything but certain.

I think you've misunderstood what I meant. For example, when I see a lion, I can be certain about it. It may be a hallucination and suddenly disappear but that doesn't change anything, I really saw the lion.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#57

Post by chrisdevereux »

tikhonj wrote: post #8

It feels like this article sets up something of a straw man. The analogy that a mind is like a computer is just that, an analogy . It's used to present the high-level structure of the brain in a accessible, understandable way, not as a logical argument. This analogy is not the justification for why people believe that "the mind can be replicated on a computer". And yet the article tries to disprove the latter, deep a…

I don't think the article is saying that the mind cannot be replicated by a computer. It's questioning the use of computational concepts to model human intelligence.

To make the same point differently, if you wanted to replicate human intelligence in its entirety (rather than creating something capable of performing some well-defined task), AI is far too high a level of abstraction. You might be able to replicate a universe and wait for intelligence to evolve, but you still wouldn't understand the intelligence you had created.

The danger of the hardware/software analogy is that we deliberately separated computer systems into (mostly) well-defined and cleanly separated layers. Given how hard it is to avoid leaky abstractions in computer systems that are: (a) vastly less complex than human intelligence and (b) designed to be layered, the systems responsible for human intelligence probably don't expose the clean API required for us to understand them using high-level concepts.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#58

Post by ThomPete »

RivieraKid wrote: post #56
Smaug123 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"notice that the content of your conciouness is the only thing that's certain". Tell that to someone with multiple personalities. Tell that to someone who has brain injuries reducing them to a vegetable. Trauma applied to the brain directly and (to an extent) predictably causes changes to the consciousness, making its contents anything but certain.

I think you've misunderstood what I meant. For example, when I see a lion, I can be certain about it. It may be a hallucination and suddenly disappear but that doesn't change anything, I really saw the lion.

No you saw something that you interpret as a lion. Thats a very different thing.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#59

Post by RivieraKid »

ThomPete wrote: post #58
RivieraKid wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've misunderstood what I meant. For example, when I see a lion, I can be certain about it. It may be a hallucination and suddenly disappear but that doesn't change anything, I really saw the lion.

No you saw something that you interpret as a lion. Thats a very different thing.

I was refering to the experience of seeing, to the state of my mind. In other words, when I feel pain, I know with absolute certainity that I currently have this unpleasant feeling that I call pain.

Re: Why Minds Are Not Like Computers (2009)

#60

Post by ThomPete »

RivieraKid wrote: post #59
ThomPete wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you saw something that you interpret as a lion. Thats a very different thing.

I was refering to the experience of seeing, to the state of my mind. In other words, when I feel pain, I know with absolute certainity that I currently have this unpleasant feeling that I call pain.

Which does not mean that what you experience is pain.
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