tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post9026523652119989925..comments2024-01-02T04:49:16.658-05:00Comments on He Lives: Spew the WooDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08688240424047203541noreply@blogger.comBlogger111125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-23139201136791638822011-12-15T16:42:48.744-05:002011-12-15T16:42:48.744-05:00Ohhhh, see I thought you were claiming REAL epiphe...Ohhhh, see I thought you were claiming REAL epiphenomenalism, hahaha, sorry :P<br />However, real epiphenomenalism is the only theory the mind that can accept reductionism, so I still maintain that you cannot hope to hold onto superdeterminism as a viable theory. Any other theory is going to have second order/top-down casuality, which denies reductionism and thus superdeterminism. For the record, superdeterminism claims that quantum mechanics is incomplete, so it is you who does not want to rely on explanations that "ultimately rest on QM".<br />That said, I never claimed that information is independent of matter, only that it is non-reductive. When I said that functions are independent of the matter that makes them (in functionalism), what I should have said is that they are substrate-neutral like Zilch said. Because functions (and not the properties of their materials) are the "real" casual forces in this theory it is not compatible with reductionism which denies the existence of second order causation and multiple realizability.<br />Therefore, you still must drop at least superdeterminism. As for functionalism, even if I do not really agree with it, I can at least begrudgingly admit that it is a more open question (though at the very least I think it is an incomplete theory as it stands right now).<br />Our conversation would have been a lot more fruitful if I knew you weren't trying to stick to real epiphenomenalism, so that is partially my bad for not noticing, but I sort of wish you made that clear earlier.<br />I think that as the issue stands right now, we do not have enough information to make further judgements. Personally, I am more sympathetic to Searle's position that simulation is not implementation and that the right matter should matter. You are more sympathetic to Dennet's position that a function, whether utilized by India, a computer, or a brain, is good enough consciousness. There is a chance you might be right, but I guess we will have to wait for a successful Turing test and more knowledge about how the brain stores information to find out.<br />Sorry for thinking you were crazy Wrf3! You are at most slightly eccentric.<br />But you know, I don't think you actually believe in superdeterminism either. When the scientists say "free will" they don't mean free will like we are using free will, they mean statistical independence. Statistical independence is something required for science in general, and rejecting it is 50 different kinds of ridiculous. What you believe in is something more like "fate", and I don't think you need superdeterminism to believe in that (I would argue that you probably don't need to reject free will either, but whatever). In other words, you don't need to believe that God is monkeying with physics just to break Bell's inequalities to think that he has a hand in guiding history.<br />At this point I am pretty sure we are at a "stalemate" due to the lack of available information, so any discussion past this point is pure woo and sophistry.<br />If it turns out you are right, I guess I can only hope that I am not one of the kites God decides to fly into a building. In the meantime, I intend to continue believing that I play some role in my destiny and that God really loves me enough to give up some of his own control for me.<br />Merry Christmas, SamiSamihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03649613938638506260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-38555480177658398542011-12-15T13:02:52.355-05:002011-12-15T13:02:52.355-05:00Neil wrote, but apparently deleted, Wrf3, all: I a...<b>Neil</b> wrote, but apparently deleted, <i>Wrf3, all: I am denying that all our brains can do is equivalent to "computation" (even though some of it surely is.) Sure, anything carrying out the same "operation" is doing the "computation" - that's why Searle's (?) "room in agony" is a good put-down of the absurdity of the idea that our *feelings* can come from computations....</i><br /><br />I assume you're going to repost an updated version of this. If so, I'll be glad to respond. Otherwise, I can respond to a similar post from you at 8:37 PM.wrf3https://www.blogger.com/profile/04657932934353372526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-79061755313328580382011-12-15T12:32:00.118-05:002011-12-15T12:32:00.118-05:00Wrf3, all: I am denying that all our brains can do...Wrf3, all: I am denying that all our brains can do is equivalent to "computation" (even though some of it surely is.) Sure, anything carrying out the same "operation" is doing the "computation" - that's why Searle's (?) "room in agony" is a good put-down of the absurdity of the idea that our *feelings* can come from computations. Imagine people in a big room sending memos that provide rules for what to do when you get one (or even playing a tag game with appropriate rules.) Such a room or game can provide answers to addition questions etc. and are "functionally equivalent" to a "real computer."<br /><br />OK ... but can this room or game "feel pain"? I don't think so, and attempts to pretend it can just don't convince. Like I said, we don't even have in principle the idea of how to represent "nausea" etc. I won't accept literally deranged denial indulgences either from people like Dennett, that we don't really have special qualitative feels etc.