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The excerpt you quoted is perfectly meaningful. They are saying an evolutionary process that produces intelligent life is more complicated ("has more moving par

The excerpt you quoted is perfectly meaningful. They are saying an evolutionary process that produces intelligent life is more complicated ("has more moving parts") than the intelligent life forms thus produced. How could this not be true? An intelligent life form may have hundreds of billions of neurons and trillions of cells, but the evolution that produced said life form involved untold zillions of complex life forms over billions of years. There are over 10-to-the-power-of-30 microbes on planet earth right now, evolving in ways currently beyond the understanding of any computational biologist. Although computer scientists can use genetic algorithms inspired by evolution to "breed" better backgammon algorithms, this is quite a few orders of magnitude simpler than emulating a true evolution of intelligent biological life. The point is intelligent biological life forms are less complicated than the "factory" that produced them.

alanbernstein 5y ago
> They are saying an evolutionary process that produces intelligent life is more complicated ("has more moving parts") than the intelligent life forms thus produced. How could this not be true? The whole field of emergent complexity exists to answer questions about this. Questions which only exist because there are many situations where "this" is evidently not true.
dnautics 5y ago
It begs the question though. The argument is: Assume you can't make artificial intelligence without the stimuli of the real world's processes. Since a single human is less complicated than the real world, therefore you can't make artificial intelligence.
a-dub 5y ago
> They are saying an evolutionary process that produces intelligent life is more complicated ("has more moving parts") than the intelligent life forms thus produced. How could this not be true? because we don't know enough about evolutionary processes nor intelligent life to make statements like that, and "more complicated" is completely ill-defined. how do we know that evolution isn't simply a few basic rules, a lot of randomness and a lot of time?
- _vertigo 5y ago
  Yup, you nailed it. We have a lot of examples of complexity arising from a very simple set of initial conditions and rules. Why should evolution be any different?
  - a-dub 5y ago
    i suppose, giving the authors the benefit of the doubt, one could make a statement like: if one were to parameterize an entire line of evolution over time, and one were to parameterize a single intelligent being over time, then it is likely that the number of bits required to describe that evolutionary line (and the space of all evolutionary lines) is greater than the number of bits required to completely describe a single intelligent life form over time. this still tells us nothing about the rules behind evolution, how an intelligence actually works, how evolution actually works and what would be necessary to manifest an intelligence.
mannykannot 5y ago
You are right that the quoted passage is not without meaning; what is missing here (and by "here", I mean the whole paper) is any remotely good argument from the relatively trivial factual claim in this passage, to the conclusion that true artificial intelligence is impossible. The factual claim is about the history of evolution: if we take that history to include everything produced during that history, then it is trivially true that the whole is greater than any subset of the things it produced - but so what? It is true for the creation of a microprocessor as well. There is no argument here that rules out the creation of artificial intelligence that does not also apply to the creation of microprocessors.
MathYouF 5y ago
The main thesis of the life's work of Stephen Wolfram is the idea that simple processes can produce greater complexity than the process itself. https://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/science-and-technology/computational-sciences/computational-complexity/ https://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/science-and-technology...
- anthk 5y ago
  That thesis has been critisized as being "non scientific". It maybe looks as an advertisement for Mathematica.
- minihat 5y ago
  It seems problematic to disentangle the complexity of an entity from the complexity of the process which produced it. If we define complexity as the Kolmogorov complexity, the two are equivalent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity?wprov=sf...) Rather, I interpret Wolfram's idea as: Surprisingly complex patterns can be produced by simple/concise rules. In my interpretation, the ultimate example of this would be the unfolding of everything that has ever happened as the consequence of the laws of physics, and some initial condition of the universe.
- dandotway 5y ago
  This was the thesis of Thales of Miletus approximately 2600 years ago, but for the sake of this discussion let's credit Wolfram with the idea since he seems to love credit. ;-) The human experience of computer programming shows a problem with Wolfram's thought. Wolframism in a nutshell says, 1. The complicated processes of the universe reduce to simple rules (a la Conway's Life). 2. Therefore, simple rules *produce* the more complicated processes. (Or the complicated *emerges* from the simple.) Consider now that the complexity of computer software "reduces" to simple rules for manipulating 0's and 1's executed on processors, rules like - MOVE the sequence of 32 bits from memory address A1 to register R1 - ADD the sequence of 32 bits in register R1 to register R2 ... However, these simple rules don't make complicated software---otherwise, many of us here on HN would have to find other work. Rather, complicated humans make complicated software using these simple rules. (Digression: It's of course too hard to make modern software using these simple rules, so we use complicated toolchains instead to deal with the simple rules.) Even with Conway's Game of Life, it is often overlooked that in order to actually run a game simulation, you either need to build a very complicated electronic computer to host the "simple" simulation, or you need a complex intelligent life form with a pencil and a great deal of both paper and patience to carry out the rules step-by-step. Moreover, the simple rules for Conway's Game of Life were created (or discovered?) in the complicated brain of mathematician John Conway. It seems only the most intelligent and complex minds come up with these "simple" mathematical rules like Einstein's "E=mc^2" or Newton's "f=ma". Also, I know from experience that randomly seeding Conway's Life almost never produces interesting results, such as long lived stable colonies with "gliders" frolicking to and fro. An intelligent human needs to fine tune the initial conditions for the game to get interesting universes that don't quickly become lifeless or stagnant. Interesting universes are sufficiently rare that, when found, are worthy of publishing and nerding out with your friends over. So Wolframism in its supreme form says the Universe began with simple rules and these simple rules created stars and planets, humans and their brains. But simple rules need a machine to run the rules, a machine more complicated than the rules themselves. And even given a machine to run the rules, most rule sets and most initial configurations produce dead universes.
TrainedMonkey 5y ago
I think the devil is in one important detail, namely - how do we define complexity? Let's define the problem as Evolution(inputs) = Intelligence. The claim is that complexity(function) + complexity(inputs) > complexity(outputs). Now to show that the parent claim is not necessarily true (which is not the same as proving that it is false), we just need to show that there exists a combination of complexity function and a system that does not satisfy the above constraints. 1. Let's examine information compressibility as a complexity function. There are a few examples of where a simple set of rules and inputs could produce basically an infinite stream of incompressible information. Examples include Conway game of life, double pendulum, fractals, all irrational numbers, etc... 2. Now to tie that back to Evolution, the authors avoid defining evolution or its inputs, which means they could be quite simple yet produce mind boggling complexity. Therefore the argument that the evolution must be more complex than intelligent life is backwards (if you buy my complexity definition anyhow :P). 3. Of course this kind breaks down if we discretize evolution because at that point all of the existing life is an input into the evolution. So complexity(evolution) + complexity(life[t] + environment[t]) > complexity(life[t+1]) is obviously true for some t and t + 1. For example if t is right before a mass extinction event and t+1 is right after. This is somewhat unrelated, but I am quite partial of theory that life in general and intelligence in particular is driven by entropy. Or maybe less confusingly (because who the hell knows what entropy is) is driven by macro tendency of everything towards lowest energy states. Life in this case is smart matter that bridges activation energy gap to extract available energy gradients as fast as possible. Here is the concept explained by people who put a lot more thought into it: https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-o...
- mistermann 5y ago
  Would the notion of fractals not seem like a plausible component of smart matter?
jacknews 5y ago
> They are saying an evolutionary process that produces intelligent life is more complicated ("has more moving parts") than the intelligent life forms thus produced. How could this not be true? Assuming the universe itself is described by something like the standard model, or perhaps something even conceptually simpler like vibrating modes of ether, string theory, etc, then clearly conceptual complexity does indeed arise from simplicity. In fact entropy suggests that is the only direction possible.

