I would really like to hear more on what you mean by numbers being passive and active. I'm currently struggling to get my thoughts together on this, but I think we might have very similar views. — Jerry
Maths is unreasonably effective. It’s abstractions are more than mere intellectual accidents. There must be a reason for their Platonic seeming necessity. So therefore that is why the nature of mathematical truth remains so central to physicalist inquiry. — apokrisis
Neuroscience believes thoughts to be informational processes, not biochemical ones. — apokrisis
To use the easily abused computational analogy, the "material physics" explains nothing. You could implement the logic of a Turing machine in some system of tin cans and bits of twine. — apokrisis
So a science of the mind definitely does need a dualist physicalism of some kind. There has to be some ontic difference between information and entropy, even if they also arise in some common (mutual) fashion. — apokrisis
But putting that aside, the issue here is the epistemic one of a distinction between observers and observables. Classical physics just presumes that observers are free agents, able to make measurements of reality without disturbing that reality. And this supports the idea that thoughts and rocks are unproblematically separate. Not only are our conceptions of reality a free invention of the human mind, but so do our perceptions of reality enjoy a matching freedom from our ability to invent. — apokrisis
This epistemic shock doesn't seem to have registered with the mathematical community as far as I can see. — apokrisis
The ontological options are still either that maths is a free invention or a perception of Platonic reality. — apokrisis
It has to conform to the rules of an informational process - the syntax that is grounded in set theory, or category theory, or whatever other fundamental notion of a closed syntactical system happens to be in vogue at the time. — apokrisis
Sanity is not having to think, it appears. — apokrisis
Yes, it is out there as a ratio capturing a primal relation of a physical world with some kind of limit-state perfect symmetry. Let that world be not perfectly flat, let it be non-Euclidean, and the value of pi starts to wander accordingly. — apokrisis
Between the hyperbolic and the hyperspheric, there is only one geometry that is absolutely balanced enough that the value of pi is as stable as far as the eye can see. Whether your circles are big or small, now pi remains always the same. — apokrisis
So pi pops out of reality, out of nature, not by accident but because the very possibility of a "physical relation" has some emergent invariant limit. It arises out of the broken symmetry that is a perfect orthogonality. — apokrisis
Thus on the one hand, pi - as a position on the number line - looks the purest accident. Why should it have that exact value? — apokrisis
On the other, pi is the identity relation when it comes to a limit notion of orthogonal dimensionality. — apokrisis
We might as well just give its value as 1. Everything else that is less perfectly broken can be measured as some difference to that. — apokrisis
What's true is this. Computationalism s the claim that the mind (or the universe, in a more grandiose version) is a computation. Now those neuroscientists who are computationalists believe that thoughts are informational processes; and those who aren't, don't.
I hope you will agree with me that this is a true statement about the states of belief of neuroscientists, and that this is NOT a settled issue by any means. If nothing else, if mind is a computation, what's the algorithm? When you bring me some computer code and say, "Here, this is how you implement an mind. It's 875,356 of C++. Some grad student figured it out," then maybe I'll believe you. Till then, the burden of proof is on you. — fishfry
There are important things in the world that are not computations. Like mathematical truth. — fishfry
However if you DON'T believe that mind is a computation, you no longer necessarily have substrate independence. I hope you would grant me this. — fishfry
The only way to do that is to execute the algorithm on physical hardware. That is a physical process involving an input of energy and an output of heat. Something a physicist could observe and quantify. — fishfry
Where does the algorithm itself live? Well it lived first in Euclid's brain. But isn't Euclid's mind a physical process? His abstract thoughts are physical processes, and his thoughts can be implemented as physical processes. But I don't see why we need dualism. — fishfry
Jeez that sounds a little mystical. You're saying that Euclidean geometry is the midpoint between elliptic and hyperbolic geometry. Yes this is a true mathematical fact, but it is not mystical. — fishfry
So I'm not going to try to think about this. You have to start somewhere, and perhaps we could agree that for purposes of this conversation, there is the number pi and there is a rock, and that we don't have to consider their quantum relationship to each other, if any. — fishfry
To a number theories, integers are as real as rocks. I doubt Wiles would agree that he's written a work of fiction. Or even give the matter any thought at all. — fishfry