<br /><br />As for mathematical reality, it is a very minority and ill-supported idea that mathematical truth etc. at all depends on any "material substrate" to be meaningful (indeed, the big problem, as Modal Realists rightly state, is to define "material reality" and not to define "mathematical reality" - as far as logic is concerned.) Consider that lot's of math has no material counterpart - like the non-ratio nature of non-integer square roots, and their infinite digits.<br /><br />Finally, it isn't really a matter (pun as you wish) of whether mind is "an extra ingredient" or "just electrons in patterns" etc. The latter idea is <i>misleading</i> even if technically correct. Property dualism teaches that simplistic ideas of the thing as a given, don't take into account the different aspects "the same thing" (numerical identity) has in different contexts and how it is approached or "met." <br /><br />IOW, even if there is nothing but "electrons" etc there, the idea, the conceptual payoff, is inadequate: we are simply conceiving of some of the ways we encounter electrons, in our experience, and imagining (as a false naive realism) that is what they "are." <br /><br />But if we imagine the process as literally *being* different relative to how you get to it or have it, then we can reconcile (in general principle even if we don't have details) the <i>apparent</i> contradiction in "kind" between what we think is shown us as "neurological processes" and "our real experiences as they are to us." Hence things we thought were part of the identity of something and its objective traits, are seen as more like velocity: relative. (REM that velocity used to be considered an absolute.) (Also, still requires however more about *matter* than just "computation" - an additional consideration.)<br /><br />These ideas can be subtle and difficult but if anyone at least considers them, lots of things otherwise perplexing and/or distasteful are ameliorated.<br /><br />"Fine minds make fine distinctions."Neil Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04564859009749481136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-73326028507195741342011-12-15T12:24:32.350-05:002011-12-15T12:24:32.350-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Neil Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04564859009749481136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-15640840370666712942011-12-15T11:16:11.382-05:002011-12-15T11:16:11.382-05:00Once again I must agree with wrf: while one can ar...Once again I must agree with wrf: while one can argue about exactly what to call the patterns of, say, mathematics, I don't see any reason to believe that they can exist independent of matter. To be sure, the informational content of, say, 2+2=4 is <i>substrate neutral:</i> it can exist on paper, or in a pattern stored in a computer or a mind, but I don't see how it can exist with <i>no</i> substrate, and substrates are, in our experience, always made of matter.zilchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695741977946935771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-13931895826096488942011-12-15T11:05:45.691-05:002011-12-15T11:05:45.691-05:00Sami wrote: Math and meaning are "platonic st...<b>Sami</b> wrote: <i>Math and meaning are "platonic structures", non-reductive, and furthermore non-physical.</i><br /><br />You can't have "platonic structures" without matter. My post at 8:58 PM said that I disagree with Plato and Russell on this. You can't have information without "matter", more specifically, differences in "something." Uniformity has little informational contentwrf3https://www.blogger.com/profile/04657932934353372526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-26536895979524219612011-12-15T10:41:45.325-05:002011-12-15T10:41:45.325-05:00Sami wrote: Wrf3's real problem is that his id...<b>Sami</b> wrote: <i>Wrf3's real problem is that his ideology is a logical hydra.</i><br /><br />Except that you don't understand my ideology. You "destroyed" a creature of straw.<br /><br /><i>Let's not look at all the science that contradicts most of his positions, ...</i><br /><br />I'm not the one who confused information with meaning, or who rejects the position that the simulation of intelligence is intelligent (thereby declaring AI impossible by fiat!), or who doesn't understand that there are many ways to do the same computation, regardless of the complexity involved, or who wants to rely on explanations that don't ultimately rest on QM.<br /><br /><i>His three theories are functionalism (consciousness for computers), reductionism (everything can be reduced to its parts), and epiphenomenalism (conscious will is an illusion).</i><br /><br />I never said that conscious will is an illusion. Not once. I said that the idea that our will is free is an illusion.<br /><br /><i>If functionalism is true, and since functions are second order phenomena which are actually independent of the matter that makes them (including electricity), then reductionism is not true, which therefore disproves super determinism.</i><br /><br />This is false. Functions are not independent of the matter that makes them. Rather, different arrangements of matter can produce the same functional result.<br /><br />For example, I can calculate sines by using a taylor expansion, or interpolation on a lookup table. I can build an adder out of NAND gates or neurons. Different devices, different wiring, same result.