5 ms·

Why is there never any fundamental research whether human intelligence is even computable? All these huge, expensive projects based on an untested premise.

by yters 7y ago

Ididntdothis 7y ago
I think it’s pretty certain that we can improve a lot. If that leads to human intelligence or something else we don’t know. But it’s worth working on improving things and trying different approaches even if the final result isn’t known.
- yters 7y ago
  But there might be even better approaches if human intelligence is not computable. E.g. if the mind is a halting oracles that can get us all kinds of cool things.
  - inimino 7y ago
    If the mind were a halting oracle I don't think most of our open problems in mathematics would be.
    - yters 7y ago
      It's possible for the mind to solve more halting problems than any finite computer, yet still not be as powerful as a complete halting oracle. Thus, the fact we haven't solved every problem does not count as evidence against the mind being a halting oracle.
      - inimino 7y ago
        Actually it does. While it's logically possible, evidence for a hypothesis A is still provided by any data that is more likely under hypothesis A than under hypothesis B. The hypothesis that the mind is computable but is using heuristics, of various levels of sophistication, explains the data better and is more parsimonious than your hypothesis, because we already have reason to believe that the mind uses heuristics extensively. Where you see uncomputable oracular insights, others see computable combinations of heuristics. If you introspect deeply enough while problem-solving, you may be able to sense the heuristics working prior to the flash of intuition.
        yters 7y ago
        In that setup the evidence makes the uncomputable partial Oracle the most likely hypothesis, since the space of uncomputable partial oracles is much much larger (infinitely so) than either computable minds or perfect halting oracles.
        inimino 7y ago
        Well, no. That is the same kind of error as Zeno's paradox. One assigns a prior to a class of hypotheses, and the cardinality of that set does not change the total probability you assign to the entire hypothesis class. If one instead assigns a constant non-zero prior to each individual hypothesis of an infinite class, a grievous error has been committed and inconsistent and paradoxical beliefs can be the only result.
        yters 7y ago
        Sounds like then you can just arbitrarily divide up your classes to benefit whatever hypothesis you want, leading to special pleading. I think to remain objective one has to integrate over the entire space of hypothesis instances, using an infinitesimal weighting in the case of infinite spaces.
        inimino 7y ago
        > integrate over the entire space of hypothesis instances, using an infinitesimal weighting in the case of infinite spaces. Agreed. However, when you write: > the evidence makes the uncomputable partial Oracle the most likely hypothesis, since the space of uncomputable partial oracles is much much larger you seem to argue that a hypothesis is more likely because it represents a larger (indeed infinite) space of sub-hypotheses. Reasoning from the cardinality of a set of hypotheses to a degree of belief in the set would in general seem to be unsound.
radeklew 7y ago
Why wouldn't it be? It seems to me that at worst we would have to wait for computers to become as powerful and complex as a human brain, and then simulating human intelligence would be a matter of accurately modelling the connections. Is there doubt as to whether a neuron can be represented computationally?
- randomidiot666 7y ago
  Yes there is doubt. Can you say for sure that we have a complete model of all physics, and that all physics can be represented computationally? We're still discovering new features of neurons at the quantum level. Who knows how far down it goes. There may be some unknown physics at play inside neurons that can not be computed by a Turing machine. https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/discovery-of-quantum-vibrations-in-microtubules-inside-brain-neurons-corroborates-controversial-20-year-old-theory-of-consciousness https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-j...
  - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
    There are aspects of quantum that we don't understand, but we have no reason to believe intelligence relies on them, any more than bridges do.
    - randomidiot666 7y ago
      We actually do have reason to believe that, since our current understanding of consciousness is very incomplete. Human consciousness extends far beyond our current understanding. I am referring to the full extent of the capabilities of the human mind, not some isolated aspects of it. The physics of bridges is well known. That is basically a solved problem. Human consciousness/intelligence is an open problem, and may never be solved.
      - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
        > We actually do have reason to believe that [intelligence relies on quantum properties] Are you leaving the reason unsaid, or am I in fact reading your argument correctly: "We don't understand consciousness, and we don't understand quantum, therefore it is likely consciousness relies on quantum." There's already plenty of mystery in an ordinary deterministic computation-driven approach to intelligence.
xamuel 7y ago
There has been some philosophical speculating but that's generally not very actionable, with people clinging to either side of the question. On the practical side, it's the sort of thing which you can't just throw money at and make progress. Ok, you have $100mil to research whether human intelligence is computable. What do you do? Hire lots of humans and assign them noncomputable tasks and tap your foot waiting for one of them to turn out to be the next Oracle of Delphi? That's fantastic if one of them does, but if none of them do, then you've made zero progress: there's no way to know whether you failed because human intelligence is computable, or whether you failed because you chose the wrong tasks/humans.
- yters 7y ago
  But that's the sort of thing that should be researched: is the question scientifically answerable? The answer is not obviously no. I can think of ways to scientifically test for noncomputability. If I can then certainly much smarter and knowledgeable poeple can. People just assume like yourself it is not and throw lots of money at a certain assumption. If the assumption is wrong, not only is AGI a dead end, but "human in the loop" computation should be a huge win.
  - xamuel 7y ago
    I'm not saying it's not scientifically answerable, just that hiring people specifically to answer it is not practical. This type of thing usually comes through unplanned breakthroughs. You can't discover that the earth revolves around the sun just by paying tons of money to researchers and asking them to figure out astronomy. All that would get you would be some extremely sophisticated Copernican cycle-based models. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-08-09 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-08-09
    - yters 7y ago
      Bell Labs made a bunch of breakthroughs that way, i.e. information theory.
  - drongoking 7y ago
randomidiot666 7y ago
But there is. We have fundamental research into whether physics is computable. We also have fundamental research on the physical structure of human consciousness/intelligence. So first we need to discover the physical model of human intelligence, and then we can determine its computability.
- Jeff_Brown 7y ago
  Intelligence is a human property, yes, but also a Platonic one. We didn't need to understand how humans process math in order to get computers to do it.
  - randomidiot666 7y ago
    As stated in my other reply: "Human consciousness extends far beyond our current understanding. I am referring to the full extent of the capabilities of the human mind, not some isolated aspects of it." Computers have not superseded humans in mathematical research. That is way beyond anything that we can program into a computer. Computers are better at computation, which is not the same thing.
    - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
      By "math" I mean proving theorems, not doing arithmetic. Yes, we're better at finding useful theorems, but computers can do it. More generally, the fact that currently humans are the only entity observed doing X does not mean you need to understand humans to understand X.
      - randomidiot666 7y ago
        I wrote "computation", not "arithmetic". Human intelligence goes beyond computation / mathematical logic, and you seem to ignore all of that. We haven't got a clue how consciousness works. It's a total mystery.
        7y ago
13415 7y ago
There is plenty of fundamental research on it, probably a paper about it is published every week or so. The problem is that there is no general solution to the question, and everybody disagrees about how "human intelligence" should be defined in that context. The answers people give depend too much on untestable "philosophical stances." Personally, I believe that AI is possible (hard AI thesis) and that computationalism with multiple realizability is right, since none of the philosophical arguments against hard AI and computationalism have convinced me so far. But there are as many opinions on that as there are people working on it.