Ooh you are on shaky ground here! Gödel told us that math is NOT an informational process! No algorithm can determine the truth of mathematical statements. — fishfry
Yes but you're going all woo-woo about a trivial mathematical fact. Well not trivial, non-Euclidean geometry was a big deal when it was discovered. — fishfry
You and Kant. He was wrong. You're wrong. Euclidean geometry's not special. It's just something we seem to have an intuition of. — fishfry
It's true that it's the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is pi, but if it were 3 or 47 or 18, you'd be asking why it's that? It's just what it is. The only really interesting thing is that the ratio is always the same no matter what size the circle is! That's the real breakthrough here, that was a great discovery once. [Edit - You made the point that this is only true in Euclidean geometry. Point taken]. — fishfry
You are really into pi mysticism. What I mean is, what you wrote here is pretty word salad-y. I have to repeat, I only picked pi because it's a good candidate to make the point that numbers are abstract and not physical. I could have made the exact same point with 3, but people have a harder time understanding that 3 isn't any more physical than pi. — fishfry
* So to sum up:
- You are arguing from a computationalist point of view, but I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. Looking back I see that now. Even if I agree with you that mind is computation, there are still numbers and rocks. I possibly did not follow your argument. — fishfry
- You are wrong that math is a computation. And like many computationlists, you underestimate or ignore the importance of non-computable phenomena in the world. Remember even Tegmark distinguishes between the mathematical universe hypothesis and the computable universe hypothesis. Computationalism is a very strong assumption. — fishfry
* Mathematicians do math, not philosophy. My sense is that the vast majority of working mathematicians never give any thought to philosophy. When an engineer is building a bridge, do you want him spending his time contemplating the fact that there is no difference between him and the bridge? Or do you want him calculating the load factors according to state of the art engineering principles? — fishfry
I'm definitely not claiming computationalism - or at least not Turing machine computation as you seem to suggest. The mainstream neuroscience view - since Sherrington's "enchanted loom" or Hebbs's learning networks - is some kind of neural net form of "computation". — apokrisis
And more to the point, it is mainstream to emphasise that the brain is involved in informational activity, not merely biochemical activity. — apokrisis
Otherwise why is neuroscience interested in discovering the secrets of the neural code, or brain's processing architecture? — apokrisis
It knows the biophysics of what makes a neuron fire. But how that firing then represents or symbolises something with felt meaning is the big question. — apokrisis
And that can only be approached in terms of something other than a biochemical materialism. — apokrisis
It demands a semiotic or information theoretic framework. — apokrisis
Which in turn has already considered Turing computation and found it not the answer. — apokrisis
So broadly speaking, neuroscientists think thoughts are informational processes and not biochemical events. — apokrisis
At the same time, they don't think the brain is literally a Turing machine or programmable computer. That might be a helpful analogy, like calling the eye a camera. But just as quickly, the caveats would begin. — apokrisis
Computers are machines. They are devices that construct patterns. So yes, of course, human minds seem to operate in a fundamentally different fashion. We can grasp the whole of some pattern. We can understand it "organically" as a system of constraints, rather than as an atomistic construction. — apokrisis
Our abductive or intuitive approach to reasoning begins with this ability to see the whole that "stands behind" the part. We can make inferences to the best explanation. And then, having framed an axiom or hypothesis, we are also quite good at deducing consequences and confirming by observation. — apokrisis
So when it comes to mathematical truth, that is what we think we are doing. We notice something about the world. We then leap towards some rational principle that could "stand behind" this something as its more general constraint. — apokrisis
Turing machines are really bad at making such a holistic generalisation. — apokrisis
Neural network computers are our attempt to build machines that are good at implementing this precise inferential leap. — apokrisis
Yeah. I don't claim complete substrate independence. But then my "computationalism" is a semiotic or embodied one. The whole point is that it hinges on a separation which then allows an interaction. — apokrisis
A Turing machine does not self-replicate. — apokrisis
A Turing machine does not have to manage its material flows or compete with other TMs. — apokrisis
But a living thing is all about regulating its physics with information. — apokrisis
So an independence from physical substrate (an epistemic cut) is required by life and mind. — apokrisis
But only so as to be able to regulate that physics - bend it in the direction which is making the autopoietic wholeness that is "an organism". — apokrisis