<br /><br /><i>Furthermore, functionalism also does not mix with epiphenomenalism, since functions = consciousness and functions are casually potent in functionalist theory. If epiphenomenalism is true, ... </i><br /><br />I don't hold to epiphenomenalism, at least as strictly defined. Part of the problem is that I'm using the word based on the Greek meaning of "epi", while I suspect you're using in the formal sense in that mental states have no effect on physical states. That's certainly not true. Mental states are caused by electrons in motion in certain patterns, electrons can certainly affect other electrons.<br /> <br /><i>If you accept physicalism (which I can at least sympathize with) of any kind, reductive or nonreductive, than what something is made out of matters, and the electricity or whatever has to move in the right way in the right structures. Functionalism in this case is false, since even if brains and computers both "compute" things, they are not made of the same types of stuff.</i><br /><br />Doesn't matter. Different stuff can compute the same things. That's a fact of computability theory.wrf3https://www.blogger.com/profile/04657932934353372526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-20970201075450011162011-12-14T22:08:35.819-05:002011-12-14T22:08:35.819-05:00Wrf3's real problem is that his ideology is a ...Wrf3's real problem is that his ideology is a logical hydra.Let's not look at all the science that contradicts most of his positions, and just try to accept them for a second.<br />His three theories are functionalism (consciousness for computers), reductionism (everything can be reduced to its parts), and epiphenomenalism (conscious will is an illusion).<br />If functionalism is true, and since functions are second order phenomena which are actually independent of the matter that makes them (including electricity), then reductionism is not true, which therefore disproves superdeterminism. Furthermore, functionalism also does not mix with epiphenomenalism, since functions=consciousness and functions are casually potent in functionalist theory.<br />If epiphenomenalism is true, than that means that consciousness is not computing, since computing is casually potent. If consciousness has no real function, than it cannot be described by functionalism, since it means that intelligence is independent of consciousness and therefore cannot be tested by a Turing test. This also means that whatever consciousness is, it still cannot be described by its parts, disproving reductionism.<br />If you accept physicalism (which I can at least sympathize with) of any kind, reductive or nonreductive, than what something is made out of matters, and the electricity or whatever has to move in the right way in the right structures. Functionalism in this case is false, since even if brains and computers both "compute" things, they are not made of the same types of stuff. Epiphenomenalism would also be false since consciousness is a casually potent, physical entity.<br />Consider that your ideologies are incompatible, and that is the nail on the coffin of your argument. So my challenge now is this: pick what you actually believe and get back to me. And I assure you, they are incompatible, not just because of my arguments, but because the proponents of each theory claim they are incompatible with each other, and they have many arguments for this that would take an entire book to write for you. Quite frankly, I don't think you did your research.Samihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03649613938638506260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-23023124950931240772011-12-14T20:37:38.561-05:002011-12-14T20:37:38.561-05:00Zilch: definition of free will, sure, but just abo...Zilch: definition of free will, sure, but just about anything that is not pure description is hard to define - define out of what? I like to ask people, what makes the terms we use in definitions, themselves "obvious" and not needed defining in turn? If they are proper "givens", then why not whatever you're asking me to define. OTOH, if not: then there's an infinite regress of meaning all the way down, no understanding to define with.<br /><br />Ironically, we more have to *understand* something in order to define it, than define it in order to understand it. And that is hard. But it applies also to the supposedly understood "causality." Consider Humes' critique: we are just referencing regularities in what happens, a mere description like "symmetry" not an actual "something that makes things do what they do" as "laws" are imagined to be. So you ask if "free will" can be "defined" and I shoot back with "can determinism or lawfulness be defined"? Not so easy or simple as you think. The whole subject is a mess, we thrash around it with our intuitions anytime we go beyond merely saying "things happen such and such a way" to "why."<br /><br />Wrf3, you bring up quantum mechanics but don't seem to appreciate the implications or at least, possible implications of it. But no one really "gets" that anyway. However, you say "simulating computing is computing" etc. but you don't explain why I should believe that NEURON or whatever process simulates *what our brains are really like.