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That doesn't make sense in the context of my comment, and besides, i don't think that's true. If you take the Turing Test to it's logical conclusion, a program

That doesn't make sense in the context of my comment, and besides, i don't think that's true. If you take the Turing Test to it's logical conclusion, a program that is indistinguishable from a human intelligence is a human intelligence. There's no means to some other end. The program is the intelligence. This is also something that Turing came up with in the 40s & 50s. Not exactly novel.

taliesinb 15y ago
Uh... well, I'm getting Wolfram's take right. So you don't think my analogy is true? It's just an analogy. But it's clear that it has methodological implications for how one does science: For example, if you think computers are just a way to simulate continuous systems, it would not occur to you to sample random programs and see what they do. It would not occur to you to enumerate simple programs. And you wouldn't think that it is very interesting that such and such a simple program can do such a such a computation. If you did, it would. And if you were ambitious enough, you would actually try hunting for the program that computes the universe, as Wolfram has been doing on a cluster in his basement (I love this tidbit) for some years now: http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_of_everything.html http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_...
- knowtheory 15y ago
  No, you're making the assertion first, that everyone positively asserts that the universe is continuous, and second that computer scientists see algorithmic systems as being simulations of analytical systems. The first i am agnostic to (although i do like the feynman quote at the top of http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0206089v2 http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0206089v2 which was linked to above), and the second is most certainly false, as i have indicated above. The evidence in NKS to support wolfram's assertion that the universe is a simple program is circumstantial at best, and so his windmill tilting quests for the program that is the universe seems quixotic at best, and arrogantly foolhardy at worst. Analytical modeling, algorithmic modeling, or whatever other model someone wants to use to represent reality are models until you can prove them to actually be fundamentally connected with the manner in which reality functions.
  - taliesinb 15y ago
    Re: NKS theory of physics. You're right, it's far from convincing. But it is intriguing speculation, and I think he adequately hedges it as such. Some fascinating partial results are that the natural restriction he introduces for graph automata to be deterministic are enough to induce special and general relativity. That's pretty eery! Re models: now we're getting into epistemology. I don't think the aim you ascribe to scientists to "prove them (models) to actually be fundamentally connected with the manner in which reality functions" has much meaning when one is talking about, say, quantum field theory. How do I connect the mathematics of QFT with what is "really going on"? You can't. It just is.
    - pitchups 15y ago
      > "Some fascinating partial results are that the natural restriction he introduces for graph automata to be deterministic are enough to induce special and general relativity. That's pretty eery!" That sounds remarkable indeed; can you point to an online reference that has more info on this? thanks.
mikk0j 15y ago
A program, just like human intelligence, is always means to an end. Whether it passes the Turing Test or not does not change this.

taliesinb 15y ago

Uh... well, I'm getting Wolfram's take right. So you don't think my analogy is true? It's just an analogy. But it's clear that it has methodological implications for how one does science: For example, if you think computers are just a way to simulate continuous systems, it would not occur to you to sample random programs and see what they do. It would not occur to you to enumerate simple programs. And you wouldn't think that it is very interesting that such and such a simple program can do such a such a computation. If you did, it would. And if you were ambitious enough, you would actually try hunting for the program that computes the universe, as Wolfram has been doing on a cluster in his basement (I love this tidbit) for some years now: http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_of_everything.html http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_...

knowtheory 15y ago
No, you're making the assertion first, that everyone positively asserts that the universe is continuous, and second that computer scientists see algorithmic systems as being simulations of analytical systems. The first i am agnostic to (although i do like the feynman quote at the top of http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0206089v2 http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0206089v2 which was linked to above), and the second is most certainly false, as i have indicated above. The evidence in NKS to support wolfram's assertion that the universe is a simple program is circumstantial at best, and so his windmill tilting quests for the program that is the universe seems quixotic at best, and arrogantly foolhardy at worst. Analytical modeling, algorithmic modeling, or whatever other model someone wants to use to represent reality are models until you can prove them to actually be fundamentally connected with the manner in which reality functions.
- taliesinb 15y ago
  Re: NKS theory of physics. You're right, it's far from convincing. But it is intriguing speculation, and I think he adequately hedges it as such. Some fascinating partial results are that the natural restriction he introduces for graph automata to be deterministic are enough to induce special and general relativity. That's pretty eery! Re models: now we're getting into epistemology. I don't think the aim you ascribe to scientists to "prove them (models) to actually be fundamentally connected with the manner in which reality functions" has much meaning when one is talking about, say, quantum field theory. How do I connect the mathematics of QFT with what is "really going on"? You can't. It just is.
  - pitchups 15y ago
    > "Some fascinating partial results are that the natural restriction he introduces for graph automata to be deterministic are enough to induce special and general relativity. That's pretty eery!" That sounds remarkable indeed; can you point to an online reference that has more info on this? thanks.

mikk0j 15y ago

A program, just like human intelligence, is always means to an end. Whether it passes the Turing Test or not does not change this.