[naasking]

> The brain is not a finite state machine.

Yes it is, all finite volumes contain finite information. This is a consequence of physics called the Bekenstein Bound. This means the brain can be fully captured by a finite state machine. It has a very large state space, but it's still finite.

[dinkumthinkum]

I mean you can quote those bounds all you like but this is not what a “finite state machine” is. You are using the words in a nominalistic way but for people in computing, we know very well what a finite state machine is and it encompasses things far greater than the “Bekenstein Bound”. It’s no problem to consider more states in an FSM than there are particles in the universe. Of course, this is silly because what you are describing as an FSM is not.

[naasking]

So you're saying that a set of finite states governed by a set of finite state transitions is not a finite state machine. Ok buddy.

Don't confuse expressiveness and state space. Even if there are more faithful encodings that better preserve other properties, what I said is strictly true and it's important for people to understand that human cognition is not as powerful as some think: a finite state space means a human can be fully captured by a finite state machine.

[sambapa]

Brain can create new states, so by induction it is not a fsm

[naasking]

What exactly is an example of a new state?

[sambapa]

Learning, creativity, imagination etc. (Yeah I'm pulling things out of my ass, but that's discussion about brain for you)

[naasking]

Your brain has a finite number of particles. The information content of your brain must be encoded in those particles. Thus, the brain's state space is finite.

A finite set of configurations is enumerable, and can be mapped to any other finite set of same or larger size, like a computer's memory, with no loss of information.

Therefore, any state your brain can enter can similarly be created within a computer, in principle.

[dinkumthinkum]

I think you need to revisit your proof. Human intelligence is more complicated than that. It is not using encoding in the way you are claiming or if it is this is such a bizarre concept that it requires evidence. We don’t really understand how humans think but experientially it is a phenomena that is more complicated than a process that follows from a small set of simple rules.

[naasking]

More complicated than what? Rule 110 is sufficient to compute all computable functions. All the richness of the internet today can be produced from Rule 110 alone. You'd be surprised how much complexity can arise from simple rules.

Furthermore, the proof I laid out is a corollary of simple physics. If you want a more rigorous version, look up the Bekenstein Bound, which proves conclusively that any finite volume can only contain finite information. Your body is a finite volume, therefore it contains finite information, therefore it can be captured by a finite state machine.

Edit: I just realized I also replied to you above, so I'll take up the thread there.

[hbrn]

> any state your brain can enter can similarly be created within a computer, in principle

Not necessarily: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reducti...

[naasking]

All arguments disputing a computable brain reduce to claiming that something exists beyond physics or claiming that physics is non-computable in some way. There is no evidence for either of these, Penrose's theory included.

[sambapa]

The brain isn't a fsm simply because I can create a game with an aribtrary number of rules. If I can do that, then there are countably infinite fsm just for making games in my brain, "making a game with one rule fsm", "making a game with two rules fsm" etc.

[naasking]

> The brain isn't a fsm simply because I can create a game with an aribtrary number of rules.

And so can a finite state machine with the same state space as your brain. Size of state space is not a difference of kind but of degree.