* You have to show that the brain is such and such a way, not just presume from convenience (as I suspect ideological hacks like Dennett et al do) and vaguely suggested analogies from "look at those connections" - see what I wrote about the messiness of brains and their clouds of wave functions etc., no "computing machine" that. <br /><br />Also, as I noted, if we were mere AI/CI intellects then we wouldn't be able to think the thought or appreciate being in a "real world" and not just the math of the computation itself. (Nor IMHO could we have "real feelings" like nausea. I challenge you to even outline the construction of a computational entity that can feel nauseated, and from "principle" (as you would build a chess-playing machine) and not cheats like saying you'd copy from a real brain (which begs the question of whether such a real mess could be simulated anyway.)Neil Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04564859009749481136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-84097266095528782212011-12-14T15:22:55.558-05:002011-12-14T15:22:55.558-05:00Math and meaning are "platonic structures&quo...Math and meaning are "platonic structures", non-reductive, and furthermore non-physical. The analogy of words that I used apparently didn't work very well for you, but it was an analogy, not an argument. Meanings, associations, qualia, and mathematical structures do not break down into their parts, some things like qualia do not even have parts to break down into. Reductionism leaves no room for things like "math" or "meaning" or real, objective information in general. Brains do not do computation, they do cognition. Furthermore, the using the Turing Test begs the question, you have built in an assumption that simulating something is the same as being something, and then "proved" it with circular logic. If I do not accept (and I don't) that simulations of intelligence and real intelligence are the same thing, then the Turing Test simply tells me what I cannot know about a system. You are not proving functionalism (which by the way, is a non-reductive theory as well according to the people who made it), you are just stating over and over "functionalism is true" with different words.<br />I noticed some inconsistency in your logic as well. You claim that consciousness is simply the movement of electrons in specific patterns. However, the patterns of electron motion are completely different in a computer and in a brain! The entire point of functionalism is that it does not matter whether you use electrons or whatever to do a computation, as long as the output of the computation is the same. You are using a non-reductive materialist notion of consciousness, a functionalist notion of AI, and a reductionist notion to describe the universe. These are three conflicting ideologies, so pick one. (For the record, I kind of like non-reductive materialism myself)Samihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03649613938638506260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-84544668504442294972011-12-14T11:03:40.987-05:002011-12-14T11:03:40.987-05:00Sami wrote: The interactions between neurons is no...<b>Sami</b> wrote: <i>The interactions between neurons is not purely electric, it is also physical and chemical (and according to some people, not me, quantum).</i><br /><br />Sure. It's <i>all</i> based on quantum mechanics. I remember when my boys were in Boy Scouts and the Scoutmaster decided to have a class on the Chemistry merit badge. He had a PhD in chemistry and started by using the QM description of electrons -- since chemistry is all about what electrons do. The kid's eyes glazed over, because they weren't used to that way of thinking, but he was absolutely right. Chemical reactions <i>are</i> electronic, which means they are quantum.<br /><br /><i>I already said simulations are not the same thing as the real thing, so you need not bring up NEURON again.</i><br /><br />Oh, but I do. There are things for which the simulation is the real thing. Computation is one. Consider what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says about <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-machine/" rel="nofollow">Turing machines</a>: "Turing machines are not physical objects but mathematical ones. We require neither soldering irons nor silicon chips to build one. The architecture is simply described, and the actions that may be carried out by the machine are simple and unambiguously specified. Turing recognized that it is not necessary to talk about how the machine carries out its actions, but merely to take as given the twin ideas that the machine can carry out the specified actions, and that those actions may be uniquely described."<br /><br />This means that the simulation of computation is computation. This is also true for intelligence -- whatever simulates intelligence is intelligent. That's the basis of the Turing test.<br /><br /><i>"It is not the end of a journey that matters, but how you get there."</i><br /><br />Except that this is completely wrong for computation and, therefore, intelligence. It doesn't matter whether one uses a Turing machine or an Intel processor or your brain. They are all equivalent in terms of the computations they do.wrf3https://www.blogger.com/profile/04657932934353372526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-48493768810449260082011-12-14T10:57:59.188-05:002011-12-14T10:57:59.188-05:00Actually, I don't think there's much point...Actually, I don't think there's much point in debating whether or not we have free will, as long as we don't define exactly what "free will" means. And I haven't heard any definition so far that doesn't beg any number of other questions.zilchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695741977946935771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-69084131441976145562011-12-14T10:45:22.141-05:002011-12-14T10:45:22.141-05:00Sami wrote: Also, I missed one of your earlier pos...<b>Sami</b> wrote: <i>Also, I missed one of your earlier posts, and wanted to clarify something: just because neurons can emulate NAND gates does not mean it works the other way around.</i><br /><br />Except that NEURON shows that it does.<br /><br /><i>Also, sorry about accusing you of trolling, I just felt that everything I was saying was just going right past you.</i><br /><br />I understand what you're saying. After all, you sound like the me of years ago. The arguments you're using are the arguments I used to use, until I discovered that I was wrong.