> On 15 Sep 2019, at 14:51, Alan Grayson <agrayson2...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 9:51:01 AM UTC-6, Alan Grayson wrote: > > > On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 9:07:58 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote: > On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 9:18 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com <>> wrote: > > >> The only thing I can ascribe consciousness to with absolute certainty is > >> me. As for intelligence, if something, man or machine, has no way of > >> knowing when it made a mistake or got a question wrong it will never get > >> any better, but if it has feedback and can improve its ability to > >> correctly answer difficult questions then it is intelagent. The only > >> reason I ascribe intelligence to Einstein is that he greatly improved his > >> ability to answer difficult physics questions (like what is the nature of > >> space and time?), he was much better at it when he was 27 than when he was > >> 7. > > > The point I am making is that modern computers programmed by skillful > > programmers, can improve the "AI"'s performance. > > Well yes. Obviously a skilled programer can improve a AI but that's not the > only thing that can, a modern AI programs can improve its own performance. > > I just meant to indicate it can be programmed to improve its performance, but > I see nothing to indicate that it's much different from ordinary computers > which don't show any property associated with, for want of a better word, > WILL. AG > > > I see nothing to specially characterize this as "artifical intelligence". > > What am I missing from your perspective? AG > > It's certainly artificial and if computers had never been invented and a > human did exactly what the computer did you wouldn't hesitate for one > nanosecond in calling what the human did intelligent, so why in the world > isn't it Artificial Intelligence? > > OK, AG > > John K Clark > > Bruno seems to think that if some imaginary entity is "computable", it can > and must exist as a "physical” entity
Not really. I am claiming that, once we assume mechanism (like Darwin, Descartes, Turing, …), then the physical reality cannot be a primary thing, i.e. something that we have to assume to get a theory of prediction and observation. If something exist in some fundamental sense, it is not as physical object, but as a mathematical object. Then Digital Mechanism let us choose which Turing universal system (a purely mathematical, even arithmetical notion) to postulate, and as elementary arithmetic is such a Universal system, I use that one, as people are familiar with it since primary school. > -- which is why I think he adds "mechanism" to his model for producing > conscious beings. The hypothesis of Mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a level of description of the functioning of my brain such that I would survive, in the usual clinical sense, with a computer emulating my brain at that level. It is a very weak version of Mechanism, as no bound is put on that description level, as long as it exists and is digitally emulable. Typically Penrose is the only scientist explicitly negating Mechanism, where Hamerrof is still a mechanist. My reasoning works through even if the brain is a quantum computer, thanks to Deutsch’s result that a QC does not violate the Church-Turing thesis. > But this, if correct, seems no different from equating a map to a territory. That is correct. But that is because a brain is already a sort of map, and a sufficiently precise copy of a map is a map. > If we can write the DNA of a horse with a horn, does this alone ipso facto > imply that unicorns are existent beings? AG That depends on the definition of unicorn. But staying alive-and-well is a more absolute value, that you can judge when serving an operation in a hospital, and the mechanist hypothesis is that we can survive with a digital brain transplant, like today we could say that we can survive with an artificial heart. That’s why give an operational definition of “mechanism” by the fact that it means accepting the doctor’s proposition to replace the brain, or the body, by a computer. The negation of Mechanism is much more speculative, because we don’t know any non Turing emulable phenomenon in nature (except the wave packet reduction fantasy). Only ad hoc mathematical construction shows that some non computable functions can be solution of the Schroedinger Equation, like Nielsen Ae^iHt with H being a non computable real number (like Post, or Chaintin’s numbers). Bruno > > > > > > > -- > 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 everyth...@googlegroups.com <>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/02eba413-dc29-4621-9692-ae9e8cfba125%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/02eba413-dc29-4621-9692-ae9e8cfba125%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. > > -- > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > <mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/30bd8cd9-3132-4699-8437-3a22b4c6d293%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/30bd8cd9-3132-4699-8437-3a22b4c6d293%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2DF3FFE6-C0D8-456C-819A-CC286A667819%40ulb.ac.be.
