• Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Humans can act like computers but can computers act like humans?EugeneW

    The first part of the statement is what's interesting. Just like there are computer games in which a vehicle's engine is simulated, why not let a human brain do the same simulation? Isn't our imagination a simulation software?
  • EugeneW
    1.7k


    No. But I can imagine simulation software.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    No. But I can imagine simulation software.EugeneW

    Yes, and...
  • EugeneW
    1.7k


    So my imagination isn't simulation software. Simulation software contains no imagination. But the imagination can contain simulation software. Simulation software is a part of the imagination but the imagination is not a part of the simulation software. So computers can't act like humans.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k


    Simulation: unreal/testing a scenario
    Imagination: unreal/(also) testing a scenario

    Notice how simulated worlds are fantasy worlds.
  • EugeneW
    1.7k


    The computer isn't aware of the simulation. It's programmed. We are aware of a simulation in our brain. It's not programmed. The computer or robot has no dreams. Nature isn't programmed.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Even so, there are similarities between simulation & imagination.
  • EugeneW
    1.7k
    d

    An imagination is a simulation but a simulation doesn't need to be an imagination. They are both simulations. An imagination is an imagined simulation. A simulation is just a simulation.
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    An imagination is a simulation but a simulation doesn't need to be an imagination. They are both simulations. An imagination is an imagined simulation. A simulation is just a simulation.EugeneW

    I think EugeneW is saying there is, in the case of human, a SELF which has intentions, whereas, in the case of computer, there is NO self, and thus there are no intentions, just a programmed, logical continuity of coded commands.

    A simulation "borrows" the selfhood & the intentions of the computer programmer, a human.

    A computer simulation program is like an appendage of human, an extension, like an arm, under the control of human.
  • Sir2u
    3.5k
    Concept - Philosophy - an idea or mental picture of a group or class of objects formed by combining all their aspects. -- The Apple Dictionaryucarr

    But it is not always necessary to have physical representations.

    Consider a) Mental representations of material objects; b) material representations of concepts

    Which comes first?
    ucarr

    I would think that it would be impossible to have a man made physical object without there being a concept on which to base it.
    But it would be impossible to form a concept of something natural without having at least some of the characteristics being known.
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    I would think that it would be impossible to have a man made physical object without there being a concept on which to base it.

    But it would be impossible to form a concept of something natural without having at least some of the characteristics being known.
    Sir2u

    Let's reverse the order.

    But it would be impossible to form a concept of something natural without having at least some of the characteristics being known.

    I would think that it would be impossible to have a man made physical object without there being a concept on which to base it.

    Human concepts are based on observations of surrounding natural forms. Proceeding from there, humans make alterations to their naturalistic concepts. These alterations are derivatives of the naturalistic concepts that preceded them. They are still natural forms because human nature, as the name indicates, stands as another form of nature, so the products of human nature, whether naturalistic or altered, also stand as other forms of nature.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    [1]An imagination is a simulation but [2]a simulation doesn't need to be an imagination. [3]They are both simulations. An imagination is an imagined simulation. A simulation is just a simulation.EugeneW

    [1] Yes

    [2] Yes

    [3] :chin:
  • EugeneW
    1.7k


    Indeed. An imagination is a simulation that is seen. With the minds eye?
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Indeed. An imagination is a simulation that is seen. With the minds eye?EugeneW

    Indeed!
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    Indeed. An imagination is a simulation that is seen. With the minds eye?EugeneW

    Now you're talking about feedback looping with vertical stacking.
  • EugeneW
    1.7k


    Well, almost. More like nested loops. I'm the outside loop watching and influencing the inside loops that affect me as a loop.
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    Can you elaborate a bit more? I've been thinking that with more loops per fixed interval of time,
    A. I. will become self aware.

    If so, this leads me to thinking the self (maybe the soul) lives in the interstices of the loops, and is immaterial, epiphenomenally speaking.

    The self is an associate of the material world, but is not local to it.
  • Sir2u
    3.5k
    Human concepts are based on observations of surrounding natural forms.ucarr

    Which natural forms are the base for books? On which natural form is animal training based?

    And how does this all intertwine with the OP?
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    Ever read a biology book?

    You've been debating me about pure math & how it's uncoupled from the material world & I've been arguing that applied math is about the material world & that pure math, being about how math logic works, is also, ultimately, about the material world because logic has no meaning outside of the continuity of interrelated material things.
  • Sir2u
    3.5k
    Ever read a biology book?ucarr

    Yes.

    You've been debating me about pure math & how it's uncoupled from the material worlducarr

    No, I cannot remember even mentioning it. We were discussing the materialistic qualities of numbers, which is no existent.
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    We were discussing the materialistic qualities of numbers, which is no existent.Sir2u

    What about the materialistic qualities of number?