alanbernstein 5y ago

> They are saying an evolutionary process that produces intelligent life is more complicated ("has more moving parts") than the intelligent life forms thus produced. How could this not be true? The whole field of emergent complexity exists to answer questions about this. Questions which only exist because there are many situations where "this" is evidently not true.

dnautics 5y ago

It begs the question though. The argument is: Assume you can't make artificial intelligence without the stimuli of the real world's processes. Since a single human is less complicated than the real world, therefore you can't make artificial intelligence.

a-dub 5y ago

> They are saying an evolutionary process that produces intelligent life is more complicated ("has more moving parts") than the intelligent life forms thus produced. How could this not be true? because we don't know enough about evolutionary processes nor intelligent life to make statements like that, and "more complicated" is completely ill-defined. how do we know that evolution isn't simply a few basic rules, a lot of randomness and a lot of time?

_vertigo 5y ago
Yup, you nailed it. We have a lot of examples of complexity arising from a very simple set of initial conditions and rules. Why should evolution be any different?
- a-dub 5y ago
  i suppose, giving the authors the benefit of the doubt, one could make a statement like: if one were to parameterize an entire line of evolution over time, and one were to parameterize a single intelligent being over time, then it is likely that the number of bits required to describe that evolutionary line (and the space of all evolutionary lines) is greater than the number of bits required to completely describe a single intelligent life form over time. this still tells us nothing about the rules behind evolution, how an intelligence actually works, how evolution actually works and what would be necessary to manifest an intelligence.

mannykannot 5y ago

You are right that the quoted passage is not without meaning; what is missing here (and by "here", I mean the whole paper) is any remotely good argument from the relatively trivial factual claim in this passage, to the conclusion that true artificial intelligence is impossible. The factual claim is about the history of evolution: if we take that history to include everything produced during that history, then it is trivially true that the whole is greater than any subset of the things it produced - but so what? It is true for the creation of a microprocessor as well. There is no argument here that rules out the creation of artificial intelligence that does not also apply to the creation of microprocessors.

