[justinpaulson]

Except the author does in fact have a BS in CS. IMO, the brain does far more than performing computation. Sure humans were once "computers," but our ability to perform computation is not a valid argument to that computation, or the inner workings of our mind, being the same as digital computers performing computation. You failed to look up the author's credentials and I feel like you may have also failed to read the entire piece.

[theaiguy]

> the brain does far more than performing computation

In your opinion? Can you be more specific, and give examples of things the brain does that are not computable?

This is trivially true in some senses, neurones have analogue responses, that the biology does a good (but not perfect) job of thresholding. But then, the same thing can be said of transistors. It's just we're able to engineer their analogue responses out much more successfully than evolution has. It is also true that the brain is connected to a much broader system which is undoubtedly analogue (i.e. the body), but then again, it isn't clear that isn't true of any non-abstracted computer.

Comparing theoretical and idealised computing to embodied brains might feel insightful, but it doesn't actually resolve any of the real issues in the philosophy of AI.

Also, a BS in CS isn't a good minimum qualification for competency in the philosophy of AI. I wouldn't read much into that.

[justinpaulson]

I was mainly commenting on the OP's position that the author was 'not trained in CS'.

Here is a list of things I believe that the human brain performs outside of computation:

The irrational motivations that take us over when we feel love. The way that our mood can affect a decision. Taking a walk to enjoy the beauty of the sunset. Writing a satirical short story to express a political fallacy. Painting an image that we saw in a dream. Using metaphors to explain an idea or to validate an argument. Telling a joke and understanding why it is funny. Buying a shirt because it looks cool.

There are many more. But to me, there is definitely more to the mind than simple computation. There is a quality to our experience that is completely lost when our inputs and outputs are equated to the workings of a digital computer.

[theaiguy]

Ultimately these arguments come down to qualia. But there is no reason to think qualia is a) present in other brains except your own, but b) not present in any non-brain information processing system. Philosophers of mind have tried to make that argument, but end up appealing to intuition.

In terms of computability, folks like Boden and Sloman showed in the 90s that emotion is compatible with computability. Even more so, that emotion is implementable in symbolic computation. Of course, one could declare such systems have no qualia of emotion. But can you do more than declare that, while not simultaneously creating arguments that could apply to other brains?

I get you are working on intuition. But there's fifty years of actual research been done on this. Waving your hands and appealing to your 'humble opinion' isn't how scholarship works.

[justinpaulson]

Firstly, I never said my opinion was humble.

Secondly, a good argument is not a proof. We have such a limited understanding of our own emotion and cognition that it is impossible to say that we have proven anything about how compatible emotion is with computation. Hands are continually waved over the existence of qualia and the argument, like you presented yourself, is that we have no way of proving that qualia won't exist for an artificial intelligence that has been programmed for emotional compatibility. I believe that is a fallacy, and it is side-stepping the root of the argument about qualia, and the real root of what self-realization and consciousness is. By saying, look I can make this machine do everything you do and act as if it feels like you do, you are not proving that you have encapsulated all that is cognition. You are only proving that you can mimic cognition. It could be retorted "Well how do you know this machine doesn't really feel like you feel?" I don't know that. But we really aren't learning anything about consciousness by ignoring the question with such a fallacy.

I believe AI has a very important role in rapidly evolving our way of life as we continue in this technological evolutionary cycle. However, I think it does nothing to teach us about ourselves and how our minds actually work. It is nothing more than mimicry. And nothing can be proven based on how an AI bot operates for the materialist or the idealist, so it is aimless to think that AI is how we will understand our own cognition.

[theaiguy]

> is that we have no way of proving that qualia won't exist for an artificial intelligence

You misunderstood my objection. The issue is not whether we can prove such a thing, but can we differentiate between different information processing systems in arguments that qualia exist at all. You assume qualia is a thing that brains do. On what basis do you assume anyone other than you have them, such that implies that no other systems do?

Qualia is one of those topics academics tend to roll their eyes at when it is brought up. Because it appears to do a lot, but in most cases is a variation of 'because I feel like it should be true'.

[cactusface]

If you can simulate matter, certainly you can simulate a brain. Qualia appear not to derive from pixie dust but accumulated experience in the world. You might need to train a brain for a long time to develop qualia. You might not be able to copy qualia from one brain to another. I think these are the main objections, but I'm not sure.

Personally, I'm not convinced that simulating matter is feasible, never mind a living organism, never mind an intelligent living organism, which is what the brain is, when you account for all of it.

We know how far away Andromeda is. We know how to build a spaceship. Therefore, it is possible to go to Andromeda. Is it though? What if the Earth doesn't have enough resources? How big is your brain simulator allowed to be?

