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Does simulating a gold bar turn the simulation into gold? I feel im going round in circles here. A description of a system, even if that description is "active

Does simulating a gold bar turn the simulation into gold? I feel im going round in circles here. A description of a system, even if that description is "active" (ie., it evolves over time)... is not the same as the system. I can take a photograph of a mountain. My hand has no mountain in it, but a photograph. I can describe any system with mathematics. I can give every atom in your body a number for all of its properties, and a location with respect to the centre of the earth and then append all those numbers together to form a massive number X. Over time because your position and properties change the number which describes you X2 differs from X. If I start by writing X down, then X2, then X3, etc. then the ink on the page describes you as a changing system. The ink isnt you. It isnt alive. It's ink. That is all a machine is. We have replaced ink with electricity and paper with silicon, but it is only correlated with a changing number. WE perform the translation from this number to something else in the world. The person who reads the ink on the paper is the person who knows what X becoming X2 means as it pertains to you. The paper and ink do not mean anything alone, they are not you and share none of your properties. When a chat bot says "hi" it is just a change to an LCD screen caused by an electrical fluctuation caused by a prior electrical fluctuation. It is just a new line of ink on the page. There is nothing thinking, saying, speaking, understanding, "hi". It is just a change to some liquid crystal which fools you as you read it. YOU impart meaning on it when you look at it. It isnt a person, it's just ink. The most ambitious we can be about machines is that they fool people into thinking they are having a conversation with someone. Ie., that paper shreds with ink phrases on them tumble out of a folder in just-the-right-order as-if a conversation was happening. But it's a tumbling of electric, there is no conversation.

Dylan16807 9y ago
> If I start by writing X down, then X2, then X3, etc. then the ink on the page describes you as a changing system. > The ink isnt you. It isnt alive. It's ink. > That is all a machine is. We have replaced ink with electricity and paper with silicon, but it is only correlated with a changing number. Okay, good. Now here is the important part. I am not making the claim that this machine is a real person. I am making the claim that if you video-call the machine, it will produce lights and sounds that are identical to video calling a real person. If the simulation is accurate, isn't that a straightforward consequence? You keep saying that the machine won't be real AND that it will fail sophisticated cognition tests. Those are not the same issue. I'm not arguing that it's real. I'm arguing that it will pass every cognition test you can throw at it. Is there a flew in my very short chain of logic?
- mjburgess 9y ago
  There are tests to distinguish gold from silicon. And so there will be for however your machine works. I cannot say now what those test will be, any more than you can make such a machine. Something not being the thing it is simulating entails there will be tests to distinguish it. The tests cannot be "cognative" because there is no cognition going on. A simulation of an animal does not live in the world, experience and understand it -- nor render the world intelligible to itself and others. A simulation of an animal is just a current flowing around a wire. I would guess the tests will always, actually, be quite simple -- perhaps not expressible as a single conversation -- because somehow like a chess game it has every infinite sequence of conversations available to it. Perhaps, in a novel social situation adapting to evolving minds as they respond to each other. Suppose this is recorded today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99IitWYZ0aU#t=60s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99IitWYZ0aU#t=60s and your machine is sat in the audience. The question is then: "What does Kenneth think about the audience's laughter?"
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    > There are tests to distinguish gold from silicon. And so there will be for however your machine works. Unless something was coded wrong, gold inside the simulation will give the same numbers as gold outside, so you can't tell which is which. Let me be clear here. You don't touch the machine directly, you get the numbers the simulation spits out. The 'proof of concept' interaction is that you are on a video call with the atoms and photons inside the simulation. The video looks like a person, and your job is finding any difference between it and a video call with a real person. > Something not being the thing it is simulating entails there will be tests to distinguish it. That implies that the atoms and photons are being simulated incorrectly. Are you saying it's not possible to have an accurate simulation of atoms and photons? > A simulation of an animal does not live in the world The simulated atoms interact with a simulated cage, so they should give the same results despite being mere electricity. > I would guess the tests will always, actually, be quite simple -- perhaps not expressible as a single conversation -- because somehow like a chess game it has every infinite sequence of conversations available to it. > Perhaps, in a novel social situation adapting to evolving minds as they respond to each other. > The question is then: "What does Kenneth think about the audience's laughter?" The simulated atoms will change simulated orientation the same way real atoms would. If you look for physical evidence of learning you'll find the same molecules moving the same way. Why would the simulation fail this test?

Dylan16807 9y ago

> If I start by writing X down, then X2, then X3, etc. then the ink on the page describes you as a changing system. > The ink isnt you. It isnt alive. It's ink. > That is all a machine is. We have replaced ink with electricity and paper with silicon, but it is only correlated with a changing number. Okay, good. Now here is the important part. I am not making the claim that this machine is a real person. I am making the claim that if you video-call the machine, it will produce lights and sounds that are identical to video calling a real person. If the simulation is accurate, isn't that a straightforward consequence? You keep saying that the machine won't be real AND that it will fail sophisticated cognition tests. Those are not the same issue. I'm not arguing that it's real. I'm arguing that it will pass every cognition test you can throw at it. Is there a flew in my very short chain of logic?

mjburgess 9y ago
There are tests to distinguish gold from silicon. And so there will be for however your machine works. I cannot say now what those test will be, any more than you can make such a machine. Something not being the thing it is simulating entails there will be tests to distinguish it. The tests cannot be "cognative" because there is no cognition going on. A simulation of an animal does not live in the world, experience and understand it -- nor render the world intelligible to itself and others. A simulation of an animal is just a current flowing around a wire. I would guess the tests will always, actually, be quite simple -- perhaps not expressible as a single conversation -- because somehow like a chess game it has every infinite sequence of conversations available to it. Perhaps, in a novel social situation adapting to evolving minds as they respond to each other. Suppose this is recorded today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99IitWYZ0aU#t=60s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99IitWYZ0aU#t=60s and your machine is sat in the audience. The question is then: "What does Kenneth think about the audience's laughter?"
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  > There are tests to distinguish gold from silicon. And so there will be for however your machine works. Unless something was coded wrong, gold inside the simulation will give the same numbers as gold outside, so you can't tell which is which. Let me be clear here. You don't touch the machine directly, you get the numbers the simulation spits out. The 'proof of concept' interaction is that you are on a video call with the atoms and photons inside the simulation. The video looks like a person, and your job is finding any difference between it and a video call with a real person. > Something not being the thing it is simulating entails there will be tests to distinguish it. That implies that the atoms and photons are being simulated incorrectly. Are you saying it's not possible to have an accurate simulation of atoms and photons? > A simulation of an animal does not live in the world The simulated atoms interact with a simulated cage, so they should give the same results despite being mere electricity. > I would guess the tests will always, actually, be quite simple -- perhaps not expressible as a single conversation -- because somehow like a chess game it has every infinite sequence of conversations available to it. > Perhaps, in a novel social situation adapting to evolving minds as they respond to each other. > The question is then: "What does Kenneth think about the audience's laughter?" The simulated atoms will change simulated orientation the same way real atoms would. If you look for physical evidence of learning you'll find the same molecules moving the same way. Why would the simulation fail this test?