Lorraine Ford
The FQxI / “Monty Python Institute of Future Life” woo-woo brigade ARE MAKING BIG CLAIMS about the supposed nature of computers/ AIs. So, these people need to explain how they think computers/ AIs:

  1. Know what a binary digit is.
  2. Know that a voltage is meant to represent a binary digit.
  3. Know what particular binary digit is meant to be represented by a particular voltage.
  4. Know that arrays or groups of these binary digits are in turn meant to represent word symbols and number symbols.
  5. Know what particular word symbols and number symbols are meant to be represented by particular arrays or groups of these binary digits.
  6. Know that human beings ascribe meaning to these word symbols and number symbols.
  7. Know what particular meaning human beings ascribe to particular word symbols and number symbols.

      Lorraine Ford
      Unlike in nature (planets, particles, people, plants, praying mantids, porpoises, and molecules), where information is an inherent “property” of it’s substance, and where higher-level information is built from the ground up from the lower-level “properties” (categories, contexts/ relationships, numbers) of its fundamental particles, symbols of information have no such provenance or secure basis.

      This is the absolute lunacy of the people from (e.g.) the Future of Life Institute or the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, who get themselves in a big tizz over mere SYMBOLS of information.

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          Lorraine Ford
          There is a long and growing list of the products of human consciousness and creativity, including: written and spoken words and other symbols, languages, books and novels, mathematics and philosophy, computer programming languages and computers, cars, the Pyramids, spacecraft, atomic bombs, music, art and sculpture, science, laws and governments …

          But the thing that sets computer programming languages and computers apart from the rest is that they are not merely a product of human consciousness and creativity, but that they actually seek to symbolically represent human conscious knowledge and creativity.

          The physical circuits, transistors and voltages in computers/ AIs are special man-made setups that use the known properties of particular physical materials to implement the symbols in the computer programming languages. But it is the computer programming languages that more specifically represent human conscious knowledge and creativity, that naturally enough, needs to first be translated into mathematical and logical terms. So, the following is a coded representation of human conscious knowledge of a situation:

          (variable1 = number1) AND (variable2 = number2) AND (variable3 = number3) IS TRUE

          And, the following is a coded representation of human creativity in response to a situation; creative because the “THEN” is not actually a mathematical consequence of the “IF” (except when the computer program is installed and running, in which case the “THEN” becomes a man-made rule that is implemented):

          IF (variable1 = number1) AND (variable2 = number2) AND (variable3 = number3) IS TRUE, THEN (assign number4 to variable4) AND (assign number5 to variable5 ).

          ................................................................................

          Those naïve people who are blown away by apparently miraculous signs and symbols of consciousness and creativity in AIs need to realise that computer programming languages and computer programs always were nothing more than symbolic representations of human consciousness and creativity. I.e. human conscious knowledge of situations that might be encountered, and higher-level through to lower-level human ways of creatively handling these situations.

              Lorraine Ford
              Rather than the mistaken belief that computers/ AIs are developing consciousness and creativity,

              the actual lesson of computers/ AIs is that the world can’t be symbolically represented by mathematical equations alone (i.e., mathematical operators including equals signs; numbers; and the symbols that represent variables/ categories like mass and position):

              to more correctly represent all aspects of the world one also needs to use logical connective symbols like IF, AND, OR, THEN, and IS TRUE.

                2 months later

                As I try to explain in my essay, physics can’t explain why the world is moving, i.e. physics can’t explain free will:

                In physics, the world is represented in terms of special measurable categories (like position, charge or mass), number symbols that represent the results of these measurements, and mathematical equations that represent the relationships that have been found to exist between these categories (“laws of nature”, “laws of physics”).

                Using the terms of physics, the free will issue can be put the following way: what is changing the numbers for a particular category? Can I myself sometimes freely change my own position numbers (that relate to e.g. my own vocal cords, eyes, legs, hands or fingers), or is it only ever the laws of nature that can change my position numbers, and every other number for every other category in the entire universe?

                Physics can’t honestly answer this question, because physics’ mathematical formulations of the law of nature relationships mean that physicists can only ever say that IF some numbers change, THEN all other numbers will be found to have also changed so that the law of nature relationships are never violated. But physics can’t actually say WHAT is causing each initial number jump/ number change.

