6 ms·

Alan Turing and the Programmable Universe

56 points by daviday 15y ago

fijal 15y ago
I would like to point out that things like "Rules to hike into wilderness" are mostly and American phenomena and not loved that wildly by the rest of the world.
jkorn 15y ago
This was absolutely fantastic. Feels like a convergence between Siri and Google is imminent
agumonkey 15y ago
All of that because the education system limits itself being a path to getting money to buy a fish, instead of teaching teaching someone to build a fishing rod. No ease of use, or access to knowledge will fulfill the 'aha moments' and the gut feelings of building a new bridge between you and the world. But it's something hard to see at first and it easily fades.
- wladimir 15y ago
  There are so many levels of abstraction between us and the physical world. We learn to be domesticated animals, not to survive in the wild (or even close to it). This abstraction is growing in complexity as time goes on. Ie, the distance between us and the chaos of the physical world is growing larger. This reflects the current level of technology. As of right now, we are living in a kind of ordered, programmable mini-universe.
flipper 15y ago
The pop band Devo have been pointing out since the 1970's that people seem to be getting dumber as technology advances.
reso 15y ago
I disagree entirely. The author conflates "making technology easier to use" with "making people dumber". He decries the invention of the typewriter because it ended calligraphy, and the printing press because we no longer have to memorize books. In other words, he is a luddite. He then makes the classic mistake of conflating "intelligence" with "consciousness", completely ignoring Turing's main insight: that consciousness is not testable in human nor machine, and thus, if it acts human, we have no reason to deny it consciousness.
- jordanlev 15y ago
  I think you misunderstood (or didn't really read) the whole thing. I don't think he's conflating "tech easier" with "people dumber", but rather bringing up an interesting way of thinking about the issue. Also, he isn't conflating intelligence with consciousness -- his whole point about the Turing test is that he thinks people "don't get it" -- that it's not really proving anything (and he uses the logical device of saying "what if the judge of the test is dumb"). Here's the text of slide #80, for example: •The real test is consciousness, not intelligence •An “intelligent” machine is not necessarily conscious •Conversely: a machine does not need to be too intelligent in order to be conscious (many people are not intelligent)
  - majmun 15y ago
    The whole presentation is superficial, I think that if we suddenly lobotomize whole population, the man made machines would not suddenly become smarter and more intelligent but physically would stay the same. Yes in some time after hypotetical dumbening of people, the new form of machines would dumben down too (because man would create worse and worse machines.), proving they are not really autonomously intelligent but its intelligence was tied with human intelligence. on 1:1 relation.
y4m4 15y ago
Ludicrous author!
_Y_ 15y ago
I'd like to see him explaining http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect or how Gary Kasparov was beaten (well tied at first) by a computer. I mean did Gary got really dumber in span of a year or so? I think the reason people somewhat erroneously try to 'robotize' people is the fact that they want consistency even if the quality is poorer.
itmag 15y ago
I didn't RTFA but "programmable universe" makes me think of this: http://www.geekosystem.com/dwarf-fortress-turing-machine-computer/ http://www.geekosystem.com/dwarf-fortress-turing-machine-com...

56 points by daviday 15y ago

fijal 15y ago

I would like to point out that things like "Rules to hike into wilderness" are mostly and American phenomena and not loved that wildly by the rest of the world.

jkorn 15y ago

This was absolutely fantastic. Feels like a convergence between Siri and Google is imminent

agumonkey 15y ago

All of that because the education system limits itself being a path to getting money to buy a fish, instead of teaching teaching someone to build a fishing rod. No ease of use, or access to knowledge will fulfill the 'aha moments' and the gut feelings of building a new bridge between you and the world. But it's something hard to see at first and it easily fades.

wladimir 15y ago
There are so many levels of abstraction between us and the physical world. We learn to be domesticated animals, not to survive in the wild (or even close to it). This abstraction is growing in complexity as time goes on. Ie, the distance between us and the chaos of the physical world is growing larger. This reflects the current level of technology. As of right now, we are living in a kind of ordered, programmable mini-universe.

flipper 15y ago

The pop band Devo have been pointing out since the 1970's that people seem to be getting dumber as technology advances.

reso 15y ago

I disagree entirely. The author conflates "making technology easier to use" with "making people dumber". He decries the invention of the typewriter because it ended calligraphy, and the printing press because we no longer have to memorize books. In other words, he is a luddite. He then makes the classic mistake of conflating "intelligence" with "consciousness", completely ignoring Turing's main insight: that consciousness is not testable in human nor machine, and thus, if it acts human, we have no reason to deny it consciousness.

jordanlev 15y ago
I think you misunderstood (or didn't really read) the whole thing. I don't think he's conflating "tech easier" with "people dumber", but rather bringing up an interesting way of thinking about the issue. Also, he isn't conflating intelligence with consciousness -- his whole point about the Turing test is that he thinks people "don't get it" -- that it's not really proving anything (and he uses the logical device of saying "what if the judge of the test is dumb"). Here's the text of slide #80, for example: •The real test is consciousness, not intelligence •An “intelligent” machine is not necessarily conscious •Conversely: a machine does not need to be too intelligent in order to be conscious (many people are not intelligent)
- majmun 15y ago
  The whole presentation is superficial, I think that if we suddenly lobotomize whole population, the man made machines would not suddenly become smarter and more intelligent but physically would stay the same. Yes in some time after hypotetical dumbening of people, the new form of machines would dumben down too (because man would create worse and worse machines.), proving they are not really autonomously intelligent but its intelligence was tied with human intelligence. on 1:1 relation.

y4m4 15y ago

Ludicrous author!

_Y_ 15y ago

I'd like to see him explaining http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect or how Gary Kasparov was beaten (well tied at first) by a computer. I mean did Gary got really dumber in span of a year or so? I think the reason people somewhat erroneously try to 'robotize' people is the fact that they want consistency even if the quality is poorer.

itmag 15y ago

I didn't RTFA but "programmable universe" makes me think of this: http://www.geekosystem.com/dwarf-fortress-turing-machine-computer/ http://www.geekosystem.com/dwarf-fortress-turing-machine-com...