Why is there never any fundamental research whether human intelligence is even computable? All these huge, expensive projects based on an untested premise.

by yters 7y ago

Why is there never any fundamental research whether human intelligence is even computable? All these huge, expensive projects based on an untested premise.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

I think it’s pretty certain that we can improve a lot. If that leads to human intelligence or something else we don’t know. But it’s worth working on improving things and trying different approaches even if the final result isn’t known.

yters 7y ago
But there might be even better approaches if human intelligence is not computable. E.g. if the mind is a halting oracles that can get us all kinds of cool things.
- inimino 7y ago
  If the mind were a halting oracle I don't think most of our open problems in mathematics would be.
  - yters 7y ago
    It's possible for the mind to solve more halting problems than any finite computer, yet still not be as powerful as a complete halting oracle. Thus, the fact we haven't solved every problem does not count as evidence against the mind being a halting oracle.
    - inimino 7y ago
      Actually it does. While it's logically possible, evidence for a hypothesis A is still provided by any data that is more likely under hypothesis A than under hypothesis B. The hypothesis that the mind is computable but is using heuristics, of various levels of sophistication, explains the data better and is more parsimonious than your hypothesis, because we already have reason to believe that the mind uses heuristics extensively. Where you see uncomputable oracular insights, others see computable combinations of heuristics. If you introspect deeply enough while problem-solving, you may be able to sense the heuristics working prior to the flash of intuition.
      - yters 7y ago
        In that setup the evidence makes the uncomputable partial Oracle the most likely hypothesis, since the space of uncomputable partial oracles is much much larger (infinitely so) than either computable minds or perfect halting oracles.
        inimino 7y ago
        Well, no. That is the same kind of error as Zeno's paradox. One assigns a prior to a class of hypotheses, and the cardinality of that set does not change the total probability you assign to the entire hypothesis class. If one instead assigns a constant non-zero prior to each individual hypothesis of an infinite class, a grievous error has been committed and inconsistent and paradoxical beliefs can be the only result.
        yters 7y ago
        Sounds like then you can just arbitrarily divide up your classes to benefit whatever hypothesis you want, leading to special pleading. I think to remain objective one has to integrate over the entire space of hypothesis instances, using an infinitesimal weighting in the case of infinite spaces.
        inimino 7y ago
        > integrate over the entire space of hypothesis instances, using an infinitesimal weighting in the case of infinite spaces. Agreed. However, when you write: > the evidence makes the uncomputable partial Oracle the most likely hypothesis, since the space of uncomputable partial oracles is much much larger you seem to argue that a hypothesis is more likely because it represents a larger (indeed infinite) space of sub-hypotheses. Reasoning from the cardinality of a set of hypotheses to a degree of belief in the set would in general seem to be unsound.