    There's a stone sitting on a red square. Close by, there's a stone sitting on a green square. A person sees them and gives them a label. Label = 2-stones.

    Do you think 2-stones describes something that's there in the stones?

    Do you think 2-stones completely different from stone on red square and stone on green square?

    Do you think 2-stones is a label randomly given to stone on red square and stone on green square?

    Do you think 2-stones can be replaced with Fluxmax-stones and would make no difference?

    If you think the replacement makes no difference, what can be done to let people know
    2-stones = Fluxmax-stones?
  • Janus
    16.3k
    So it would seem. Of course the other possibility is that numbers exist in the mind of God, but that one's impossible to argue. At least we know we do see number everywhere in the everywhere, and it's only the fact that we can imagine that there might be a universal mind, along with our preconceived ideas about the difference between the concrete and the abstract, that makes the environmental explanation seem like it might not be adequate.
  • Sir2u
    3.5k
    There's a stone sitting on a red square. Close by, there's a stone sitting on a green square. A person sees them and gives them a label. Label = 2-stones.ucarr

    Giving them a label is the key there, if the number label where part of the stone no one will need to "give" them anything

    Do you think 2-stones can be replaced with Fluxmax-stones and would make no difference?ucarr

    Of course it could be replaced with anything, as long as it is universally accepted. Fluxmax-stones could quite easily be 2-stones in some sort of technical language.

    Whatever they are called is because of human constructed language, not because of stones having built in numbers.
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    Giving them a label is the key there, if the number label where part of the stone no one will need to "give" them anythingSir2u

    Pile of 2-stones sits on a red square. Close by, pile of 3-stones sits on a green square.

    Seeing pile-of-2-stones and pile-of-3-stones, would you give each pile the same label?

    Do you think 2-stones can be replaced with Fluxmax-stones and would make no difference?
    — ucarr

    Of course it could be replaced with anything, as long as it is universally accepted. Fluxmax-stones could quite easily be 2-stones in some sort of technical language.
    Sir2u

    If it were discovered that Germany has already established Fluxmax-stones = 3-stones, would the equation 2-stones = Fluxmax-stones have to be changed to 2-stones ≠ Fluxmax-stones?
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    we do see number everywhere in the everywhere,Janus



    :up:
  • Sir2u
    3.5k
    Pile of 2-stones sits on a red square. Close by, pile of 3-stones sits on a green square.

    Seeing pile-of-2-stones and pile-of-3-stones, would you give each pile the same label?
    ucarr

    I doubt that many would call two or three stones a pile, but who knows. The same applies here as I said above, if the piles of stones already had a label there would be no need to give them one. Nothing has numbers as part of their make up, numbers were invented by man so that he could work out how the universe works.

    If it were discovered that Germany has already established Fluxmax-stones = 3-stones, would the equation 2-stones = Fluxmax-stones have to be changed to 2-stones ≠ Fluxmax-stones?ucarr

    That is sort of like asking if the cowshit you found was discovered to come from a bull would we have to call it NOT COWSHIT.
    No, we would just call it bullshit.

    And of course we see numbers everywhere, we put them there.
  • jgill
    3.8k
    Pile of 2-stones sits on a red square. Close by, pile of 3-stones sits on a green square. Seeing pile-of-2-stones and pile-of-3-stones, would you give each pile the same label?ucarr

    I love these Einsteinian thought experiments ! :nerd:
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    Nothing has numbers as part of their make up, numbers were invented...Sir2u

    Seeing pile-of-2-stones and pile-of-3-stones, would you give each pile the same number?ucarr

    If it were discovered that Germany has already established Fluxmax-stones = 3-stones, would the equation 2-stones = Fluxmax-stones have to be changed to 2-stones ≠ Fluxmax-stones?ucarr

    That is sort of like asking if the cowshit you found was discovered to come from a bull would we have to call it NOT COWSHIT.
    No, we would just call it bullshit.
    Sir2u

    Do you agree that COWSHIT ≠ bullshit?

    When you look at 2 material objects, say, 2 stones, do you see 2 stones, or do you see the number 2 as it is written on paper?

    Since writing first appeared thousands of years after human first started walking the earth, do you accept that 2 stones first appeared long before the first appearance of number 2 as it is written on paper?

    And of course we see numbers everywhere, we put them there.Sir2u

    Do you acknowledge that the numbers we put onto material objects describe what was already there before human started writing numbers?
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Do you agree that COWSHIT ≠ bullshit?ucarr

    :rofl:

    You have a point, monsieur/mademoiselle!
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Sorry for butting in, but the universe was behaving in a mathematical way (physics + chemistry) long before humans (biology) even entered the fray so to speak. I dunno, just saying.
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