Yes, you can measure one side of the computational story in terms of entropy production. But how do you measure the other side of the story in terms of "negentropy" production? The fact that your computer runs either hotter or colder doesn't say much about whether its eventual output is righter or wronger. — apokrisis
We are labouring the point. If you really can't see the difference between syntax and semantics by now, things are likely hopeless. — apokrisis
You keep talking about the physical events as if they are the informational processes. — apokrisis
Of course a neuron or a transistor or a membrane receptor or a speedometer can be described in terms of their "physics". But it is hardly the level of description that explains "the process" which we are interested in. — apokrisis
To reduce functional or informational processes to atomistic material events becomes a nonsense. — apokrisis
Especially for true computationalism. The only time we are interested in the physics of a logic gate is when it doesn't behave like a logic gate - that is when it has some uncontrolled physical process going on. — apokrisis
So algorithms are extreme mechanistic dualism in fact. — apokrisis
You don't even have to run a programme for it to "have a result". — apokrisis
The result could only be different if the physics of the real world somehow intruded, And then we would say the computer had a bug. It over-heated or something. — apokrisis
And maths is kind of like that. We imagine it as transcendent and eternal truths - things that would be true without ever needing the reality of physical instantiation. Pure information. — apokrisis
It is crazy to talk of Euclidean maths as existing in some geezer's long dead brain. — apokrisis
Why do you interpret that as a mystical statement? My point was that it is not a mystery because it is what you would expect from principles of physicalist symmetry. If every kind of difference gets cancelled (as the negatives erase the positives) then what you are left with is the mid-point balance. It would be natural to expect "flatness" as the emergent limit state. — apokrisis
Well it is your choice to ignore what we know to be fundamental in preference for what we know to be emergent. — apokrisis
Fine. The philosophical issue here is not the pragmatics of mathematical research. And I even agree that mathematical research - in being an informational theoretic exercise ... — apokrisis
Maths doesn't really want to even concern itself with geometry - the physical constraints of space - let alone with actual materiality, or the constraints of energy, the possibilities of change. So - as institutional habit - integers are as real as rocks. — apokrisis
Except they are then ... ideas? Constructs? Thoughts in the head? — apokrisis
You seem to want it both ways. And that winds up in Platonism. — apokrisis
That is why my own position is the semiotic one where the integers are the ideal limits on materiality. — apokrisis
That is a formula of words that both accepts a strong difference and a strong connection between the two sides of the semiotic equation. Information is real if it is causal. And being an actual limit on material freedom is pretty clearly causal. — apokrisis
See earlier where I spoke about abductive reasoning and our ability to make inferential leaps. Gödel validates my approach here. The failure of logical atomism is the solid ground for the holist. It is why a semiotic approach to reality is justified. — apokrisis
You mentioned pi. I am just highlighting how the usual woo-woo aspect - the fact that there is just this "one number" picked at random out of all the numbers on the number-line - masks a bigger story. The woo-woo evaporates when you see there is a "material" process that picks out a value for "being flat". Two kinds of possible curvature had a mid-point balance. Pi is a number that emerges due to something more holistic going on. The fact that it emerges "right there" on the number-line is not some kind of weird magic. — apokrisis
It is even easier to see with other constant like e that are directly derived from growth processes. There the contrasting actions that produce the emergent ratio are in plain sight. It is funny that e should be 2.71828. — apokrisis
But then that becomes obvious when it is realised that growth always has to start from some thing that is just itself 1. There is no reason to think of e as anything but natural after that. — apokrisis
But I am not Kantian, except in a loose sense. I'm Peircean in the way Peirce fixed Kant. — apokrisis
And I'm arguing flatness is special as the mid-point of opposing extremes of curvature. It has physically important properties too. Only flat geometries preserve invariance under transformations of scale. That is a really important emergent property when it comes to things like Universes. — apokrisis
And as I repeat, it is very important metaphysically that absolute scale invariance only appears at a particular numeric value of pi. That is how a Universe is even possible. — apokrisis
So you are focused on the triviality of pi being given some particular position on the number line - look guys, its 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286 208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408 ...