<br /><br /><i>I am often told that "trolls" stick to ridiculous premises against all logical arguments in order to get a rise out of other people.</i><br /><br />Well, the claim "we don't have free will" certainly gets a rise out of people. It's because your brain is strongly (but not unalterably) wired to believe that it has free will. Your brain would rather shape the evidence to fit this in-born conception, rather than let the evidence shape the brain.wrf3https://www.blogger.com/profile/04657932934353372526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-48673855056674059462011-12-14T10:37:15.538-05:002011-12-14T10:37:15.538-05:00Sami wrote: Information is non-reductive because i...<b>Sami</b> wrote: <i>Information is non-reductive because information exists as whole concepts. For instance, lets look at the word "dog". You cannot remove a letter from the word while preserving its meaning, you cannot predict what word you will get purely based on its letters (for instance, you might get "dog" or "God"). You cannot predict the behavior of a word based on its letters (even if you have d, o, and g, you do not know how "dog" fits into a sentence without the word being intact and in context of a larger sentence).</i><br /><br />Once again, you aren't correctly analyzing the system. There is no inherent meaning in the letters 'd', 'o', and 'g'. After all, our friend Zilch would use 'hund'; while Russian readers might use 'sabacca'. The meaning is not in the letters, but in an isomorphism in our brains. By convention, English speakers associate the letters 'dog' with the abstraction of the visual image (or audio description, or tactile impressions) of a dog. Meaning exists in mental models and mental models are based on the flow of electrons in our brains. So one can, in fact, reduce this form of information. That's why humans and computers can recognize shapes, for example, and why computers with cameras for "eyes" can look at a scene, determine what's in the scene, and reason about relationships between the objects.<br /><br /><i>This is the concept of non-reductionist of information. If you accept that information is a real part of reality, you must abandon reductionism (and thus superdeterminism) since reductionism claims that information is just a subjective way of looking at the "real" reality, which is just meaningless (as in without information) motion.</i><br /><br />You are confusing information, which is just a string of variations, with meaning, which is built on top of information. Information doesn't have inherent meaning. Rather, we build up abstractions (isomorphisms) in our brains which are useful for interacting with the world.wrf3https://www.blogger.com/profile/04657932934353372526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-28025139638280398212011-12-14T10:33:49.042-05:002011-12-14T10:33:49.042-05:00Zilch, I don't think a clear picture can be ma...Zilch, I don't think a clear picture can be made. As I noted, I think we are "integrated" and in a way that cannot be modeled by classical concepts. But you ask, "whatever the source" - if the source is an integral part of the system itself, is not classically representable, and is part of a "thinking system" then it at least "could be" the sort of thing imagined as "free will." REM that quantum randomness is "inexplicable", not just the unknown selection of which card that is already determined by the atoms in the universe. In some combined structure, it need not be just thrown together from separate sources. IOW your intuitive sense of "randomness" and it's implications is misleading (not that anyone "gets" how to imagine it alternatively!)<br /><br />I probably cannot and won't try to "prove" it is valid and a property we have, I am in effect taking my own intuition and sense of inner process and trying to justify it. It might never be possible, like we may never understand the "collapse of the wave function" etc. <br /><br />But in any case, critique based on imagining processes as representable math of any kind, is no more adequate than the original claim itself. IOW, I'm more saying "you can't prove we don't have FW" than pretending to prove it.<br /><br />Sami, tx - unfortunately my Adobe is not up to date.Neil Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04564859009749481136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-58971674182733302852011-12-14T10:24:02.597-05:002011-12-14T10:24:02.597-05:00Neil, you say:
Free will - the randomness in QM m...Neil, you say:<br /><br /><i>Free will - the randomness in QM may seem pointless by itself, but if the brain is an integrated "system" then the indeterminacy is more than just being pushed around by individual coin flips. IOW, I am saying it is not just like a deterministic robot with a separate RNG thrown in. And indeed, there is a difference between "determined" in principle, and not determined.</i><br /><br />Can you explain how the effect of quantum indeterminacy on free will is "more than just being pushed around by individual coin flips", and what the difference, again for free will, is between determined and undetermined? I still don't get it. How is free will "freer" if it is subject to random alteration, from whatever source?zilchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695741977946935771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-58072078190916451442011-12-14T09:37:15.999-05:002011-12-14T09:37:15.999-05:00I also expect a wooful universe, evidence simply p...I also expect a wooful universe, evidence simply points in that direction.