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Turing-completeness is a necessary pre-requisite for being able to fulfill the requirements of a Turing machine, nothing more. In the same way that cell divisi
by gortok 2mo ago
Turing-completeness is a necessary pre-requisite for being able to fulfill the requirements of a Turing machine, nothing more. In the same way that cell division is a necessary condition for life, but cell division does not mean a given life form itself is sentient.
Intelligent life-forms can generate probabilistic outputs based on inputs, but being able to generate probabilistic outputs based on inputs is not what makes us intelligent.
- estearum 2mo ago> but being able to generate probabilistic outputs based on inputs is not what makes us intelligent. ??? Of course it is. The brain is mechanically not capable of doing anything other than that. Do you believe the brain is something other than a bundle of probabilistic physical interactions? Or are brains not the source of what we call intelligence?
- nullsanity 2mo ago[dead]
- pessimizer 2mo agoYours is a controversial view. It is lazy and selfish to try to get other people to explain their case that it is not exclusively that, when saying that it is exclusively that is the weaker case, and you back it up with nothing but a snarky proclamation. Are newly born babies reacting due to statistical probabilities that they have derived, or are they using something other than their brains?
- estearum 2mo ago> Are newly born babies reacting due to statistical probabilities that they have derived, or are they using something other than their brains? The answer is obviously yes lol. The creature is an assemblage of electrical, chemical, and kinetic relationships. Watching a baby develop is exactly what you'd expect from a system that's predominantly electrical noise triggering behaviors and then gradually refining denoising the relationship between inputs and outputs, with the goal function of achieving more desirable inputs. Surely you can at least gesture toward one thing in the brain that appears not to be a probabilistic relationship between input and output?
- beepbooptheory 2mo agoWhy is the brain probabilistic instead of deterministic?
- estearum 2mo agoProbabilistic and deterministic are not opposites. The brain is deterministic at the level of specific interactions, which process inputs in a highly chaotic (but still deterministic) manner into probabilistic outcomes. The opposite of deterministic is random, i.e. in the quantum sense of truly no relationship between input and output. There are probably some quantum effects in the brain here and there, but the vast majority of it is just traditional deterministic interactions networked together in such a complex system that the resulting behavior is much, much easier to predict in probabilistic terms than otherwise.
- beepbooptheory 2mo agoOk right, but then I don't see the original point. Or like, you don't seem to be appealing to a hard science/soft science distinction here if the question revolves around what conceptual model is most "useful" to us. Useful for what? For predicting future actions? That makes sense, but does actually that speak to op's (possibly still fraught) metaphysical/semantic point here? It just feels like you are speaking over it, right? They could just as easily counter that a probabilistic model of the physical brain is not a very useful description of human intelligence, so why use it? You can't appeal to materialism here because you are already practicing some implied pragmatism in your commitments. You pretty much have as much ground to stand on as they do!
- estearum 2mo agoI am saying that there is no categorical distinction to be made on functional grounds between artificial intelligence and brains. You cannot say an AI model cannot be intelligent because it's a probability machine, when all available evidence points toward natural intelligence also being generated by probability machines (much more complex ones, called brains).
- tadfisher 2mo agoThis deserves about as large of a "[citation needed]" as one could draw. Are you well-studied in neuroscience?
- estearum 2mo agoNothing in the universe is anything other than a chain of reactions, amigo. The brain is an object in the universe. The universe has quantum behaviors (fully random, not a source of intelligence) and it has deterministic behaviors (fully non-random). Many of those deterministic behaviors are so complex that they're easier to analyze and describe as probabilistic, which is where most brain input → output relationships land. Please point to any evidence whatsoever that the brain has some third type of interaction going on that has never been observed anywhere in the entire universe, then we can have a discussion about it.
- chlorion 2mo agoIts baffling to me that people think the brain is somehow "outside" of the universe and somehow "magic" and not tied down by physics just like any other matter is. I don't understand how people come to this conclusion, except in the case of belief in magic or religion (which is belief in magic more or less).
- estearum 2mo agoYeah, that's ultimately this whole conversation and people just don't have the courage to acknowledge their own beliefs. The brain is a (very complex, incredible) input → output machine. That's it! It's incredible! I don't understand why people are so afraid of this that they will believe otherwise with literally zero evidence whatsoever.
- polotics 2mo agoMay I suggest the excellent & recent book: "The brain. In theory" by Romain Brette? This is going to elevate your thinking on this no end, if you're interested.
- estearum 2mo agoLooks interesting (added to my list, thank you for the recommendation), but not actually relevant to the topic at hand. We know that the brain is a probabilistic input → output machine because the universe is a probabilistic input → output machine. The brain is made of universe. There are deterministic relationships (which at high sensitivity or complexity become easier to describe as probabilistic), and quantum relationships. That's it. The brain, like every other thing comprised of "universe" is comprised of those two types of relationships. If Romain's book provides evidence of relationships in the brain that are neither quantum (therefore random) NOR classical (therefore deterministic), then 1) he would have already won at least one Nobel prize, and 2) anyone in this thread would be able to at least gesture toward what relationship that is.
- polotics 2mo agoYou're a fast reader :-D No quantum bullshittery in there I promise. Equating "classical" with "deterministic" is however pushing it a bit too far, when no one and nothing can ever do even a very small fraction of said determination...
- estearum 2mo agoQuantum is not bullshit and yes, classical is deterministic. That's why the brain cannot possibly be anything other than an input → output machine, which is functionally deterministic (with maybe some fully random components), but is easiest to describe as probabilistic. In the same way that LLMs are functionally deterministic, but easiest to describe as probabilistic.
- thesmtsolver2 2mo agoThis is a vacuous argument. If everything is a “probabilistic input output machine” then what exactly are you claiming? You should look into mathematical definitions of probability. You will be surprised to find not all formal mathematical systems can fit inside probability spaces.
- noncoml 2mo agoWe don’t know
- estearum 2mo agoOf course we do. Unless the brain is an object unlike anything else in the known universe, then it's an input → output machine.
- noncoml 2mo agoNot what what the parent post claimed.
- estearum 2mo agoThe brain is the source of intelligence The brain solely does probabilistic conversion of inputs to outputs Therefore the thing that makes us intelligent is our probabilistic conversion of inputs to outputs Ergo GP's assertion is wrong
- red75prime 2mo agoOK. A more pointed question. What do you know about intelligence that allows you to exclude LLMs with CoT from the category of intelligent systems with certainty?
- buttercraft 2mo agoHow do you know there's not a teapot orbiting the sun?
- tired-turtle 2mo agoYou’re right to point that out. The load-bearing seam of your logical retort is the hidden assumption that the teapot is in outer space, not at peace on a kitchen stovetop here on earth. I am sorry I had not considered this fact. \s
- red75prime 2mo agoThere is no reason to think that teapots were sent into orbit or spontaneously formed there. Likewise, there is no reason to think the brain employs super-Turing or quantum computations that cannot be approximated by LLMs.
- buttercraft 2mo agoThe point is that you're asking someone to prove a negative.
- red75prime 2mo agoIt's a negative in your worldview where "intelligence can't be a computation" is an axiom or something close. To me this worldview is sloppy thinking.
- buttercraft 2mo agoI did not express my opinion or "worldview." I was simply responding to this: > exclude LLMs with CoT from the category of intelligent systems with certainty
- treszkai 2mo agoAnd similarly, humans are not Turing-complete either: none of us can even in theory sit down and store a trillion bits of information in their mind (or paper, whatever) without loss and without a computer. So Turing-completeness is not even a necessary condition for intelligence.