4 ms·

Well, the burden of proof is on you. The Turing-Church thesis is not a theorem, it is just a conjecture. It might be true, might be not true. Now, if you defin

Well, the burden of proof is on you. The Turing-Church thesis is not a theorem, it is just a conjecture. It might be true, might be not true. Now, if you define a physical computer as a Turing machine and nothing else than yeah, we, humans might as well be not computers at all. But that was not my point. Digital computers could be, in principle, conscious, but the idea that you can construct a mind by making a symbolic program is flawed. Human brain could be, in fact, a digital computer, but the mind in it is not a result of some vulgar symbolic computation, but a result of some mysterious computational process, that very possibly has nothing to do with manipulations with some abstract symbols.

jimhefferon 8y ago
> Now, if you define a physical computer as a Turing machine and nothing else than yeah, we, humans might as well be not computers at all. Gee, I come to the opposite conclusion. If we define what can be computed as what can be computed as a TM then we are TM's, that is, computers. I understand Searle to instead be offering an argument that humans are not TM's, that there is an aspect of computing in the world that is not captured by the definition that Turing gave, and it is whatever is involved in understanding. But the argument, as I hear it, concludes with something like "and it is obviously wrong to think this is what we are doing when we feel we understand something." That's not obvious, to me. > some vulgar symbolic computation I guess I still don't get it. I've not seen any evidence that what goes on between my ears is not doable this way, but I am very ready to concede that the jury is still out. I just don't understand the part where Searle says "obvious."
- IWeldMelons 8y ago
  Is not it a fallacy to search for the reasons why it is not doable? I gave my reasons in the other commentary, you may find them interesting.
  - jimhefferon 8y ago
    > Is not it a fallacy to search for the reasons why it is not doable? I'm sorry, I'm not understanding. Are you asking if a person should look for types of computation that are more powerful then Turing machines? If so, I agree, you should.
naasking 8y ago
> Now, if you define a physical computer as a Turing machine and nothing else than yeah, we, humans might as well be not computers at all We're not even Turing machines. The Bekenstein Bound establishes humans as finite state automata. > Human brain could be, in fact, a digital computer, but the mind in it is not a result of some vulgar symbolic computation, but a result of some mysterious computational process, that very possibly has nothing to do with manipulations with some abstract symbols. So a magical computer? What purpose in a brains computation does the magic serve exactly?
- IWeldMelons 8y ago
  Magic? No, no magic. Mystery.
- IWeldMelons 8y ago
  The very definition of a "symbol" presupposes that there is some entity, which assigns meaning to that symbol. Well, unless you assume that the Nature itself conscious, it does not operate in the terms of symbols and symbolic computations. You can possibly claim that the elementary particles are the symbols of the Nature, and all the physical processes are computations involving such symbols but that would be a degenerate case, which won't help your argument. Mind is a natural phenomenon, which arises as a result of a certain physical process, in matter organized in a certain way. That is all. Until we learn why it happens in that type of matter, we would not be able to recreate minds.
  - naasking 8y ago
    > The very definition of a "symbol" presupposes that there is some entity, which assigns meaning to that symbol No, that's not what's meant at all. Searle is making a distinction between syntax and semantics, where computers process only syntax (symbols are meaningless tokens), but humans can reason semantically, where propositions carry meaning. Both perform symbol processing, so "symbolic computation" is not a useful distinction here. Further, Searle is asserting that semantics cannot arise from syntax. But this is clearly false, as various methods of computational induction demonstrate: given only syntactic analysis of output bits, you can build a semantic model to predict subsequent bits. So what gives the symbols of the semantic model meaning? The correspondence of each symbol to real, observable objects. > Until we learn why it happens in that type of matter, we would not be able to recreate minds. You're assuming that consciousness requires some special property of matter. There's no justification for this assumption. Furthermore, you are arguing that we cannot create something that we do not fully understand. This too seems false. We created fire long before we understood it, for instance.

jimhefferon 8y ago

> Now, if you define a physical computer as a Turing machine and nothing else than yeah, we, humans might as well be not computers at all. Gee, I come to the opposite conclusion. If we define what can be computed as what can be computed as a TM then we are TM's, that is, computers. I understand Searle to instead be offering an argument that humans are not TM's, that there is an aspect of computing in the world that is not captured by the definition that Turing gave, and it is whatever is involved in understanding. But the argument, as I hear it, concludes with something like "and it is obviously wrong to think this is what we are doing when we feel we understand something." That's not obvious, to me. > some vulgar symbolic computation I guess I still don't get it. I've not seen any evidence that what goes on between my ears is not doable this way, but I am very ready to concede that the jury is still out. I just don't understand the part where Searle says "obvious."

IWeldMelons 8y ago
Is not it a fallacy to search for the reasons why it is not doable? I gave my reasons in the other commentary, you may find them interesting.
- jimhefferon 8y ago
  > Is not it a fallacy to search for the reasons why it is not doable? I'm sorry, I'm not understanding. Are you asking if a person should look for types of computation that are more powerful then Turing machines? If so, I agree, you should.

naasking 8y ago

> Now, if you define a physical computer as a Turing machine and nothing else than yeah, we, humans might as well be not computers at all We're not even Turing machines. The Bekenstein Bound establishes humans as finite state automata. > Human brain could be, in fact, a digital computer, but the mind in it is not a result of some vulgar symbolic computation, but a result of some mysterious computational process, that very possibly has nothing to do with manipulations with some abstract symbols. So a magical computer? What purpose in a brains computation does the magic serve exactly?

IWeldMelons 8y ago
Magic? No, no magic. Mystery.
IWeldMelons 8y ago
The very definition of a "symbol" presupposes that there is some entity, which assigns meaning to that symbol. Well, unless you assume that the Nature itself conscious, it does not operate in the terms of symbols and symbolic computations. You can possibly claim that the elementary particles are the symbols of the Nature, and all the physical processes are computations involving such symbols but that would be a degenerate case, which won't help your argument. Mind is a natural phenomenon, which arises as a result of a certain physical process, in matter organized in a certain way. That is all. Until we learn why it happens in that type of matter, we would not be able to recreate minds.
- naasking 8y ago
  > The very definition of a "symbol" presupposes that there is some entity, which assigns meaning to that symbol No, that's not what's meant at all. Searle is making a distinction between syntax and semantics, where computers process only syntax (symbols are meaningless tokens), but humans can reason semantically, where propositions carry meaning. Both perform symbol processing, so "symbolic computation" is not a useful distinction here. Further, Searle is asserting that semantics cannot arise from syntax. But this is clearly false, as various methods of computational induction demonstrate: given only syntactic analysis of output bits, you can build a semantic model to predict subsequent bits. So what gives the symbols of the semantic model meaning? The correspondence of each symbol to real, observable objects. > Until we learn why it happens in that type of matter, we would not be able to recreate minds. You're assuming that consciousness requires some special property of matter. There's no justification for this assumption. Furthermore, you are arguing that we cannot create something that we do not fully understand. This too seems false. We created fire long before we understood it, for instance.