Essay Abstract
Logical analysis, and the response to this logical analysis, are fundamentally different aspects of the world to the aspect of the world that is represented by law of nature relationships between variables.
Author Bio
Lorraine is a former computer analyst and programmer. She lives with her husband, some wacky ducks, and a wild and colourful flowering garden that is alive with birds and the occasional possum, and buzzing with bees and other insects.
"The problem for physics is that logical analysis (of the numbers), and the response to this logical analysis, is a fundamentally different aspect of the world to the aspect of the world that is represented by law of nature relationships (between the variables). The problem for physics is that analysis of the numbers is separate and distinct from relationships between the variables."
What are numbers? What are variables? Do the answers to the 2 preceding questions involve concepts about infinity? If we think of a variable as a physical quantity that is alterable, changeable, or mutable, then we must consider the basics concepts of time, space, energy, and quantum information.
Stephen Hawking wrote, "Although there have been suggestions that spacetime may have a discrete structure, I see no reason to abandon the continuum theories that have been so successful."
Is Milgrom the Kepler of contemporary cosmology? Please google "kroupa milgrom", "mcgaugh milgrom", "sanders milgrom", and "scarpa milgrom". Do the empirical successes of MIlgrom's MOND require a new concept of time? I have conjectured that there are 3 basic concepts of time: Newtonian time, Einsteinian time, and Wolframian time. Fredkin has conjectured that nature is finite and digital. Wolfram has conjectured that there are 4 or 5 simple rules that yield empirically satisfactory approximations to quantum field theory and general relativity theory. I have conjectured that the 4 ultra-precise gyroscopes of Gravity Probe B worked to within design specifications -- am I wrong? I conjecture that the 2 greatest scientific predictions of the 21st century are: (1) The Riofrio-Sanejouand cosmological model is (approximately) empirically valid. (2) dark-matter-compensation-constant = (3.9±.5) * 10^-5 . Are the 2 preceding predictions wrong?
David,
One can think of numbers and variables as symbols, written on a piece of paper, that we use to represent aspects of the real world (e.g. aspects like relative mass, pressure, wavelength and position).
These variables seem to represent natural categories of information that exist in the world. These categories have no stand-alone existence; the categories only exist in lawful relationship with other such categories; when transposed, the categories are the lawful relationships. Unlike their symbolic representations on a piece of paper, the lawful relationships/ categories have genuine power over outcomes in the world.
Somewhat similarly, a number applied to a category represents a genuine aspect of the world. Superficially, numbers are not like categories; but maybe numbers ultimately derive from relationships where the categories just cancel out. Most certainly, numbers in the real world can have nothing to do with set theory, because set theory involves something or someone performing a series of algorithmic steps.
I would think that the time category is not like the mass or position categories. Mass and position are both representable as lawful mathematical relationships. I think that time on the other hand can only be represented as an algorithmic step (taken when a number that applies to another category changes).
Cool words Lorraine Ford,
................................ However, physics does not have any theoretical backing for the idea that an outcome could be a response to the logical analysis of a set of incoming numbers. This logical analysis and its associated outcome can only be represented (often only after the fact) as IF...THEN... statements.
Laws of nature are represented by fixed relationships between the variables, so that given the incoming numbers for the variables, the numeric outcomes should be predictable. But if an IF...THEN... logical analysis of the incoming numbers for the variables has taken place, not all the numeric outcomes for the variables representing the outcomes for the living thing will be predictable............................
You are a NATURE lover!!!!
Your logical analysis is very good, you told the concept in very few words!!!!
I request you to please see Dynamic Universe model for some of such NATURE representing questions and many of the fundamental and foundational questions about this model are explained in my essay, in addition....
Ofcourse additionally I just elaborated what should be the freedom available to an author when the "real open thinking" is supported. How I got this Dynamic Universe Model.............
"A properly deciding, Computing and Predicting new theory's Philosophy"
Please write a word on my essay.......
=snp.gupta
Dear Lorraine;
The birds aren't singing right now here in France because it rains., but spring is coming so there will be a lot of rumour in our gardens.
I read your compact essay, and conclude that the end conclusions are the same as in the part of my essay where I am treating "Artificial Intelligence versus Artificial Consciousness". Algorithms will stay only algorithms (I try to explain why). Artificial Consciousness is not yet created, but maybe...and then this entity will also be aware of the beauty and the madness of our reality.
I hope this will give you enough reasons to read my essay (click here) and maybe leave a comment.
Good day to you and your husband.
Wilhelmus de Wilde
Wilhelmus,
Thanks for reading my essay.
My essay is not about computers/ AIs or consciousness. I never mention consciousness in my essay. I only mention computers/ AIs because many people (including many physicists) have ignorant and irrational beliefs about computers/ AIs, and haven't a clue about how they work.
My essay is more about the analytic abilities that characterise people and other living things, which can only be represented as IF...THEN... algorithms: equations can't do the job. I only mention computers/ AIs because many people wrongly equate the analytic abilities and behaviour of living things with the symbolic algorithmic "behaviour" that is happening inside computers/ AIs.
