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All of benjayk's Comments + Replies

AI is not enough
benjayk-20

My argument still holds in another form, though. Even if we assume the universe has a preexisting algorithm that just unfolds, we don't know which it is. So we can't determine the best seed AI from that either, effectively we still have to start from b). Unless we get the best seed AI by accident (which seems unlikely to me) there will be room for a better seed AI which can only determined if we start with a totally new algorithm (which the original seed AI is unable to, since then it would have to delete itself). We, having the benefit of not knowing our ... (read more)

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AI is not enough
benjayk-20

I see in which case my argument fails:

If we assume a prexisting algorithm for the universe already (which most people here seem to do), then everything else could be derived from that, including all axioms of natural numbers, since we assume the algorithm to be more powerful then them at the start. Step b) is simply postulated to be already fulfilled, with the algorithm just being there (and "just being there" is not an algorithm), so that we already have an algorithm to start with (the laws of nature).

The "laws of nature" simply have t... (read more)

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AI is not enough
benjayk-20

I am not necessarily an atheist, it depends on your definition of God. I reject all relgious conceptions of God, but accept God as a name for the mysterious source of all order, intelligence and meaning, or as existence itself.

So in this sense, God is the uncaused cause and also everything caused.

It would indeed be a counterargument if I didn't believe in uncaused cause, but I do believe in an uncaused cause, even though it isn't a seperate entity like the usual notion of God implies.

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AI is not enough
benjayk00

I agree. That's why is say "this algorithm doesn't solve any problem", it isn't in a problem solving algorithm in the sense I used in my post. Any "just go through all XYZ" doesn't solve my stated problem, because it doesn't select the actual useful solution.

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3JoshuaZ
That's not the issue here. The issue is more subtle. Dovetaling doesn't go through every algorithm but goes through every program. That is, it runs a program whether or not that program will halt. I'm not completely sure what you mean by a problem solving algorithm. Variations of universal dovetailing that are very close to it can be problem solving algorithms by most reasonable notions of the term. Consider for example the following: Proposition: If P=NP then there is an explicitly constructable algorithm which gives explicit solutions to 3-SAT in polynomial time. Proof sketch: For a given 3-SAT dovetail through all programs. Whenever a program gives an output, check if that output is a solution to the 3-SAT problem. If so, you've found your answer. It isn't too hard to see that this process will terminate in polynomial time if P=NP. (I'm brushing some issues here under the rug, like what we mean by explicitly constructable, and there's an implicit assumption here of some form of w-consistency for our axiomatic system.) This sort of construction works for a large variety of issues so that one can say that morally speaking if an algorithm exists to do so something in some complexity class then dovetailing will find an example of such an algorithm.
1thomblake
This is fallacious. Correct conclusion: you would then have a 1-step regress of picking algorithms. Watch that slippery slope.
5asr
Hrm? Suppose you're trying to accomplish some problem X. There are range of algorithms and heuristics available to you. You try a few of them. At some point -- usually a very quick point -- one of them is good enough for your practical purpose, and you stop. We don't typically go too far in formalizing our purposes, generally. But I don't see what the deep point is that you're driving at. For practical purposes, algorithms are chosen by people in order to solve practical problems. Usually there are a few layers of formalized intermediaries -- compilers and libraries and suchlike. But not very far down the regress, there's a human. And humans settle for good enough. And they don't have a formal model of how they do so. There isn't an infinite algorithmic regress. The particular process humans use to choose algorithms is unquestionably not a clean formal algorithm. Nobody ever said it was. The regress stops when you come to a human, who was never designed and isn't an algorithm-choosing algorithm. But that doesn't shed any light on whether a formal algorithm exists that could act similarly to a human, or whether there is an algorithm-choice procedure that's as good or better than a human.
2asr
I agree that neural nets in general, and the human brain in particular can't be readily replaced with a well-structured computer program of moderate complexity. But I indeed was presuming computationalism, in the sense that "all a human brain does is compute some function that could in principle be formalized, given enough information about the particular brain in question". If that's the claim you wanted to focus on, you should have raised it more directly. Computationalism is quite separate from whether there is a simple formalism for intelligence. I believe computationalism because I believe that it would be possible to build an accurate neuron-level simulator of a brain. Such a simulator could be evaluated using any turing-equivalent computer. But the resulting function would be very messy and lack a simple hierarchical structure. Which part of this are we disagreeing on? Do you think a neuron-level brain simulation could produce intelligent behavior similar in character to a human being? Do you think an engineered software artifact could ever do the same?
gjm100

No, I didn't say "it's all algorithmic, basta"; I said "so far as we know, it's all algorithmic". Of course it's possible that we'll somehow discover that actually our minds run on magic fairies and unicorns or something, but so far as I can tell all the available evidence is consistent with everything being basically algorithmic. You're the one claiming to know that that isn't so; I invite you to explain how you know.

