4 ms·

Neither a human can solve the halting problem. There is no evidence the brain does anything that a computer can't do.

theodorejb 4y ago
How do you know that? Do you have an example program and all its inputs where we cannot in principle determine if it halts? Many things are non-algorithmic, and thus cannot be done by a computer, yet we can do them (e.g. love someone, enjoy the beauty of a sunset, experience joy or sadness, etc).
- NLPaep 4y ago
  Those are just specific particles floating around the brain
  - goatlover 4y ago
    What would those specific particles be, then? Sounds like a crude abstraction.
- nuancebydefault 4y ago
  They said - there is no evidence. The reply hence is not supposed to be - how do you know that. The proposition begs for a counter example, in this case an evidence. Simply saying - love is non algorithmic - is not evidence, it is just another proposition that has not been proven, so it brings us no closer to an answer i am afraid.
  - theodorejb 4y ago
    My question was in response to the statement "Neither a human can solve the halting problem." There's an interesting article/podcast here about what computers can't do: https://mindmatters.ai/2020/08/six-limitations-of-artificial-intelligence-as-we-know-it/ https://mindmatters.ai/2020/08/six-limitations-of-artificial....
- TchoBeer 4y ago
  I can throw a ton of algorithms that no human alive can hope to decide whether they halt or not. Human minds aren't inherently good at solving halting problems and I see no reason to suggest that they can even decide whether all turing machines with number of states, say, below the number of particles in the observable universe, very much less all possible computers. Moreover, are you sure that e.g. loving people in non-algorithmic? We can already make chatbots which pretty convincingly act as if they love people. Sure, they don't actually love anyone, they just generate text, but then, what would it mean for a system or even a human to "actually" love someone?
- Jeff_Brown 4y ago
  A good example was given earlier -- will a program that searches for counterexamples to the Collatz Conjecture halt?
  - theodorejb 4y ago
    When mathematicians solve the Collatz Conjecture then we'll know. This will likely require creativity and thoughtful reasoning, which are non-algorithmic and can't be accomplished by computers.
    - Jeff_Brown 4y ago
      > creativity and thoughtful reasoning, which are non-algorithmic and can't be accomplished by computers. Maybe. When computers solve it then we'll know.
      - theodorejb 4y ago
        We may use computers as a tool to help us solve it, but nonetheless it takes a conscious mind to understand the conjecture and come up with rational ways to reach the solution.
        flangola7 4y ago
        Human minds are ultimately just algorithms running on a wetware computer. Every problem that humans have ever solved is by definition an algorithmic problem.
        theodorejb 4y ago
        Oh? What algorithm was executed to discover the laws of planetary motion, or write The Lord of the Rings, or the programs for training the GPT-4 model, for that matter? I'm not convinced that human creativity, ingenuity, and understanding (among other traits) can be reduced to algorithms running on a computer.
goatlover 4y ago
Conscious experience is evidence that the brain doesn't something we have no idea how to compute. One could argue that computation is an abstraction from collective experience, in which the conscious qualities of experiences are removed in order to mathematize the world, so we can make computable models.
- TchoBeer 4y ago
  are you sure? If conscious experience was a computational process, could we prove or disprove that?
  - goatlover 4y ago
    If someone could show the computational process for a conscious experience.
    - TchoBeer 4y ago
      How could one show such a thing?
      - goatlover 4y ago
        If it can't be shown, then doesn't that strongly suggest that consciousness isn't computable? I'm not saying it isn't correlated with the equivalent of computational processes in the brain, but that's not the same thing as there being a computation for consciousness itself. If there was, it could in principle be shown.

How do you know that? Do you have an example program and all its inputs where we cannot in principle determine if it halts? Many things are non-algorithmic, and thus cannot be done by a computer, yet we can do them (e.g. love someone, enjoy the beauty of a sunset, experience joy or sadness, etc).

NLPaep 4y ago
Those are just specific particles floating around the brain
- goatlover 4y ago
  What would those specific particles be, then? Sounds like a crude abstraction.
nuancebydefault 4y ago
They said - there is no evidence. The reply hence is not supposed to be - how do you know that. The proposition begs for a counter example, in this case an evidence. Simply saying - love is non algorithmic - is not evidence, it is just another proposition that has not been proven, so it brings us no closer to an answer i am afraid.
- theodorejb 4y ago
  My question was in response to the statement "Neither a human can solve the halting problem." There's an interesting article/podcast here about what computers can't do: https://mindmatters.ai/2020/08/six-limitations-of-artificial-intelligence-as-we-know-it/ https://mindmatters.ai/2020/08/six-limitations-of-artificial....
TchoBeer 4y ago
I can throw a ton of algorithms that no human alive can hope to decide whether they halt or not. Human minds aren't inherently good at solving halting problems and I see no reason to suggest that they can even decide whether all turing machines with number of states, say, below the number of particles in the observable universe, very much less all possible computers. Moreover, are you sure that e.g. loving people in non-algorithmic? We can already make chatbots which pretty convincingly act as if they love people. Sure, they don't actually love anyone, they just generate text, but then, what would it mean for a system or even a human to "actually" love someone?
Jeff_Brown 4y ago
A good example was given earlier -- will a program that searches for counterexamples to the Collatz Conjecture halt?
- theodorejb 4y ago
  When mathematicians solve the Collatz Conjecture then we'll know. This will likely require creativity and thoughtful reasoning, which are non-algorithmic and can't be accomplished by computers.
  - Jeff_Brown 4y ago
    > creativity and thoughtful reasoning, which are non-algorithmic and can't be accomplished by computers. Maybe. When computers solve it then we'll know.
    - theodorejb 4y ago
      We may use computers as a tool to help us solve it, but nonetheless it takes a conscious mind to understand the conjecture and come up with rational ways to reach the solution.
      - flangola7 4y ago
        Human minds are ultimately just algorithms running on a wetware computer. Every problem that humans have ever solved is by definition an algorithmic problem.
        theodorejb 4y ago
        Oh? What algorithm was executed to discover the laws of planetary motion, or write The Lord of the Rings, or the programs for training the GPT-4 model, for that matter? I'm not convinced that human creativity, ingenuity, and understanding (among other traits) can be reduced to algorithms running on a computer.

goatlover 4y ago

Conscious experience is evidence that the brain doesn't something we have no idea how to compute. One could argue that computation is an abstraction from collective experience, in which the conscious qualities of experiences are removed in order to mathematize the world, so we can make computable models.

TchoBeer 4y ago
are you sure? If conscious experience was a computational process, could we prove or disprove that?
- goatlover 4y ago
  If someone could show the computational process for a conscious experience.
  - TchoBeer 4y ago
    How could one show such a thing?
    - goatlover 4y ago
      If it can't be shown, then doesn't that strongly suggest that consciousness isn't computable? I'm not saying it isn't correlated with the equivalent of computational processes in the brain, but that's not the same thing as there being a computation for consciousness itself. If there was, it could in principle be shown.