On Sun, Dec 28, 2025 at 3:33 PM Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
*>> It wasn't me, it was YOU who claimed that an English to German >> translating computer's inability to explain what its circuitry consists of >> is somehow relevant to the question at hand! * > > > * > It's exactly as relevant as your assertions below that "If Einstein > was "a single unified system" then he should've been able to explain in > German or English exactly how he was able to come up with such good ideas" > We seem to agree that being a unified system does not entail being able to > explain how the system works. * > *No, we do not agree at all! IF Einstein was a single unified system THEN he should be able to use words to explain how his mind works. But he was unable to do so, and that's why I do NOT believe that Einstein or any human being is "a single unified system", if the system in Einstein's mind that could talk and the system that came up with General Relativity and other wonderful ideas had been the same system then he could explain exactly how he was able to do it and we could follow his instructions and be just as smart as he was, but he was unable to do that. * *However, the part of Einstein's mind that could talk was able to say that "words don't play a significant role in my thinking mechanism". So what thinking method did Einstein use? When asked that question the best answer Einstein could come up with is visual images and muscular sensations that he combines in interesting ways. If you think that explanation is vague and unclear then I agree. And that is exactly my point.* > *> I have offered that a system may be unified in terms goal(s). * > *GPT has a goal of pleasing its users and Michelangelo had a goal of pleasing the Pope, when they were both asked to draw pretty pictures they were both able to do so, but neither of them could explain how because the system that could talk was different from the system they could draw, both systems could think but one used words to do so and the other did not. * > *> Did you really disagree or are you just trying to score debating > points?* > *If this had been a debating contest I would've certainly won points because you attempted to show that humans and computers were fundamentally different, and I was able to completely dismantle your argument. However in school I discovered that I disliked being in the debate club and was not very good at it because I was assigned to which side of an argument to take and I was unable to effectively argue for something that I didn't agree with, and trying to do so was quite unpleasant. So I would've been a lousy lawyer. * *John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* evv -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv2RUEVWxP1kr6MyojegPgV3M2UGFE0L5OFM0%3DzrNx_DiQ%40mail.gmail.com.
