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It's definitely a philosophical position that exists beyond a random HN poster. See for example computational theory of mind https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/
by radarsat1 2y ago
It's definitely a philosophical position that exists beyond a random HN poster. See for example computational theory of mind https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/
- soist 2y agoI am familiar with the computational theory of cognition. What I wanted to know was whether there were any people who actually claimed their thinking is nothing more than programmed computation. I am very curious to know if they have mapped out the instruction set for their mind along the lines of something like the SKI combinators.
- kybernetikos 2y agoA mental instruction set would be extremely interesting. Unfortunately, nobody has that level of understanding of brain processes (and it might be quite difficult to formulate in such a linear way since the underlying mechanism is so very parallel), but the idea that human cognition is computable falls pretty naturally out of the idea that nature is computable which I think is a common position (sometimes called the Church Turing Deutsch principle).
- soist 2y agoYes, I understand why some scientists claim that nature is "just" some computer but no one still has given an answer to my very basic question: what is the instruction set that the people who claim they are computers are using to think? Surely there must be one if they are nothing more than programmable computers as they claim.
- vidarh 2y agoWhy do you think there would need to be an instruction set? And why do you think we'd need to know of one to conclude we're all computers?
- soist 2y agoJust trying to figure out how rigorously people have thought about this. A computer with an undefined instruction set seems somewhat useless as a computer.
- vidarh 2y agoWhether or not we can discern an instruction set is entirely orthogonal to whether or not something can compute.
- soist 2y agoOh I see, so it's magic.
- vidarh 2y agoIf you don't know how something works, do you assume it is magic? Why? It's a wildly irrational assumption to assume that it is magic rather than assume absent evidence to the contrary that it works according to known physics.
- soist 2y agoWell, that's essentially a logical tautology. Everything works according to the known laws of physics but it's certainly true that everything must also work with unknown laws of physics because of basic human ignorance.
- vidarh 2y agoNo it is not. The argument is that absent any evidence of the existence of such unknown physics happening in the brain the most logical assumption is to assume there isn't any, rather that presuming the existence of something we've never observed any hint of.
- 2y ago
- prometheus76 2y agoAnd wouldn't that language need to be able to account for different physiological states? Thinking when one is hungry or sleepy is quite different than thinking when one is well-fed or fully rested.
- soist 2y agoYes. To validate the claim would require not only a formal instruction set but also the code to account for all sorts of cognitive states and processes. I'm not ruling out that some people are indeed programmable computers but I would like to see some actual evidence presented by the people who make these claims about themselves.