4 ms·

It proves nothing, and has, in fact, been overtaken by events (see another of my replies [1]). As for its alleged conclusion, I love David Chalmers’ parody “Ca

It proves nothing, and has, in fact, been overtaken by events (see another of my replies [1]). As for its alleged conclusion, I love David Chalmers’ parody “Cakes are crumbly, recipes are syntactic, syntax is not sufficient for crumbliness, so implementation of a recipe is not sufficient for making a cake.” [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45664226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45664226

measurablefunc 1y ago
Simulation of a recipe is not sufficient for crumbliness which is the only thing a computer can do at the end of the day. It can perform arithmetic operations & nothing else. If you know of a computer that can do more than boolean arithmetic then I'd like to see that computer & its implementation.
- mannykannot 1y ago
  Searle tries this approach against the 'simulation agument' in this paper (see page 423) and also elsewhere, saying "a simulation of a rainstorm will not get you wet" (similarly, Kastrup says "a simulation of a kidney won't pee on my desk"), to which one can reply "yet a simulation of an Enigma machine really will encode and decode messages." The thing is, minds interact with the outside world through information transmitted on the peripheral neural system, so the latter analogy is the relevant one here.
  - oh_my_goodness 1y ago
    Mostly. Probably.
    - mannykannot 1y ago
      Enough to show that Searle's successors need a better argument.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - measurablefunc 1y ago
    You're not addressing the actual argument & not bridging the explanatory gap between arithmetic simulation & reality. Saying people can read & interpret numbers by imbuing them w/ actual meaning & semantics is begging the question.
    - mannykannot 1y ago
      I'm showing that Searle's argument against the simulation reply doesn't hold up against relatively straightforward scrutiny. If you think you know of a better one, present it.
      - measurablefunc 1y ago
        You're the one arguing against it by begging the question. Define all your terms & then maybe we'll have an actual argument.
        mannykannot 1y ago
        So no argument or explanation from you, just unsubstantiated allegations and bluster.
        measurablefunc 1y ago
        You can believe whatever you want about arithmetic as a foundation of your own metaphysics. I personally think it's silly but I'm not interested in arguing this any further b/c to close the explanatory gap from extensionality to intentionality you'd essentially have to solve several open problems in various branches of philosophy. Write out your argument in full form & then maybe you'll have something worth discussing.
        mannykannot 1y ago
        Once you punted a second time on an opportunity to explain yourself, I was fairly confident that there was nothing there. It's a common pattern.
oh_my_goodness 1y ago
But your Chalmers line is also literally true. If you're a Martian on Mars and you don't have cake ingredients available, the recipe won't work. If you're on Earth and you have the ingredients, it works fine. Even if (like me) you have almost no understanding of what the ingredients are, how they are made, or why the recipe works.
- mannykannot 1y ago
  If I'm following you correctly, you are saying that the conclusion of Chalmers' parody is actually correct, as having a recipe is indeed not sufficient to successfully bake a cake: you will not succeed without the ingredients, for example. This is indeed true, but we should bear in mind that Chalmers' parody is just that: a parody, not a rigorous argument. It seems clear that, if Chalmers wanted to make it more rigorous, he would have concluded with something like "therefore, even if you have all the prerequisites for baking a cake (ingredients, tools, familiarity with basic cooking operations...), no recipe is sufficient to instruct you in successfully completing the task." This would be a better argument, but a flabbier, less to-the-point parody, and it is reasonable for Chalmers to leave it to his readers to get his point.
  - oh_my_goodness 1y ago
    Sure. I'm not saying it's a bad parody, or that bulking it up with footnotes would improve it. I'm still coming to grips with the idea that LLMs seem to translate pretty well without understanding anything.
    - mannykannot 1y ago
      The question of whether, or to what extent, LLMs understand anything is an interesting one, tied up with our difficulty in saying what 'understanding' means, beyond broad statements along the lines of it being an ability to see the implications of our knowledge and use it in non-rote and creative ways. The most honest answer to these questions I can give is to say "I don't know", though I'm toying with the idea that they understand (in some sense) the pragmatics of language use, but not that language refers to an external world which changes according to rules and causes that are independent of what we can and do say about it. This would be a very strange state to be in, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in such a state. We have never met anybody or anything like it.
31337Logic 1y ago
[flagged]
- dang 1y ago
  Can you please not be snarky in HN comments? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, because we're trying for a different sort of discussion here. Edit: it looks like your account has been breaking the site guidelines quite a bit. That's not good, we ban accounts that do this, and we already asked you once before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34420693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34420693. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

measurablefunc 1y ago

Simulation of a recipe is not sufficient for crumbliness which is the only thing a computer can do at the end of the day. It can perform arithmetic operations & nothing else. If you know of a computer that can do more than boolean arithmetic then I'd like to see that computer & its implementation.

