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by nootropicat 2976 days ago
I recently realized the (obvious in hindsight) fact that general intelligence better that brute force doesn't exist, as intelligence is equivalent to compression.

Given the recent discoveries about neurons using mRNA capsids to communicate [0] it's not that farfetched to posit that we are really dna computers [1]. The processing time (for new problems) seems human-like: "The slow processing speed of a DNA-computer (the response time is measured in minutes, hours or days, rather than milliseconds)"

The evolutionary argument: as DNA computing is already used by microbes [2] how could the nervous system made of (relatively) dumb neurons compete with that? Synapses still make sense - as a way to request a rna packet and/or inform that it's coming and from where.

One neuron with capability of ~10M pattern matches per second (encoded in dna/rna) would mean that the human brain executes ~2^60 pattern-matching operations per second, utilizing zettabytes of imperfectly copied data. Enough to brute force its way through lots of problems.

Memory as dna would explain high-level memory quirks: each read would be destructive, by splitting dna into rna, interacting with other rna under the presence of appropriate enzymes, then copying and disseminating the resulting rna, transforming the memory each time it's retrieved.

It would also explain urban legends about people's personalities changing to resemble their organ donors in some way - as a donor's memory packets that somehow ended up on the donor's organ and, with the help of immunosuppressants, managed to infect the receiver's brain.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-00492-w

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_computing

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_intelligence

3 comments

> general intelligence better that brute force doesn't exist

What do you mean by this?

It sounds like you are assuming nature requires exactness and are really making a philosophical argument about the nature of computation, namely an np solution in p 'doesnt exist'

> Memory as dna would explain high-level memory quirks

If we are conjecturing than so too could approximate results 'explain high-level memory quirks'

we already have many approximate algorithms that are significantly better than brute force, and I would argue that any read procedure would necessarily be algorithmic, which then would require an explanation as to why this natural process failed to evolve over time

If such an explanation is simply, though arguably counterfactual, 'nature requires exactness' and so is unable to utilize the incremental improvement of evolving algorithms for approximate results, I would argue this implies p!=np because otherwise I think, if it were able, nature would tend toward improving on exactness over the 13B+ years it's been expressing mathematical truths

Being as my intended inference in regard this specific unsolved problem is to develop an algorithm to show p=np, I wonder if the process we refer to as conciousness may be such an algorithm

> neurons using mRNA capsids to communicate

I wonder if the rna is raw memory data or architectural plans for nuerons which, when constructed, express memory

>What do you mean by this?

The goal is to reduce n bits of data to x<n bits. Because there are less variables you gain predictive capability of n-x bits. Or stated differently, the goal is to get closer to the kolmogorov complexity of whatever you're trying to model.

Yet it's not possible to compress n bits in the general case. That's because the kolmogorov complexity is a function of your assumed knowledge (assumptions). All you can do is start checking every possible transformation from your assumption starting with the most probable one - the probabilities are based on your knowledge itself.

>we already have many approximate algorithms that are significantly better than brute force

Yes - but that means the algorithm itself, along with its execution, is the shortest (in the used metric, which can include execution time) answer for a particular problem. How do you generate the algorithm in the first place?

> Yet it's not possible to compress n bits in the general case.

Abstract bits sure, 2^4 objects are unable to represent 2^5 objects, simply due to 16!=32

But what does it have to do with'general intelligence' and brute force?

We were originally talking about rna communication.. where does kolmogrov come in? In the data representation in the rna? But what of it when the mechanism that encodes and decodes is unrestricted in its upper bound complexity? If the disparity between the upper bound of memory being encoded and the mechanism encoding it are great enough then that system could 'compress n bits in the general case'

> All you can do is start checking every possible transformation from your assumption starting with the most probable one - the probabilities are based on your knowledge itself.

This just sounds like you're saying every algorithm is brute force but with different possible states due to assumptions

Would you call Euclid's gcd 'brute force with assumptions'? I would argue algorithm is antonym to brute force

> How do you generate the algorithm in the first place?

Ah, I think I see what you're saying.. are you conjecturing the process of evolving conciousness was itself a brute force process?

Where understanding it's underlying process and being able to implement it ourselves, perhaps even more thermodynamically efficient, is inconsequential due to our efforts being only possible by the original conjectured brute force process that allowed us to abstract to such a degree..? This process being the 'assumption' to be appended to the proof?

But this again seems like a philosophical debate.. one of life and negative entropy

How do you define general intelligence? How do you defend the statement that 'intelligence is equivalent to compression.'?

If you would have to consider all of existence as assumption, then a bitwise representation of our own intelligence would be a significantly small subset of the bitwise representation of all things; expressing this would seem to imply some process substantially more efficient than brute forcing every possible state, or luck is real?, or we underestimate the complexity of 'general intelligence' and in actuality the search is ongoing? Or some undiscussed other?

Not sure how you are defining "general intelligence".

Why wouldn't AIXI count under your definition? (I recognize that AIXI can't be truly implemented, but I don't see where your explanation fits in a "unless you have a halting oracle")

> mRNA capsids to communicate

In this case "communicate" is in a narrow sense - this communication is very slow and Arc has more to do with plasticity rather than the electrical response of neurons.