And that is what makes folk go woo. It seems both weirdly specific and weirdly random. There seems no natural reason for the value. — apokrisis
But it's a ratio derived from the radius being granted as the natural unit. Let's call the radius 1. Let's get a grip on this weird thing called curvature by starting with the "most natural part of the story" - a line segment. That gets to be "1" on the number-line. — apokrisis
Well, as I say, once mathematicians woke up to the fact that flatness was a rather special case of curvature, and once physicists in turn woke up to the fact that scale invariance was essential to any kind of workable Universe (its called rather grandly the cosmological principle), well, maybe it is the ratio that should be called "1". A straight line segment is only a natural unit in the context of an already flat space which supports unlimited scale transformations. It depends on the emergent fact of parallel lines or infinite rays being an actual possibility. — apokrisis
I am being anti-mystical in pointing out the very physical basis of pi as a number. It is a ratio that picks out a critical geometric balance. — apokrisis
The number 3 is trivial by comparison. — apokrisis
Well there are physical arguments for why the geometry of universes are optimal if they have just three orthogonal spatial directions. But 3 as a member of the integers has no numeric specialness by design. The special or natural numbers are 1 and 0. We see this in the symmetries captured by identity operations. There is something basic or universal when we hit the bedrock that is a symmetry or invariance. — apokrisis
You would call it a mystical fact perhaps. I see it as quite reasonable and self-explanatory. — apokrisis
Nope. At least not your notion of computation as Turing machine/programmable computation. — apokrisis
I take an information theoretic perspective. And more specifically, a semiotic one. In technology terms, neural networks come the closest to implementing that notion of computation. — apokrisis
And numbers vs rocks is a distinction that relies on a classical metaphysics - one in which the divide between observers and observables does not present an epistemic difficulty. The epistemic cut - the necessary separation of the information from the physics - can be treated as an ontological fact. — apokrisis
So my positions on both "mind is a computation" and "reality is classical" are the same. — apokrisis
Semiotics starts from the view that there is no fundamental ontic division of observers and observables. But that is also the division which must emerge via some epistemic cut. It is the basis of intelligibility. And even the Universe can only exist to the degree it hangs together in intelligible fashion. — apokrisis
Hence why maths tends to be unreasonably effective at describing the Universe. Or being in general. — apokrisis
Labouring the point still, but I'm sorry. I'm not a computationalist in the sense you are hoping for. — apokrisis
Indeed, that was what I was accusing you of. You seem to believe reality is a machine. An account of physical events is sufficient. — apokrisis
But yes, you also seem to say the opposite. This is a symptom that your metaphysics is "commonsensical" and not well thought out. — apokrisis
Again, bully for mathematicians. Bully for engineers. Bully even for most physicists (as very few are employed in frontier theory construction).
But it is curious to be complaining about metaphysics where metaphysics is appropriate. — apokrisis
And so far you haven't put forward any clear exposition of your own epistemic position, let alone given a clear justification for it. — apokrisis
You just hoped to be able to label me with some obviously weak ontology that I spend most of my time arguing against. — apokrisis
My understanding is that we can accommodate abstract mental constructs quite easily within physicalism. Abstractions are thoughts, biochemical processes in my brain. — fishfry
I don't believe the mind is a TM and I don't believe real-world NN's are anything other than TMs....