<br />Hey Mr. Bates, did you hear about this new theorem? It along with Kochen and Specker's work puts a nail in the coffin of hidden variable theories, so that is pretty cool :). Of course, this only works if we assume statistical independence, which is the basis of all of science in general. So if you are going to reject that, might as well throw out science in general. Solid stuff. http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1105/1105.0133v1.pdfSamihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03649613938638506260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-26736896074017352972011-12-14T08:59:02.259-05:002011-12-14T08:59:02.259-05:00Free will - the randomness in QM may seem pointles...Free will - the randomness in QM may seem pointless by itself, but if the brain is an integrated "system" then the indeterminacy is more than just being pushed around by individual coin flips. IOW, I am saying it is not just like a deterministic robot with a separate RNG thrown in. And indeed, there is a difference between "determined" in principle, and not determined. I'm sure Dave meant well but he didn't really explain the issue in the post.<br /><br />Simulating logical function of wetware: the whole idea that the WW simply performs "logical functions" is a conceit of those who want to believe it - what is their evidence or good argument? Just seeing "connectors" and signals is not enough. The brain is messier than that and the function doesn't follow specified rules. All those quantum mechanical atoms and electrons with subtle entangled relations just aren't a "circuit." Therefore, no reason to think a "circuit" could model it.<br /><br />Indeed, there is a powerful argument that we can't be just computational AI. If we were, we couldn't appreciate that our world was "real" and not itself a mathematical model, because computation just crunches numbers. Those numbers could just as easily be abstractions, there is no way to represent "these computations are being done by a real material computer." IOW, no way to represent that modal realism is wrong (look up MR and MUH, they are astonishing to the uninitiated.) Well, proponents of MR will just say "we're right anyway," but it's ironic that "materialists" will have trouble with it!<br /><br />I owe much of this thought to the under-appreciated Jaron Lanier, but I may have put in the coup-de-grace on it.<br /><br />I don't apologize for "spewing woo" since the universe itself is weird like that (and would be a fallacy to consider the idea itself invalidated by some people pushing the idea too far or in clumsy ways.) Indeed, I refer to it as the "wooniverse." ;-0<br /><br />Hey, this may be one of Dave's longest threads. It's been a great tussle so far, and I'm gratified to tangle or find support from very bright commenters here, agree or not as we may. (And this is inherently a very difficult and disputable subject!)<br /><br />Holiday Cheers to all!<br /><br />"Fine minds make fine distinctions."Neil Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04564859009749481136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-87207741234157008202011-12-14T03:41:04.130-05:002011-12-14T03:41:04.130-05:00Sami, wrf- interesting discussion, guys. I can...Sami, wrf- interesting discussion, guys. I can't respond in detail, because I have a concert coming up, but I'll just agree with wrf that Searle's "Chinese Room" <i>Gedankenexperiment</i> has been thoroughly rebutted- Douglas Hofstadter did a nice job in <i>The Mind's I.</i> And wrf- while I also don't see any theoretical reason that the logical function of wetware cannot be duplicated by hardware, I'd be surprised if anyone has yet duplicated anything more than the function of isolated neurons. As Sami points out, there are many different kinds of neurons, and there are complicating factors such as hormones as well. Not to say that it's not possible, but I don't think we've covered all the variables yet.<br /><br />cheers from chilly Vienna, zilchzilchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695741977946935771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-71724465407957045422011-12-13T23:42:24.351-05:002011-12-13T23:42:24.351-05:00I mean, if we are going to talk about God, we have...I mean, if we are going to talk about God, we have to talk about good and evil. The fall (if it happened, we can't be sure it wasn't a metaphor) isn't even possible without free will to reject God in the first place. Of course, any evaluation of "better" or "worse" is going to be mostly subjective on our part. I am not objecting to science though, you have no science backing you up, and the question of consciousness is far from over.<br />Theologically however, I would like to know why God would try so hard to trick us (essentially lying to us, is lying something God does?).<br />The interactions between neurons is not purely electric, it is also physical and chemical (and according to some people, not me, quantum). I already said simulations are not the same thing as the real thing, so you need not bring up NEURON again. I just explained to you that the authors of the study were not endorsing your view that NAND=neurons, but were proving that neurons can (but are not limited to) perform the calculations done by NAND gates in a completely different fashion. Let me emphasize that, the neurons in this experiment use emergent properties to achieve the same outcome (not process) of a NAND gate. "It is not the end of a journey that matters, but how you get there." I am applying this lesson to brains here, because I do not believe doppelgangers are the same thing as those they copy. Unlike NAND gates, neurons are alive: they require a chaotic environment to function properly, are adaptable, only work properly in group settings, are each working in parallel, use non-reductionist principles, store information not just electrically, but also structurally, spatially, and temporally, respond to chemical signals, grow and die, can integrate thousands of inputs each, can simulate even more states than a NAND gate (like emotions). Show me a NAND gate that actually does all of this, and we haven't even gotten started on glial cells.