MathYouF 5y ago

The main thesis of the life's work of Stephen Wolfram is the idea that simple processes can produce greater complexity than the process itself. https://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/science-and-technology/computational-sciences/computational-complexity/ https://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/science-and-technology...

anthk 5y ago
That thesis has been critisized as being "non scientific". It maybe looks as an advertisement for Mathematica.
minihat 5y ago
It seems problematic to disentangle the complexity of an entity from the complexity of the process which produced it. If we define complexity as the Kolmogorov complexity, the two are equivalent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity?wprov=sf...) Rather, I interpret Wolfram's idea as: Surprisingly complex patterns can be produced by simple/concise rules. In my interpretation, the ultimate example of this would be the unfolding of everything that has ever happened as the consequence of the laws of physics, and some initial condition of the universe.
dandotway 5y ago
This was the thesis of Thales of Miletus approximately 2600 years ago, but for the sake of this discussion let's credit Wolfram with the idea since he seems to love credit. ;-) The human experience of computer programming shows a problem with Wolfram's thought. Wolframism in a nutshell says, 1. The complicated processes of the universe reduce to simple rules (a la Conway's Life). 2. Therefore, simple rules *produce* the more complicated processes. (Or the complicated *emerges* from the simple.) Consider now that the complexity of computer software "reduces" to simple rules for manipulating 0's and 1's executed on processors, rules like - MOVE the sequence of 32 bits from memory address A1 to register R1 - ADD the sequence of 32 bits in register R1 to register R2 ... However, these simple rules don't make complicated software---otherwise, many of us here on HN would have to find other work. Rather, complicated humans make complicated software using these simple rules. (Digression: It's of course too hard to make modern software using these simple rules, so we use complicated toolchains instead to deal with the simple rules.) Even with Conway's Game of Life, it is often overlooked that in order to actually run a game simulation, you either need to build a very complicated electronic computer to host the "simple" simulation, or you need a complex intelligent life form with a pencil and a great deal of both paper and patience to carry out the rules step-by-step. Moreover, the simple rules for Conway's Game of Life were created (or discovered?) in the complicated brain of mathematician John Conway. It seems only the most intelligent and complex minds come up with these "simple" mathematical rules like Einstein's "E=mc^2" or Newton's "f=ma". Also, I know from experience that randomly seeding Conway's Life almost never produces interesting results, such as long lived stable colonies with "gliders" frolicking to and fro. An intelligent human needs to fine tune the initial conditions for the game to get interesting universes that don't quickly become lifeless or stagnant. Interesting universes are sufficiently rare that, when found, are worthy of publishing and nerding out with your friends over. So Wolframism in its supreme form says the Universe began with simple rules and these simple rules created stars and planets, humans and their brains. But simple rules need a machine to run the rules, a machine more complicated than the rules themselves. And even given a machine to run the rules, most rule sets and most initial configurations produce dead universes.

TrainedMonkey 5y ago

I think the devil is in one important detail, namely - how do we define complexity? Let's define the problem as Evolution(inputs) = Intelligence. The claim is that complexity(function) + complexity(inputs) > complexity(outputs). Now to show that the parent claim is not necessarily true (which is not the same as proving that it is false), we just need to show that there exists a combination of complexity function and a system that does not satisfy the above constraints. 1. Let's examine information compressibility as a complexity function. There are a few examples of where a simple set of rules and inputs could produce basically an infinite stream of incompressible information. Examples include Conway game of life, double pendulum, fractals, all irrational numbers, etc... 2. Now to tie that back to Evolution, the authors avoid defining evolution or its inputs, which means they could be quite simple yet produce mind boggling complexity. Therefore the argument that the evolution must be more complex than intelligent life is backwards (if you buy my complexity definition anyhow :P). 3. Of course this kind breaks down if we discretize evolution because at that point all of the existing life is an input into the evolution. So complexity(evolution) + complexity(life[t] + environment[t]) > complexity(life[t+1]) is obviously true for some t and t + 1. For example if t is right before a mass extinction event and t+1 is right after. This is somewhat unrelated, but I am quite partial of theory that life in general and intelligence in particular is driven by entropy. Or maybe less confusingly (because who the hell knows what entropy is) is driven by macro tendency of everything towards lowest energy states. Life in this case is smart matter that bridges activation energy gap to extract available energy gradients as fast as possible. Here is the concept explained by people who put a lot more thought into it: https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-o...

mistermann 5y ago
Would the notion of fractals not seem like a plausible component of smart matter?

jacknews 5y ago

> They are saying an evolutionary process that produces intelligent life is more complicated ("has more moving parts") than the intelligent life forms thus produced. How could this not be true? Assuming the universe itself is described by something like the standard model, or perhaps something even conceptually simpler like vibrating modes of ether, string theory, etc, then clearly conceptual complexity does indeed arise from simplicity. In fact entropy suggests that is the only direction possible.