Bottom line, why don't you just explain to me why you think a real-world NN is anything other than a TM. — fishfry
The circle of mathematics is an ideal circle, a pure mental abstraction. — fishfry
Hmm. So what I have got from this exchange is that you struggle to keep track of your own arguments because you don't actually have a well constructed metaphysical position. And when you encounter someone who does, you bluster and ad hom. Nice. — apokrisis
And I have investigated neural nets. — apokrisis
That is:
* If you claim that mind is a neural net; then you must also agree that mind is a TM. — fishfry
Are you actually making the claim that even though a NN can be emulated by a TM, the NN somehow implements semantics? — fishfry
Nope. I made the point that humans and NNs can emulate TMs. — apokrisis
You only turn anything I say back to front anyway. — apokrisis
Do you really want to argue that Searle thinks "biochemical processes" are a necessary and sufficient condition of conscious thought? — apokrisis
My thesis here is that mind arises from a physical process in the brain; but that it is not a computational process in any way that we currently understand computation. It's not a TM or an NN or a cellular automata or anything else along those lines. — fishfry
I don't know what the actual mechanism might be ... I think this will take another revolution in physics. — fishfry
No I don't think biochemistry is necessary. Or sufficient. It just "happens to be the case" in this instance. It's possible that machinery might become conscious, so biochemistry's not necessary. And there's plenty of biochemical matter walking around that's not particularly conscious, so biochemistry is not sufficient. — fishfry
It seems curious that it was only just a few posts back that you were trumpeting the mind-like abilities of NNs. — apokrisis
So if they were inspired by the "computational" structure of the brain, it is surprising they should indeed be so effective at machine learning, and yet the brain itself would not function along these lines. — apokrisis
Sounds legit. — apokrisis
So that is a retraction of your original statement coupled to a backtrack on the retraction? — apokrisis
It is the structure of the matter that matters and not the particular matter. — apokrisis
But you don't want to say the structure implements any kind of informational process? — apokrisis
And the best way out of that bind is to look to causality and treat that as the best definition of "physical reality". — apokrisis
But no, NN's are not "mind-like." It's starting to become my mission in life to explain to people why NN's are *NOT* "mind-like." — fishfry
Airplanes are stunningly effective at flying, yet birds don't work that way. — fishfry
You agree with me that perhaps the explanation of mind must await the next revolution (or two) in physics? — fishfry
I don't know. Perhaps it has to be biological. Perhaps not. I don't think it's relevant to my argument. — fishfry
Whatever mind is, it's not a computation. — fishfry
Hmmm ... that's kind of an interesting technical question. So there's the neural wetware of the brain, and you are asking me if it is possible that SOME informational process is implemented.
Um ... well ... sure. Why not. If I blink my eyes at you in morse code I'm digitizing my thoughts. For that matter, I can execute the Euclidean algorithm with pencil and paper. So yes, wetware can certainly implement computational processes. But not everything wetware does can be explained by a computation. — fishfry
So, no idea of time, space, causality, differentiation and so on can be coherently applied to Will. — Janus
I think Peirce has a similar notion of the experience of "firtsness", but maybe I have misunderstood. — Janus
Peirce makes sense of causality as the development of reasonable habits — apokrisis
I wonder, though, whether Peirce can make sense of the development of reasonable habits in terms of something more fundamental? — Janus
Schop could say that Will comes to manifest in ever more habitual ways, which become the more reasonable as the world as idea unfolds; he could say that Will gains its increase by establishing habitual manifestations. — Janus
Fine. I would agree that NNs are not biologically realistic in some fundamental ways. — apokrisis
But also, NNs are an attempt to be more biologically realistic in some important structural or information-processing fashion.[ — apokrisis
So this could easily be an argument over whether the glass is half full or half empty. — apokrisis
That is why the epistemology of NNs demands especial care in a Philosophy of Mind discussion. — apokrisis
Airplanes are stunningly effective at flying, yet birds don't work that way.
— fishfry
But what is the "unreasonably effective" feature they share? Is it an aerofoil wing that creates lift? — apokrisis
I agree that human machines are just basically different from biological organisms. — apokrisis
However again, you need some actual general metaphysical argument to spell out the precise nature of that difference.p/quote]
Sadly I have none. I am a philosophical ignoramus. My shame knows no bounds. Yet must I have a general metaphysical argument before I can have an opinion about whether minds are algorithms?
