If it's built on statistical analysis of past conversations, how does it handle novel situations?

Can it play chess?

There is some truth to that. I don't like Facebook throwing money around in the election like that. It favors me now, because I'm liberal leaning, but there may come a time...

I’ll let you know when your opinion means anything. — NOS4A2

You're right, that was uncalled for. Sorry.

Doesn't Trump's stolen election BS bother you a lot though? You don't believe that crap, right?

Every time we bail out a bank, we should levy a 2% tax on everyone with assets over a hundred million.

Realistically, what is needed is major tax increases to address distorting levels of wealth and income inequality. No cap on Social Security or Medicare income, making the tax no longer regressive, plus full applicability of these taxes to capital gains, would go a long way. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

I can see why no one takes you seriously.

Dodging drafts may be smart, but it's not brave. And how did you fell when Trump feel in love with Kim Jong Un?

He reasoned with Kim Jung UN. — NOS4A2

Was that before or after he fell in love with him?

Honestly it was just nice to have someone who wasn’t an utter coward, for a change. — NOS4A2

Brave = dodging the draft because of bonespurs?

Suppose we have 7 people in a room. We have cut them off from the rest of reality using a magical forcefield, thus they exist in a closed system. They are playing poker. We want to bet on the hands, or maybe even the conversation they make, who goes to the bathroom when, etc.

Well, with our Le Place's Demon, we can cheat, right? Just fire it up and have it evolve the system forward. It will create a fully accurate projection of the future. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Unless there are immaterial factors that go into decision making, like conscious states. I'm not convinced that if we evolve the system forward, we'll get the same result every time. You're assuming a form of strict materialism where knowledge of all the particles and forces = 100% knowledge of the people in the room.

You can't improve on the classics.

“Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.”

Those conversations are amazing.

Do you think the election was stolen?

I can't believe the guy who founded Trump University could be on the wrong side of the law.

IT’S TIME!!! WE ARE A NATION IN STEEP DECLINE, BEING LED INTO WORLD WAR III BY A CROOKED POLITICIAN WHO DOESN’T EVEN KNOW HE’S ALIVE, BUT WHO IS SURROUNDED BY EVIL & SINISTER PEOPLE WHO, BASED ON THEIR ACTIONS ON DEFUNDING THE POLICE, DESTROYING OUR MILITARY, OPEN BORDERS, NO VOTER I.D., INFLATION, RAISING TAXES, & MUCH MORE, CAN ONLY HATE OUR NOW FAILING USA. WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. THEY’RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!

:gasp:

I don't think Trump can win again. Except the Dems are staking a lot on helping Ukraine, and Putin might just decide to escalate things in an attempt to help his isolationist buddy Trump. Desperate people do desperate things.

the war on the ground seems to be going their way. — Tzeentch

Lol.

There might be changes, but they wouldn't have anything to do with Trump or whatever blithering idiot they put in charge of the White House. — Tzeentch

I think you're wrong there. I think Trump would push for a cease-fire and would threaten to cut off U.S. military and financial aid. And he would get his way too. I know you don't believe this, but American presidents are tremendously powerful. It's becoming a dictatorship.

Trump is running as an isolationist who will end the war. He's perfectly capable of hanging Ukraine out to dry, and cutting off the supply of arms and money from the U.S. Putin now has another reason to stay in this thing until 2024, and possibly use nuke(s), if he thinks it will weaken Biden enough.

Tzeentch, you don't think U.S. Presidents affect foreign policy. What do you think would happen to America's foreign policy if Trump won? No changes at all?

My objection is to the idea that fundemental differences in external objects somehow do not exist or change within the object when conscious observation occurs. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why do you assume reality is such that there exist external objects? I get why, I guess, but I think that assumption has to be argued for.

How would computation work in an idealistic reality? Would that solve some of the confusion here?

The contrast to living organisms is that in them, information is dynamically interpreted by cellular processes moment by moment, it's intrinsic to any organic process. — Wayfarer

Wouldn't the interpretation have to be done by something with a mind?

I would argue that information exists "in the wild," as discernible differences. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Doesn't that imply that a discerner is a necessary condition for "discernible differences"? Or do you mean there are differences that are, potentially, discernible?

I don't know much about universals. My thoughts on this are very preliminary. I would like to see Wayfarer take this on. I think you've done an excellent job in this thread.

So something changes in the computer when it is observed or is computation just in the mind of the observer? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, looking at a computer doesn't cause any changes to the computer. However, observing the output of the computational process and attaching significance to it allows us to attach the word "computation" to the whole process. I don't think observation is sufficient to establish computation. I don't think a baby watching a computer counts. It has to be something that understands the output of the computation, something that can attach meaning to the output.