mannykannot 1y ago
Searle tries this approach against the 'simulation agument' in this paper (see page 423) and also elsewhere, saying "a simulation of a rainstorm will not get you wet" (similarly, Kastrup says "a simulation of a kidney won't pee on my desk"), to which one can reply "yet a simulation of an Enigma machine really will encode and decode messages." The thing is, minds interact with the outside world through information transmitted on the peripheral neural system, so the latter analogy is the relevant one here.
- oh_my_goodness 1y ago
  Mostly. Probably.
  - mannykannot 1y ago
    Enough to show that Searle's successors need a better argument.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- measurablefunc 1y ago
  You're not addressing the actual argument & not bridging the explanatory gap between arithmetic simulation & reality. Saying people can read & interpret numbers by imbuing them w/ actual meaning & semantics is begging the question.
  - mannykannot 1y ago
    I'm showing that Searle's argument against the simulation reply doesn't hold up against relatively straightforward scrutiny. If you think you know of a better one, present it.
    - measurablefunc 1y ago
      You're the one arguing against it by begging the question. Define all your terms & then maybe we'll have an actual argument.
      - mannykannot 1y ago
        So no argument or explanation from you, just unsubstantiated allegations and bluster.
        measurablefunc 1y ago
        You can believe whatever you want about arithmetic as a foundation of your own metaphysics. I personally think it's silly but I'm not interested in arguing this any further b/c to close the explanatory gap from extensionality to intentionality you'd essentially have to solve several open problems in various branches of philosophy. Write out your argument in full form & then maybe you'll have something worth discussing.
        mannykannot 1y ago
        Once you punted a second time on an opportunity to explain yourself, I was fairly confident that there was nothing there. It's a common pattern.

oh_my_goodness 1y ago

But your Chalmers line is also literally true. If you're a Martian on Mars and you don't have cake ingredients available, the recipe won't work. If you're on Earth and you have the ingredients, it works fine. Even if (like me) you have almost no understanding of what the ingredients are, how they are made, or why the recipe works.

mannykannot 1y ago
If I'm following you correctly, you are saying that the conclusion of Chalmers' parody is actually correct, as having a recipe is indeed not sufficient to successfully bake a cake: you will not succeed without the ingredients, for example. This is indeed true, but we should bear in mind that Chalmers' parody is just that: a parody, not a rigorous argument. It seems clear that, if Chalmers wanted to make it more rigorous, he would have concluded with something like "therefore, even if you have all the prerequisites for baking a cake (ingredients, tools, familiarity with basic cooking operations...), no recipe is sufficient to instruct you in successfully completing the task." This would be a better argument, but a flabbier, less to-the-point parody, and it is reasonable for Chalmers to leave it to his readers to get his point.
- oh_my_goodness 1y ago
  Sure. I'm not saying it's a bad parody, or that bulking it up with footnotes would improve it. I'm still coming to grips with the idea that LLMs seem to translate pretty well without understanding anything.
  - mannykannot 1y ago
    The question of whether, or to what extent, LLMs understand anything is an interesting one, tied up with our difficulty in saying what 'understanding' means, beyond broad statements along the lines of it being an ability to see the implications of our knowledge and use it in non-rote and creative ways. The most honest answer to these questions I can give is to say "I don't know", though I'm toying with the idea that they understand (in some sense) the pragmatics of language use, but not that language refers to an external world which changes according to rules and causes that are independent of what we can and do say about it. This would be a very strange state to be in, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in such a state. We have never met anybody or anything like it.

31337Logic 1y ago

[flagged]

dang 1y ago
Can you please not be snarky in HN comments? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, because we're trying for a different sort of discussion here. Edit: it looks like your account has been breaking the site guidelines quite a bit. That's not good, we ban accounts that do this, and we already asked you once before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34420693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34420693. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.