I haven't claimed that the axioms of arithmetic are derived from something simpler. I have suggested that for all we kno... (read more)

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8APMason
As a general rule, arguments which rely on having exhausted the hypothesis space are weak. You can't say, "It can't be algorithms, because algorithms don't solve the problem of the first cause." Well, so what? Neither do the straw men you suggest. Neither, indeed, do "emergence" or "magic", which aren't explanations at all. It's one of those hard problems - it doesn't just trouble positions you disagree with.
4prase
Again, they cannot be derived within the formal system where they are axioms. They can be determined in a different system which uses distinct axioms or derivation rules. This is, more or less, how you could interpret the parent comment. Your argument seems to be 1. Humans have derived arithmetics. 2. Arithmetics can't be algorithmically derived from a simpler system. 3. Therefore, humans are not algorithmic. It seems that you are equivocating in your demands. Your original assertion is that an algorithm can't derive (in this case, meaning invent) formal arithmetics, but the quoted argument supports another claim, namely that the formalisation of arithmetics is the most austere possible. But this claim is not (at least not obviously) relevant to the original question whether intelligence is algorithmic or not. Humans haven't derived formal arithmetics from a simpler formal system. Removing the equivocation, the argument is a clear non-sequitur: 1. Humans have invented arithmetics. 2. Arithmetics can't be simplified. 3. Therefore, humans are not algorithmic. What do you mean by magical? Saying "emergence is magical" doesn't look like a description. I would suggest you to be more careful with such statements. It comes across as confrontational.
0Tiiba
"So according to you, the laws of the universe are random. I think this hardly plausible." I don't see why it is not plausible. It's not like the Universe has any reason to choose the laws that it did and not others. Why have a procedure, algorithmic or not, if there are no goals?
2JoshuaZ
The universal dovetailer runs through all possible programs, which is a superset of all algorithms. You can't use it to get access to just the genuine algorithms in any algorithmic fashion- if you could you could solve the Halting problem.
7Vaniver
I follow a set of rules that provide me with a cup of tea in a finite number of steps.
asr110

You've convinced me that I don't have conscious introspective access to the algorithms I use for these things. This doesn't mean that my brain isn't doing something pretty structured and formal underneath.

The formalization example I think is a good one. There's a famous book by George Polya, "how to solve it". It's effectively a list of mental tactics used in problem solving, especially mathematical problem solving.

When I sit down to solve a problem, like formalizing the natural numbers, I apply something like Polya's tool-set iteratively. &qu... (read more)

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6mas
How do you know that my brain doesn't have algorithms running for all of these problems? Surely for tea making it's something like this: I want tea -- Do I have all ingredients? -- (Water) yes, (Tea bag) no -- Do I go to the store? -- Is the store open etc...
[SEQ RERUN] Third Alternatives for Afterlife-ism
benjayk-20

I contest that afterlife is a lie. I think one reason many people believe in an afterlife is because it actually makes sense, even though their picture of what it looks like is very unlikely to be accurate.

In my opinion it is simply a logical certainty that there is an "afterlife" (if one dies in the first place): I can't ever experience nothing in the present (even though I can say in retrospect say "I experienced nothing ", which just means I failed to experience an experience with certain properties) , so I will always experience som... (read more)

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How Many of Me Are There?
benjayk30

I think the most practical / accurate way of conceiving of individuality is through the connection of your perceptions through memory. You are the same person as 3 years ago, because you remember being that person (not only rationally, but on a deeper level of knowing and feeling that you were that person). Of course different persons will not share the memory of being the same person. So if we conceive of individuality in the way we actually experience individuality (which I think is most reasonable), there is not much sense in saying that many persons li... (read more)

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3TheOtherDave
Two things: 1) Can you clarify what you mean by "rationally remembering" here? 2) If you're actually talking about "knowing and feeling that I am that person," then you aren't talking about memory at all. There are many, many events that I do not remember, but which I "know and feel" I was involved in -- my birth, for example. If you define my "personal identity" as including those things, that's OK with me... I do, as well... but it's not clear to me that there's a sharp line between saying that, and saying that my "personal identity" can include events at which my body was not present but which I "know and feel" I was involved in. (Just to be clear: I'm not suggesting anything mystical here. I'm talking about the psychological constituents of identity.) I'm not sure there's anything to say about that other than, if I do identify with those things, then those things are part of my identity. To put that more affirmitively: if personal identity is a matter of what I "know and feel," then it is a psychological construct very much like cultural identity and family identity, and those constructs flow into one another with no sharp dividing lines, and therefore discussions of where "personal identity" ends and "cultural identity" begins is entirely a discussion of how we choose to define those terms, not actually a discussion about their referents.