You yourself don't understand how computers work, judging by your comment: "Artificial Consciousness is not yet created, but maybe...and then this entity will also be aware of the beauty and the madness of our reality". I have tried to explain in my essay why what you say in your comment is not possible.
SNP Gupta,
Thanks for reading my essay, and for your favourable comments about it.
Hope you will see my essay also
Lorraine,
You are quite right, I am not a computer technician (nerd). I use them.
I also think that "not possible" is a time-related expression. There are so many things that were analysed as impossible in the past (on example: entanglement) and now are common sense. We just don't know the future.
That is my perception, so everybody has his own awareness just as you are, the only way to get progress is respect.
best regards
Wilhelmus
Wilhelmus,
When it comes to computers/ AIs we do know the types of things that are possible, and it is not possible for computers/ AIs to become conscious. I have tried to explain what is happening inside computers in my essay, even though computers/ AIs are not the actual topic of my essay.
I think it is wrong and dangerous for prominent people to mislead the people of the world about the nature of computers/ AIs. Physicist Max Tegmark has misled people, but so have many others including associate professor Roman Yampolskiy (department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Louisville) in this essay contest. E.g. Yampolskiy includes the following nonsense quote in his essay: "Hibbard points out safety impact from incomprehensibility of AI: "Given the incomprehensibility of their thoughts, we will not be able to sort out the effect of any conflicts they have between their own interests and ours."" and spouts complete drivel about the supposed existence or possible existence of "superintelligences".
How can one respect these idiotic prominent people who should know better, and who mislead the public about an important item we use every day: computers/ AIs?
Regards,
Lorraine
Dear Lorraine,
I liked your essay. It was short, which is good.
Do we agree that am artificial neural network is a function approximator?
Are you Canadian? I'm from Saskatchewan.
- Shawn
Lorraine
I agree with you that is a lot of nonsense-interpretations in the science world. As for AI you have the same opinion as mine, I think, it is overestimated. Everything that is beginning with "deep" has got a special aura, that it doesn't deserve.
I didn't read the essay of Yampolski (I don't even know his name) but indeed his interpretations are far away from the reality as it is now. Until now the programming is purely deterministic and can be fully understood by (some) humans. He is creating Ghosts...
What I am referring to as "respect" is only the fact that people are using their minds to try to explain their reality. Yampolski is doing that, I may not agree (at all), so I will start a discussion, if he doesn' listen, so be it, but I won't be irritated, better just laugh.
Wilhelmus
Shawn,
Thanks for reading my essay. I'm from Australia, land of the koalas, possums, kangaroos and hundreds of species of gum trees and other natural wonders.
Artificial neural networks are no different to other computers/ AIs because they all use symbolic representations of information. From the point of view of a human being something might be "a function approximator". From the point of view of an artificial neural network, computer or AI, nothing more sophisticated than high and low voltages are happening.
To quote from my essay:
From the point of view of a computer/ AI (not that it actually has a genuine point of view), binary digits are an uncrackable code, several layers of an uncrackable code. Computers/ AIs can't know that their high and low voltages are meant to represent zeroes and ones, and that these zeroes and ones are part of a binary digit system of representation. And computers/ AIs can't crack this binary code: they can't know that groupings of these high and low voltages are meant to represent letters, words and sentences in a language (like Indian, French, English or Chinese), and numbers. And the computer/ AI is not devoting resources to cracking this binary code; at all times the computer/ AI is doing nothing but following the path determined by the computer programmer's program.
Dear Lorraine,
You're welcome.
We have bears here too, but these ones are bloodthirsty! :)
- Shawn
Dear Lorraine,
It is very important that you consider the language of Nature, its understanding and the so-called "artificial intelligence". But is that LOGICS we use to understand the language of Nature? To understand the desired (initial, generating) logic of Nature is to understand the ﾂｫLOG-os".
Why do we say "artificial intelligence" and not "artificial quasi-intelligence"? For a more successful commercial promotion of electronic machines? Will "artificial quasi-intelligence" ever be able to work on the basis of dialectic ontologics?
All the FQXi's contests tell us one thing: Problem 邃-1 is the problem of the ontological basification (justification+substantiation) of mathematics, "queen of sciences", and therefore knowledge in general. Hence the problem of the philosophical basis of number theory.
Why do mathematicians ﾂｫsweep under the carpetﾂｻ the main problem of cognition - the problem of the ontological basification of Mathematics, which is more than a century old?
Respectfully,
Vladimir
Hello Vladimir :-) ,
Re "is that LOGICS we use to understand the language of Nature?":
I would think that we subjective beings are what nature is; we are not separate from it, we are not above it. But to communicate with each other, and to represent our world, we need to use written and spoken symbols. Examples of these written and spoken symbols are:
1. Words and sentences;
2. Equations (e.g. to represent law of nature relationships between categories of information); and
3. IF...THEN... symbols (to represent logical analysis).
Equations can represent fixed law-of-nature relationships between categories of information, but they can't represent logical analysis of the numbers that apply to these categories. Physics has completely failed to notice that you can't run a world without something being able to do a logical analysis of the numbers that apply in a particular situation or event !!!!