<br />Maybe, just maybe, I am wrong and you are right, but I wouldn't be able to do anything about it anyways, since after all, in your universe, with a God of fancy kites, I wouldn't have a choice. For now, I intend to choose the rational choice.Samihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03649613938638506260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-36221957913429029052011-12-13T23:16:03.164-05:002011-12-13T23:16:03.164-05:00Superdeterminism can only work in a reductionist s...Superdeterminism can only work in a reductionist setting, since any non-reductionist setting includes top-down causalities and novel phenomena, which thus cannot be predicted, or determined, strictly by initial conditions.<br />Information is non-reductive because information exists as whole concepts. For instance, lets look at the word "dog". You cannot remove a letter from the word while preserving its meaning, you cannot predict what word you will get purely based on its letters (for instance, you might get "dog" or "God"). You cannot predict the behavior of a word based on its letters (even if you have d, o, and g, you do not know how "dog" fits into a sentence without the word being intact and in context of a larger sentence). Even in programming, if you break up your sequence of ones and zeros in ways that often appear insignificant, you might screw up the whole program. This is the concept of non-reductionist of information. If you accept that information is a real part of reality, you must abandon reductionism (and thus superdeterminism) since reductionism claims that information is just a subjective way of looking at the "real" reality, which is just meaningless (as in without information) motion. That is why it was important that Zeilinger said information is at the bottom of things, it is a whole new way of looking at the universe, incompatible with our older views.<br />Also, I missed one of your earlier posts, and wanted to clarify something: just because neurons can emulate NAND gates does not mean it works the other way around. After all, NAND gates can make the other logic gates, but not all logic gates make NAND gates. So if we go by "since A can make B, B can make A" logic, we would need any gate to be able to make a NAND gate.<br />Also, sorry about accusing you of trolling, I just felt that everything I was saying was just going right past you. I am often told that "trolls" stick to ridiculous premises against all logical arguments in order to get a rise out of other people.Samihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03649613938638506260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-40618956957641062762011-12-13T22:58:59.367-05:002011-12-13T22:58:59.367-05:00Last one for tonight. Zilch, I haven't forgot...Last one for tonight. Zilch, I haven't forgotten you in the other thread.<br /><br /><b>Sami</b> wrote: <i>If I had a lot of time, I could use pen and paper to perform all of the tasks a computer can, in exactly the same way, without even vaguely understanding what program I was implementing. That is literally the entire point of Searle's argument, that there is no real difference between a computer and an abacus.</i><br /><br />Do read the <a href="http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/chinese.html" rel="nofollow">rebuttal</a> that I linked to previously. You, like Searle, are confusing the system [you + abacus] when you say that there's no real difference between a computer and an abacus. An abacus <i>by itself</i> is not a computer.<br /><br /><i>I don't think anyone has proved that NAND gates can do everything neurons can do, and I don't think they can. I base this belief off of the fact that neurons work through emergent properties, and therefore should exhibit properties that NAND gates do not (again, this is non-reductionist). I have not seen any data that supports the hypothesis that NAND gates and neurons are equal to each other.</i><br /><br />I just showed you the data. The paper that shows that neurons can simulate NAND gates, and the program NEURON that shows NAND gates can simulate neurons. They are physically different, but computationally equivalent.<br /><br /><i>I have read work from many neuroscientists, and a major theme in all of contemporary work is that brains do not equal computers, straight and simple. To accept otherwise would be to go against the consensus of the people who actively study the brain, and I think that would be irrational.</i><br /><br />For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD. Shall I cite the researchers in artificial intelligence who believe that we will achieve human level AI?<br /><br />When you say "brains do not equal computers", do you mean in their physical construction (which is true), or in what they can compute? The important thing is in what they can compute, not how the computation is done.<br /><br /><i>You seem to believe that consciousness is just moving electrons, but we have no proof of that.</i><br /><br />Earlier you wrote, "At some point, billions of neurons, through their interactions, form the strange, unified entities that are you and me." Their interactions are <i>electronic</i>! You gave yourself the very proof you demanded.<br /><br /><i>In fact, if that were true consciousness should form when I turn on my flashlight. Yet likewise, I could say that brains and batteries are the same, since after all, they also both move electrons.