[sudo_free_cake]

^this guy, thank you

Philosophy of mind should be part of education so that people learn duality is bullshit.

[nitwit005]

You're just describing behaviors that seem strange or unusual and then asserting that they are somehow not computation.

It doesn't matter what happens inside the brain. If it's governed by normal physics (no divine magic), there will be some computer program equivalent to it. We know that's true, even though we don't know how the brain works.

[nitrogen]

Physics is (are?) essentially computational processes. The brain is a physical object, and therefore is a computer/computable. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation

That doesn't take anything away from the qualia of life; if anything, it makes life that much more amazing.

[yew]

. . . our ability to perform computation is not a valid argument to that computation, or the inner workings of our mind, being the same as digital computers performing computation.

No one [1] thinks that the human brain is likely to be a digital computer performing arithmetic on fixed-width binary integers and IEEE floating-point numbers. The argument for AI is simply that the mind appears to be a material object and the laws of physics appear to be Turing-equivalent. If that holds, the mind is provably equivalent to a Turing machine (or, less likely, some less powerful class of automaton). Arguing about whether in fact that does hold, as Penrose does, can be justified (though I personally think Penrose lost the plot years ago). Arguing about whether your preferred model for categorizing abstract ideas renders the argument inconceivable, with no reference to experimental results or formalisms, can not.

[1] Feel free to add your preferred qualifiers here. The existence of people who believe tobacco companies are run by lizard-people has no bearing on whether cigarettes cause lung cancer.

[wwweston]

> The argument for AI is simply that the mind appears to be a material object and the laws of physics appear to be Turing-equivalent.

This line of argument does achieve the goal of making it trivially true under the definitions given that the brain is a computer, but it seems to me it robs the assertion of insight -- e.g., the brain is computer because everything is a computer, including the nearest rock, since it's also a physics-governed system.

[dragonwriter]

> This line of argument does achieve the goal of making it trivially true under the definitions given that the brain is a computer, but it seems to me it robs the assertion of insight

I think, rather, it reveals the fundamental lack of clarity of the contrary position.

> e.g., the brain is computer because everything is a computer, including the nearest rock, since it's also a physics-governed system.

Right. But no one is questioning the ability to build a computer that simulates the behavior of a rock; or most other physics-governed systems. The AI-is-impossible position boils down to the argument that the mind is not like all other physics governed systems, though it tends to waffle and hedge and bob and weave around that point rather than coming right out with it. Pointing to Turing equivalence and the apparent computability of natural phenomena forces the AI-is-impossible-because-the-mind-is-not-the-kind-of-thing-a-computer-can-simulate argument to come straight out and either (1) reject the universal computability of physical systems, or (2) reject the mind as a physical system.

It still, of course, leaves plenty of room for the proposition that AI is possible but really quite hard.

[coldtea]

>But no one is questioning the ability to build a computer that simulates the behavior of a rock; or most other physics-governed systems.

Actually it sounds especially difficult.

A crude approximation (simulation) at best.

Nothing like a full rock, with its full interactions with its full environment (that might need simulating the whole universe), and with oversimplifying most of its properties (molecular interactions, heat dynamics, etc).

Now make it a "wet rock" and we're even further away (and I wont even dare ask for mold on it or anything, much less living micro-organisms)...

[wwweston]

> But no one is questioning the ability to build a computer that simulates the behavior of a rock; or most other physics-governed systems.

I'm willing to make that challenge: a complete simulation of rock sounds like a formidable problem to me, one I'm not at all certain is within state of the art.

Particularly if (as we're generally imagining when we're talking about simulating brains) we're asking the simulation to be able to stand in for its analog as part of a process-chain connected to a non-simulated situation.

[yew]

It certainly spectacularly fails to provide any advice on the practical problem of engineering AI [1]. The same is true of many non-constructive mathematical proofs, though - and I can't say I find such proofs any less insightful for that.

[1] Though, at least in my opinion, the cognitive science and AI research people have made great progress here - by studying real brains and the formalisms underlying computation.

[justinpaulson]

I think there are far too many assumptions about how the body works and the laws of physics (both of which we are far away from completely understanding) to say that the mind is equivalent to a Turing machine.

[UK-AL]

Computers can simulate electrical and chemical interactions, given enough computational power could you not simulate it at that level?

[justinpaulson]

But that simulation still ignores a certain qualia that has grown from our existence. There is something else happening that we don't understand and I think it is a bit short-sighted to assume that we can simulate it, definitely not now, and possibly never.

[TickleSteve]

your argument is equivalent to "we dont understand it, therefore it must be super-natural".

[justinpaulson]

No, my argument is that we don't understand it, therefore we can't assume that our simulation is anything close to the same process.