— apokrisis
And that is what I'm talking about with biosemiosis, autopoiesis and other "buzzwords". — apokrisis
You need a theory of the distinction if you want to say anything definite on the matter. And you seem quite dismissive of the literature here. — apokrisis
You agree with me that perhaps the explanation of mind must await the next revolution (or two) in physics?
— fishfry
No. I was being sarcastic. — apokrisis
Physics is already undergoing the right kinds of revolution anyway. Thermodynamics is becoming foundational. Physics is becoming information theoretic. Holism and emergence can now be modelled in a variety of ways. — apokrisis
So Newtonian materialism is out-dated. — apokrisis
Existence can be understood as a dissipative process. — apokrisis
And that is a framework which biology and neurology slot straight into. — apokrisis
Well I would say this shows you don't have an appropriate general metaphysical framework. — apokrisis
It has to be a central issue if you are arguing either for or against artificial life and mind. — apokrisis
That is why I urged you to read that Pattee paper. — apokrisis
Whatever mind is, it's not a computation.
— fishfry
That's a hand-waving statement, so not much use in a serious debate here. — apokrisis
no clue what you even mean by "mind". I get the impression it is probably the standard dualistic substance ontology - a sensing stuff, a bunch of "feels". — apokrisis
So we wouldn't even be on the same page for a serious discussion in terms of a comparison of neurological processes and computational mechanisms. You are likely already convinced that there is no physicalist understanding of what brains do. — apokrisis
You seem to entirely miss the point. — apokrisis
You appear to believe that TMs completely define all possible notions of computation, information ... — apokrisis
and semiosis. — apokrisis
And so any question about "information processes" or "processing architecture" gets immediately translated into a TM view. — apokrisis
But just maybe TMs are a very tiny fragment of a much larger landscape. — apokrisis
Of course, there is something immensely powerful about TMs in being (almost) pure syntax/no semantics. In short, they are (near) perfect machines. They represent a completely constrained and rule-bound universe. And so they leave out all the "messiness" of the physical and biological world. — apokrisis
They leave out, in fact, information as traditionally understood - ie: information as meaning. — apokrisis
It is like the syntax of Boolean logic. To reconnect to the OP, there is something "unreasonably effective" about reaching the limits on a de-semanticised view of reality - one where we just model reality in terms of its simplest syntactical rules. — apokrisis
So TMs and Boolean logic idealise reality. They abstract away the materiality or particularity of physicalist semantics to arrive at the simplest, sparest, syntactical forms. — apokrisis
Great. Defining the ultimate limits of reality is what it is all about. But maybe there is such a thing as over-simplification. — apokrisis
Machines are rule-bound artificial systems. — apokrisis
And so they can't construct themselves. They can't give themselves purposes , they don't have autonomy. Machines are useful to us humans as it is we who get to design the machines, build them to serve some purpose. — apokrisis
However organisms are systems with evolved designs and purposes. They have an irreducible causal complexity. And that is their "secret". There is always semantics - or semiosis - involved. — apokrisis
So the whole mechanical paradigm of nature is flawed at root if it excludes the basic causal complexity of real living and minding creatures. — apokrisis
We can see that TMs and Boolean logic leave out formal and final cause. Well they leave out material cause as well. All they are is pure syntax. They can be used - by an organism with a purpose and a design - to represent a formal system of entailment. They can capture the description of a syntactic structure. But being such a rarified representation of reality, the computational patterns that result have an extreme real-world brittleness. — apokrisis
In practice, any computer program or computer circuit is incredibly prone to bugs. Just one broken link and the whole finite state automata grinds to a halt. — apokrisis
Organisms by contrasts not only thrive on physical instability, their very existence depends on it. Life and mind arise on the "edge of chaos" as where things are perched on the verge of falling apart, that is where the slightest extra informational nudge can push them instead into falling together. — apokrisis
So life and mind thrive on material dynamism. TMs and other machines only flourish where all the uncertainties of the real world have been managed out of existence by their human designers. Mindless routine following becomes possible where minds have made that a safe thing to do. — apokrisis