</i><br /><br />That's silly. It isn't just that electrons (or photons, or ...) are moving, but that they are moving in a certain pattern. NAND gates in one arrangement implement an adder. NAND gates in a different arrangement implement a comparator. NAND gates in yet another arrangement implement an algorithm that plays chess. And so on. It's all how things are wired together.<br /><br /><i>As for my "better answer", it is "better" because it does not posit a God who creates beings without freewill, throws some of them in fire, creates elaborate illusions that the world around them is indeterminate and that they are free, does everyone's thinking for them, and somehow takes pleasure in all of this. Evil doesn't even make sense without free will, since people can't disobey God if God is controlling their every action. You are, according to your theory, not trying to get past your illusions: you are not doing anything.</i><br /><br />Notice that this isn't a scientific answer. Now you're objecting to science based on theology. In particular, you're relying on your notion of good and evil which, as we all know, hasn't been reliable since Eden. I can demonstrate that the idea that you have free will is a result of the Fall and is therefore not a good metric for whether or not something is true.<br /><br />But, that's enough. I'm bowing out.wrf3https://www.blogger.com/profile/04657932934353372526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-27794724855907235062011-12-13T22:19:01.431-05:002011-12-13T22:19:01.431-05:00If I had a lot of time, I could use pen and paper ...If I had a lot of time, I could use pen and paper to perform all of the tasks a computer can, in exactly the same way, without even vaguely understanding what program I was implementing. That is literally the entire point of Searle's argument, that there is no real difference between a computer and an abacus.<br />I don't think anyone has proved that NAND gates can do everything neurons can do, and I don't think they can. I base this belief off of the fact that neurons work through emergent properties, and therefore should exhibit properties that NAND gates do not (again, this is non-reductionist). I have not seen any data that supports the hypothesis that NAND gates and neurons are equal to each other. I have read work from many neuroscientists, and a major theme in all of contemporary work is that brains do not equal computers, straight and simple. To accept otherwise would be to go against the consensus of the people who actively study the brain, and I think that would be irrational. You seem to believe that consciousness is just moving electrons, but we have no proof of that. In fact, if that were true consciousness should form when I turn on my flashlight. Yet likewise, I could say that brains and batteries are the same, since after all, they also both move electrons. As for my "better answer", it is "better" because it does not posit a God who creates beings without freewill, throws some of them in fire, creates elaborate illusions that the world around them is indeterminate and that they are free, does everyone's thinking for them, and somehow takes pleasure in all of this. Evil doesn't even make sense without free will, since people can't disobey God if God is controlling their every action. You are, according to your theory, not trying to get past your illusions: you are not doing anything.Samihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03649613938638506260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-48465939976607526832011-12-13T22:02:02.448-05:002011-12-13T22:02:02.448-05:00Sami wrote: However, you do realize that, since in...<b>Sami</b> wrote: <i>However, you do realize that, since information is non-reductive, it contradicts your earlier superdeterminism?</i><br /><br />No, I don't. Would you elaborate?wrf3https://www.blogger.com/profile/04657932934353372526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3500036.post-54881492930005578782011-12-13T21:57:01.260-05:002011-12-13T21:57:01.260-05:00Sami wrote: I fully intend to get "caught up ...<b>Sami</b> wrote: <i>I fully intend to get "caught up in the underlying mechanism".</i><br /><br />Then might I suggest looking into computability theory? An abacus is not a computational device. It's no different from a piece of paper and a pencil. You are the "computer" that drives the abacus. You just made the same kind of mistake that Searle did in his Chinese Room argument.<br /><br /><i> and I highly doubt that NAND gates can perform all of these emergent properties</i><br /><br />Based on what reason, since neurons and NAND gates are computationally equivalent? What is it a neurons can do that NAND gates cannot? It doesn't matter how many neurons you use, or how you wire them up -- there's an equivalent system of NAND gates.<br /><br /><i> At some point, billions of neurons, through their interactions, form the strange, unified entities that are you and me.</i><br /><br />And those neurons are pushing electrons around in certain patterns. That's why I said that thought is electrons (or photons, or...) in motion in certain ways. If neurons can do it, NAND gates can do it.<br /><br /><i> there is a better answer</i><br />Better, how? Philosophically? Do you really think the world has to conform to your notions of good and evil?<br /><br /><i> that there are other answers besides you being a robot confused by illusions in a world that he does not even vaguely affect</i><br /><br />First, I'm trying to get past the illusions. That's a good thing. Second, I don't mind being a robot. I have a title for a book I'll probably never write: "A Kite in God's Hands". Nothing wrong with that, at all. "In Him we live and move and have our being."wrf3https://www.blogger.com/profile/04657932934353372526noreply@blogger.com