5 ms·

What? Why would randomness matter to this? If, hypothetically, it were possible to do a QFT simulation of an entire human, but where no true randomness was use

by drdeca 3y ago

What? Why would randomness matter to this? If, hypothetically, it were possible to do a QFT simulation of an entire human, but where no true randomness was used in the simulation program, only a cryptographically secure (relative to an adversary with even more compute than the beyond-astronomical amount of compute used by the simulation) random number generator (and therefore fully deterministic), you think that that would have less of a claim to having internal experience, than a simulation of a fruit fly brain connected to a true RNG? This seems implausible to me.

akomtu 3y ago
That's right, it would have no internal experience. A giant deterministic calculator is just a mechanism that gives predictable outputs. It doesn't gain experience simply because it's superficially similar to a fruit fly or because it has so many transistors that we cannot count them. If accurate simulation of a quatum system was possible within a deterministic 01 machine, we would have to declare that this is a dead world: a giant calculator that's moving gears in a deterministic manner. A fruit fly does have internal experience, but its brains are based on a continuous system. With a deterministic machine we can approximate that continuous system with arbitrary, but finite, accuracy, and that approximation will be a dead calculator. Our computing paradigm - a deterministic turing machine - is simply unfit for replicating a continuous system, even though it can approximate it with sufficient (for science) precision. And yes, I believe that a quantum computer will be able to replicate a fruit fly well enough that we'll have to call that rwplica alive. Edit. And let me address another dogma. A fruit fly, or a 10 neuron worm, doesn't exist in isolation like it's pictured in imagination of many computer scientists. The wave function is one for all particles, they all evolve as one intermingled system, so the moment you somehow isolate a fruit fly to make simulation tractable, it loses a good deal of what makes it a true fruit fly.
- shawnz 3y ago
  I don't see any reason why determinism should have anything to do with conscious experience. Can't you conceive of a deterministic universe in which you have internal experience just like you do now? What specifically makes those two things mutually exclusive in your opinion?
  - akomtu 3y ago
    That's the crux of the matter. Conscious experience cannot exist in determinstic worlds. In finite sized worlds, such as calculators, any deterministic algorithm is equivalent to a giant lookup table: (input, memory) -> (output, memory), all four entities have a finite fixed size. For infinitely expanding deyerministic worlds it's more complicated, but it's obvious that such worlds have to expand at the expense of some outer realm, as you cannot create more GBs of memory out of thin air. This problem with determinism has a theological angle (I've warned you). The so called "fallen angel" believed that consciousness can exist in deterministic worlds, and he had an impressive design of such a place. That world was created, but his vision never materialised: his mind was vast enough to imagine such a world, but not enough to see its subtle deficiency.
    - shawnz 3y ago
      But what's the deficiency?
Footnote7341 3y ago
The real answer is that the scientific method is based on observation so it is incapable of examining what lies behind those observations, consciousness. We do not have the scientific tools to know if a simulated brain experiences things. We dont know if protons experience things, or rocks, or monkeys, or even individual people.

by drdeca 3y ago

akomtu 3y ago

That's right, it would have no internal experience. A giant deterministic calculator is just a mechanism that gives predictable outputs. It doesn't gain experience simply because it's superficially similar to a fruit fly or because it has so many transistors that we cannot count them. If accurate simulation of a quatum system was possible within a deterministic 01 machine, we would have to declare that this is a dead world: a giant calculator that's moving gears in a deterministic manner. A fruit fly does have internal experience, but its brains are based on a continuous system. With a deterministic machine we can approximate that continuous system with arbitrary, but finite, accuracy, and that approximation will be a dead calculator. Our computing paradigm - a deterministic turing machine - is simply unfit for replicating a continuous system, even though it can approximate it with sufficient (for science) precision. And yes, I believe that a quantum computer will be able to replicate a fruit fly well enough that we'll have to call that rwplica alive. Edit. And let me address another dogma. A fruit fly, or a 10 neuron worm, doesn't exist in isolation like it's pictured in imagination of many computer scientists. The wave function is one for all particles, they all evolve as one intermingled system, so the moment you somehow isolate a fruit fly to make simulation tractable, it loses a good deal of what makes it a true fruit fly.

shawnz 3y ago
I don't see any reason why determinism should have anything to do with conscious experience. Can't you conceive of a deterministic universe in which you have internal experience just like you do now? What specifically makes those two things mutually exclusive in your opinion?
- akomtu 3y ago
  That's the crux of the matter. Conscious experience cannot exist in determinstic worlds. In finite sized worlds, such as calculators, any deterministic algorithm is equivalent to a giant lookup table: (input, memory) -> (output, memory), all four entities have a finite fixed size. For infinitely expanding deyerministic worlds it's more complicated, but it's obvious that such worlds have to expand at the expense of some outer realm, as you cannot create more GBs of memory out of thin air. This problem with determinism has a theological angle (I've warned you). The so called "fallen angel" believed that consciousness can exist in deterministic worlds, and he had an impressive design of such a place. That world was created, but his vision never materialised: his mind was vast enough to imagine such a world, but not enough to see its subtle deficiency.
  - shawnz 3y ago
    But what's the deficiency?

Footnote7341 3y ago

The real answer is that the scientific method is based on observation so it is incapable of examining what lies behind those observations, consciousness. We do not have the scientific tools to know if a simulated brain experiences things. We dont know if protons experience things, or rocks, or monkeys, or even individual people.