radeklew 7y ago

Why wouldn't it be? It seems to me that at worst we would have to wait for computers to become as powerful and complex as a human brain, and then simulating human intelligence would be a matter of accurately modelling the connections. Is there doubt as to whether a neuron can be represented computationally?

randomidiot666 7y ago
Yes there is doubt. Can you say for sure that we have a complete model of all physics, and that all physics can be represented computationally? We're still discovering new features of neurons at the quantum level. Who knows how far down it goes. There may be some unknown physics at play inside neurons that can not be computed by a Turing machine. https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/discovery-of-quantum-vibrations-in-microtubules-inside-brain-neurons-corroborates-controversial-20-year-old-theory-of-consciousness https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-j...
- Jeff_Brown 7y ago
  There are aspects of quantum that we don't understand, but we have no reason to believe intelligence relies on them, any more than bridges do.
  - randomidiot666 7y ago
    We actually do have reason to believe that, since our current understanding of consciousness is very incomplete. Human consciousness extends far beyond our current understanding. I am referring to the full extent of the capabilities of the human mind, not some isolated aspects of it. The physics of bridges is well known. That is basically a solved problem. Human consciousness/intelligence is an open problem, and may never be solved.
    - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
      > We actually do have reason to believe that [intelligence relies on quantum properties] Are you leaving the reason unsaid, or am I in fact reading your argument correctly: "We don't understand consciousness, and we don't understand quantum, therefore it is likely consciousness relies on quantum." There's already plenty of mystery in an ordinary deterministic computation-driven approach to intelligence.

xamuel 7y ago

There has been some philosophical speculating but that's generally not very actionable, with people clinging to either side of the question. On the practical side, it's the sort of thing which you can't just throw money at and make progress. Ok, you have $100mil to research whether human intelligence is computable. What do you do? Hire lots of humans and assign them noncomputable tasks and tap your foot waiting for one of them to turn out to be the next Oracle of Delphi? That's fantastic if one of them does, but if none of them do, then you've made zero progress: there's no way to know whether you failed because human intelligence is computable, or whether you failed because you chose the wrong tasks/humans.

yters 7y ago
But that's the sort of thing that should be researched: is the question scientifically answerable? The answer is not obviously no. I can think of ways to scientifically test for noncomputability. If I can then certainly much smarter and knowledgeable poeple can. People just assume like yourself it is not and throw lots of money at a certain assumption. If the assumption is wrong, not only is AGI a dead end, but "human in the loop" computation should be a huge win.
- xamuel 7y ago
  I'm not saying it's not scientifically answerable, just that hiring people specifically to answer it is not practical. This type of thing usually comes through unplanned breakthroughs. You can't discover that the earth revolves around the sun just by paying tons of money to researchers and asking them to figure out astronomy. All that would get you would be some extremely sophisticated Copernican cycle-based models. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-08-09 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-08-09
  - yters 7y ago
    Bell Labs made a bunch of breakthroughs that way, i.e. information theory.
- drongoking 7y ago

randomidiot666 7y ago

But there is. We have fundamental research into whether physics is computable. We also have fundamental research on the physical structure of human consciousness/intelligence. So first we need to discover the physical model of human intelligence, and then we can determine its computability.

Jeff_Brown 7y ago
Intelligence is a human property, yes, but also a Platonic one. We didn't need to understand how humans process math in order to get computers to do it.
- randomidiot666 7y ago
  As stated in my other reply: "Human consciousness extends far beyond our current understanding. I am referring to the full extent of the capabilities of the human mind, not some isolated aspects of it." Computers have not superseded humans in mathematical research. That is way beyond anything that we can program into a computer. Computers are better at computation, which is not the same thing.
  - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
    By "math" I mean proving theorems, not doing arithmetic. Yes, we're better at finding useful theorems, but computers can do it. More generally, the fact that currently humans are the only entity observed doing X does not mean you need to understand humans to understand X.
    - randomidiot666 7y ago
      I wrote "computation", not "arithmetic". Human intelligence goes beyond computation / mathematical logic, and you seem to ignore all of that. We haven't got a clue how consciousness works. It's a total mystery.
      - 7y ago

13415 7y ago

There is plenty of fundamental research on it, probably a paper about it is published every week or so. The problem is that there is no general solution to the question, and everybody disagrees about how "human intelligence" should be defined in that context. The answers people give depend too much on untestable "philosophical stances." Personally, I believe that AI is possible (hard AI thesis) and that computationalism with multiple realizability is right, since none of the philosophical arguments against hard AI and computationalism have convinced me so far. But there are as many opinions on that as there are people working on it.