Anyway, my point is that any biologist or neurologist would understand that computers and organisms are different in this fundamental way. There is a reason why TMs are both such "universal" machines, and also the most biologically helpless of physical structures. — apokrisis
There is a general metaphysical paradigm that accounts for why brains aren't computers, and yet also, we could build computers that start to have some of that biological realism designed into them. — apokrisis
A "true" NN has to learn for itself. That's both its advantage and disadvantage. It is essentially a black box to its human owner. — apokrisis
I know a "mad genius" who has developed one of the currently most advanced neural network computers in the world. It runs his company for him. But he has no clue how it works inside. It grew its own "programme". And if it failed, he couldn't transfer its software to another hardware rack. He can't even do a memory back-up as such. — apokrisis
But because the memory doesn't work like a traditional TM device, and instead is more like a brain, that is not such a problem as it has natural fault tolerance. The failure of individual links can't corrupt the whole system. — apokrisis
So yep, the whole NN issue isn't clear-cut. But the field has a history now. Computer science has been exploring the degree to which neurologically realistic architectures can lead to a more organismic notion of a machine. — apokrisis
We already have a mathematical definition of the most non-organismic one - a TM/Boolean one - as the theoretical limit of a machine that is all syntax, no semantics. So the next question for the engineers is how to start building back in some useful biological realism. And that in turn demands a general metaphysical theory about how to define "semantic processing", or semiosis. — apokrisis
But isn't it true that just because we can cleverly simulate an approximation of certain aspects of the human mind, that this does not necessarily mean that this is literally how the human mind works?
In other words we've invented flying machines; but that doesn't mean we've discovered the mechanism by which birds fly. — fishfry
If I'm making a physicalist (but not computationalist) argument, then I must admit that we are machines. — fishfry
Sorry I must have missed that. Link again please? — fishfry
Of course there is some physicalist understanding of what brains do, even though our current state of knowledge is quite limited. And since I've said repeatedly that mind [whatever it is] is a function of brain/biochemistry, it follows that there may someday be understanding of it. Why would you think I've said the opposite? — fishfry
That's my understanding of the Church-Turing thesis. If you have a different idea I'd be interested to hear it. — fishfry
That's exactly why I think we need a revolution in physics that shows us how to go past TMs into some mode of computation that is more powerful than a TM. — fishfry
When you say "information is meaning," that's something I absolutely deny by my definition of information. — fishfry
I don't think you can claim that information is meaning. Information is meaningless. Humans give meaning to information. Isn't that true? — fishfry
I don't think you can claim that information is meaning. Information is meaningless. Humans give meaning to information. Isn't that true? If I say I saw a "cat," the symbols by themselves convey know meaning. It's humans, English-speaking ones at that, who say that the word cat stands for a furry domesticated mammal that's not a dog. — fishfry
But then you say well yes humans aren't TMs but they are NN's. And you won't come to terms with the fact that NNs are a special case of TMs. NNs are algorithms. So you aren't gaining anything by claiming that humans are NNs and not TMs. We keep going over this point. — fishfry
What exactly are we doing that goes beyond mere algorithms? — fishfry
You admit that you are not talking about NNs as currently understood. You are using "NN" to mean whatever it is that humans do, that's not a computation. — fishfry
I call bs on that. Not that you don't know some guy, but that he can't back up his system. If it's built out of processors and memory devices then he can back them up just fine with perfectly conventional techniques — fishfry
I do hope you agree that building artificial machines that exhibit "thinking" in constrained domains is one thing; and that claiming that the human mind works that same way is quite another. — fishfry
But isn't that the problem? The way you phrase it suggests that you have certain beliefs about the nature of fundamentality. — apokrisis
This then means reality arises by a restriction on a fundamental anythingness. So Peirce has a metaphysics we can recognise from Anaximander. And one that also is now straight out of modern quantum physics and thermodynamics. — apokrisis
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