Exactly

Bylaw made the point I was trying to make better than me. Indeed, I would say the vast majority of what we think we know about the world comes from anecdotal information. We make decisions based on it all the time.

Tom:

Suppose I'm a research scientist you know really well, and I claim I have a guy I've given the ESP card test to 100 times and I say he aces it every time. What would you believe after that conversation.

The plural of anecdote is not data. — Tom Storm

Of course it is. One eyewitness might not be enough to nail a suspect but 20 eye witnesses all agreeing on the same appearance is MASSIVE confirmation to the theory "The suspect was at the scene of the crime".

One person complaining to the city council about the new stoplight could be ignored, but 500 complaints means something got screwed up. The plural of anecdote clearly is data.

Pretty sure we can find thousands of people today who have been 'abducted and probed by aliens'. Do we have good reason to accept all these anecdotes? I would say no. — Tom Storm

Do we have good reason to deny all these anecdotes? I would say no.

I am going to need more than a personal experience account, right? — Tom Storm

Yes, and that "more" could be other anecdotal information. It's evidence and evidence can confirm or disconfirm a theory. There's no reason, in principle, why anecdotal evidence can't confirm a supernatural theory. I posted a scenario just above your post. What do you think of it?

I am saying that when someone says something is supernatural, the burden of proof is on them AND that the burden is impossible to meet. — Art48

I can think of a scenario: suppose you wake up and everyone- I mean the whole planet- is talking about how, for about five minutes, the stars all moved around and spelled out "THIS IS GOD. BE GOOD TO EACH OTHER". You slept through it. And then the stars went back to their original position. Also, no recording devices worked at this time. So all you have to rely on is anecdotal evidence, but I know you would conclude millions of people saw the stars spell out a message from God. You might further believe that you're in a simulation, so no miracle explanation required, but you're still going to have the belief that something extraordinary happened in the sky that night. And that belief is going to be based entirely on anecdotal evidence.

My point is that when enough anecdotal evidence piles up, it's OK to conclude something strange is going on.

Whatever is recorded by instruments remains data until it's interpreted. Data comprises units of information which in themselves do not carry any specific meaning. Information is a set of data units that collectively carries a logical meaning. It also should be recalled that computers are human instruments, extensions of human sensory and intellectual capacities, designed to perform those tasks. — Wayfarer

Right. A bundle of sticks that looks like this: VIII with no one to observe it is a bundle of sticks. It can't ever be more than that without some mind observing it and attaching additional signifiers. However, when the bundle of sticks is observed by someone who knows Roman Numerals, it's a bundle of sticks AND it picks up a new attribute courtesy of the mind observing it: it's a bundle of sticks and the roman numeral for 8.

Can we think of any examples of this happening that are beyond myth or anecdote? — Tom Storm

Why beyond anecdote? If a friend calls and says your house is on fire do you dismiss it because it's anecdotal information? What if a trusted friend said he saw a ghost? What if he was with three other of your family members and they all saw it? What if 30 trusted people said they saw it? 300? What if a crowd of a 1,000 people say they witnessed a huge rock levitate and fly through the air?

At what point does the anecdotal evidence outweigh the prima fascia improbability of miracles/supernatural events? I would argue that there IS some amount of anecdotal evidence that makes belief in the supernatural a rational position to take.

I'm looking at it more this way: without an observer, how is there anything other than a change in physical states? I don't think you can add on "computation" to the physical state changes without there being observation. Certainly, there needs to be an observer to attach meaning to the outcome of computation, whenever it occurs. What ontological status does a simulation have when no one's observing it? Is it even a simulation?

But you're not saying only minded things compute, right? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, I'm saying that minds are a necessary condition for computation. IOW, some mind has to observe the computational process in order for computation to occur. Without a mind giving meaning to it all, it's just changes in physical states.

If pancomputationalism seems nonsensical, the best way to see where the idea is coming from is to try to define what a computer is in physical terms and how it differs from other systems. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A computer is something that computes. My point has been that there are no computers in a mindless universe.

Question two: if in the absence of any observer, a pebble moves alongside another pebble under natural forces, has a computation happened ? — RussellA

This.

Is there computation in a mindless universe?

Russia's buddies are Iran and China. America's allies are the great democracies of Europe. Is there any question who the bad guys are here? Would any of the quislings here ever choose to live in Iran or Russia or China? Of course not.