Computationalism is the idea that the brain is an information processing system and that a computer can perform all the complex behaviors that would be called intelligent if it were done by a human; computationalism does NOT insist that everything is information processing (although it does not rule out that possibility). If a n AI is made that is as smart or smarter than humans then we'll know it's right, if that proved to be impossible then we'll know computationalism is wrong.
Most of the things on your list, although very interesting in themselves, are irrelevant as far as the truth or falsehood of computationalism is concerned. For example, maybe we can't make perfect predictions of what physical systems will do because an infinite number o f calculations would be needed and that would be impossible, or maybe a finite but astronomically large number of calculations would be needed and that would be impractical, or maybe calculations have nothing to do with it and some effects have no cause and true randomness exists; it doesn't matter because for whatever reason the fact remains that the human mind can't predict with perfect precision what a physical system will do. And computationalism has a lot to say about intelligent behavior but it has nothing to say about consciousness, no scientific theory does because we all only have direct access to one conscious being and good science can't be done with just one data point , and any argument in support of the proposition that a computer that behaves intelligently is not conscious could also be used in support of the proposition that none of our fellow intelligent behaving human beings are conscious. John K Clark ============================================================ On Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 2:18 AM, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: Bruno has often spoken of the confirmations of computationalism known to > date, and of the idea that it has passed many tests and not been falsified > so far. I was hoping with this post to gather a complete list of those > tests. What things in physics would disprove computationalism, and what > tests has it passed so far? Below I try to collect a complete list from > memory but it may be faulty. I ask that others might add to this list or > correct things I have gotten wrong: > > Tests and statuses of each test: > > - Non-emulability of physical laws > - Non-discreteness (continuousness) of space time --- (somewhat > confirmed > <https://phys.org/news/2015-03-einstein-scientists-spacetime-foam.html> > ) > - Infinite computation needed for tiniest amount of space --- (mostly > confirmed > > <https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/222858/feynmans-question-on-the-mathematical-machinery-underlying-nature> > ) > - Quantum Mechanics > - Uncertainty principal (inability to collect exact and complete > knowledge about environment) --- (confirmed > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle>) > - Indeterminancy --- (appearance of randomness is confirmed > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_indeterminacy>, explanation > for being an "appearance only" i.e. first person indeterminancy vs. > fundamental randomness is made is plausible > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation>) > - Born Rule? > - Quantization of Energy? > - Unitarity > - General Physics (I am not sure if these are required by > computationalism, and could use some more help on these) > - Linearity of physical laws? > - Time reversibility? > - Conservation of Information? (e.g. black hole information paradox) > - Finite Description of Quantum States (e.g. Bekenstein Bound > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound>) > - Link between Entropy and Information (e.g. Landauer's Principle > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle>) > - Existence of a "Time" dimension? > - Consciousness > - Qualia - The non-communicable nature of some observations ? > - Finiteness - (finite memory / age / information content of > experience)? > > Are there other things I am missing? If any of the items I have included > are incorrect I would greatly appreciate any correction and further insight. > > Perhaps most interesting are any predictions which are presently > unconfirmed, as this would lead to predictions which could later be tested > and lead to a refutation of computationalism (or if passed, yield further > evidence for computationalism). > > Jason > > > -- 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 post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