The IF...THEN... symbols represent an imperfect logical analysis of a particular situation and its outcomes. For a particular situation:
A) The "IF" bit essentially represents an analysis of the current numbers for the categories; and
B) The "THEN" bit represents a response to this analysis (which is not a response to laws of nature - it is a free response)).
I would think that IF...THEN... is one way of representing consciousness and free will. You can't do physics, mathematics or philosophy without IF...THEN... .
Re "artificial intelligence":
There is no artificial intelligence: AIs are not intelligent - they might have a superficial appearance of intelligence from the point of view of observers of the AI. Inside AIs, there is nothing going on except high and low voltages that are determined by the computer program and the inputs to the computer program.
However, our construction and use of computers and AIs has illustrated the central importance of IF...THEN... if we want to represent the underlying elements that are driving the world.
Hello Lorraine :-),
The question is only about "grasping" (understanding) the structure of "IF ..."
Physics gives us a scientific picture of the world: "If there is a "big bang", then born as a result of the WORDS, LANGUAGE and MIND ...
Thus, the main question for cognition: THE PRIMORDIAL ONTOLOGICAL STRUCTURE.
Vladimir
Dear Vladimir,
Is IF...THEN... an appropriate way of symbolically representing what living things do? I think it is. This is how I would describe the structure:
The "IF" part represents the current or theoretical situation that a living thing is encountering. It may represent a person encountering a tiger or a butterfly, or a mathematician confronting a mathematical problem. The situation encountered by the person needs to be imagined as being representable by variables and numbers, so that "IF (variable1 = number1 AND variable2 = number2 AND variable3 = number3 .....) IS TRUE" is imagined as representing the true situation facing a person or other living thing.
However, these variables and numbers only represent the raw light and sound information that a living thing receives from the environment: the raw categories of information are analysed by the living thing in order to acquire higher-level information about the situation being encountered. "Tiger" and "butterfly" are higher-level categories of information about the situation being encountered. So the situation being encountered is (partly) representable as: "IF tiger IS TRUE" or "IF butterfly IS TRUE".
(But, living things can make mistakes in their analysis: a cat or a person can often think (for a fleeting moment) that a dry brown leaf blown around by the wind is a scurrying mouse. Re this essay contest: the results of analysis can be unpredictable.)
Laws of nature do not respond to higher-level categories of information like "tiger" and "butterfly". So, the THEN... response to an IF... situation encountered, is not fully prescribed by laws of nature. Also, the THEN... response to an IF... situation encountered, is not fully prescribed by the IF... situation: the THEN... response is partly a free/ creative response to the IF... situation. Re this essay contest: the THEN... response is at least partly unpredictable.
Do you think this has similarities to your Primordial Ontological Structure?
Dear Lorraine,
Yes, your example pushes thinking to the next step, to the ultimate, deepest analysis ... I ask myself the main question: what kind of structure underlies not only the "life world", any events in it, but also the Universe as a whole. Therefore, the "thinking creature" in me is an observer who is inside this structure ("inscribed" in it) and observes the ABSOLUTE (unconditional) FORMs of the existence of matter (absolute states), as a result of interaction ("coincidence of opposites") of which LIFE is born and the very thinking and self-conscious being - we humans. IN-FORMA-TION is a phenomenon. NOUMEN, which gives rise to the phenomenon of "information" - is "ontological (cosmic, structural) memory." At the heart of the Universe, the "life world", the phenomenon of thinking and consciousness lies a primordial generating (ontological) structure. The concept of "structure" is the key, basic for science as a whole. Recall the "les structures mere" ("generating", "maternal") Bourbaki in the "Architecture of Mathematics". Those, this is a structural ontological approach. It is the unity of ultimate analysis and ultimate synthesis.
That is, the thought is constantly working on the question: what (which structure) generates "IF" and "THAT" ... that is, I try to simulate the process of generating more and more new structures and meanings.
Respectfully,
Vladimir
Dear Vladimir,
I think we are saying similar things or the same thing.
Re "I ask myself the main question: what kind of structure underlies not only the "life world", any events in it, but also the Universe as a whole":
I would think that the basic structure is what is symbolically representable as: 1) categories/ variables which only exist as part of lawful relationships; and 2) numbers assigned to the variables. In so called "quantum events", new numbers are in effect assigned to some of the variables [1]. I.e. new structure has been generated/ created.
Exactly what is generating the new structure? I would think that what we describe as "matter" (particles, atoms, molecules and living things) is the only thing that can be generating new structure. This generation of new structure can be represented (only after the fact - it can't be predicted) by IF...THEN... logical steps.
1. The Schrödinger's cat thought experiment shows that such micro events can have macro consequences.