                  6 days later

                  Lorraine Ford
                  One can only correctly represent a moving system, or part of a moving system, algorithmically, i.e. using the type of logical connective symbols used in computer programs. So, one can never correctly represent our moving world using only the equations that represent “laws of nature”, because despite their delta symbols, the equations only represent relationships between measurable categories, the equations can’t represent real-world number movement, e.g. for a particular real-world category like particle relative position.

                  But unfortunately, physicists have seemingly wrongly assumed that “law of nature” equations, with their delta symbols, or any other mathematical formulations representing the “laws of nature”, can completely deal with, or cover, the issue of number movement. But this never was the case: even theoretically, number movement is a completely different thing to relationships between categories.

                  How could science be different? Science could be different if physicists woke up to the fact that there exists another completely separate and necessary aspect of the world, an aspect that can only be represented algorithmically, i.e. using logical connective symbols.

                      Lorraine Ford
                      Numbers are different to categories.

                      But categories like mass and position, and the numbers that apply to these categories, are aspects of the world that actually seem to exist. The law of nature relationships that physicists have found, and that scientists use to (e.g.) send spacecraft to Mars, are pretty much proof that such aspects of the world exist. But what are these real-world categories and numbers?

                      Scientists have devised units, like kilograms or metres, for each measurable category, but the unit is a human choice. However, any real-world categories must seemingly also have a type of inherent unit.

                      Numbers are not categories, and numbers don’t have an inherent category, i.e. they don’t have an inherent unit like kilograms or volts or metres/ second. However, any real-world numbers must seemingly also have a type of inherent unit.

                      The connection between these two dissimilar aspects of the world, i.e. numbers and categories, points to active mathematical assignments taking place in the world where real-world numbers are mathematically assigned to a category, an outcome that physicists would represent by placing a mathematical “equals” sign between the category and the number. So, in a “quantum number jump”, an active mathematical assignment must have taken place.

                        2 months later

                        We CAN know the world: knowledge/ information has a secure foundation. That is why physics is possible. And that is why living things can confidently analyse, collate, and interpret the foundational low-level knowledge/ information that they obtain when light waves, sound waves and molecules from their surroundings interact with their senses. And with this higher-level knowledge/ information that they have obtained, living things can thereby avoid predators, and find food and shelter.

                        But how can knowledge/ information be represented? Knowledge/ information is ALWAYS symbolically represented in the following way:

                        (category = number) IS TRUE
                        or
                        (category = number) IS FALSE,

                        where the low-level foundational categories of the world are always mathematically related to other such categories (physicists represent these relationships with “law of nature” equations). Higher level information is necessarily a structure that is built on a foundation of lower-level information, and the following symbols represent the type of links required to build this structure: IF, AND, OR, THEN, IS TRUE.

                        And there is no essential difference between knowledge/ information and consciousness/ knowledge/ information, except that consciousness/ knowledge/ information is an organised collation/combination, a simplified version of which could be represented as something like:

                        ((category1=number1) IS TRUE) AND ((category2=number2) IS TRUE) AND ((category3=number3) IS TRUE) AND ((category4=number4) IS TRUE) AND ((category5=number5) IS TRUE) AND …

                        …………………….

                        The world, or smaller parts of the world, always knows itself, i.e. the world knows its own numbers, categories and relationships. E.g., in an interaction, the world knows when a mass is what would be represented as:

                        (m = 0.511 MeV) IS TRUE

                        as opposed to when a mass is what would be represented as:

                        (m = 105.7 MeV) IS TRUE.

                        The higher-level, conscious world is necessarily constructed on the basis of a lower-level world that ALREADY knows itself.

                          a month later

                          1. What is consciousness and why does it exist?

                          In a differentiated universe (i.e. differentiated into different fundamental categories like mass and position, and different numbers that apply to these categories), it is necessary that the universe, or small parts of the universe, can differentiate itself (i.e. discern difference in its own categories, and numbers). Fundamental-level consciousness is the necessary aspect of the universe, whereby small parts of the universe discern difference in their own surrounding categories and numbers.

                          It can’t be taken for granted that, just because the universe is in fact differentiated (adjective), that the universe would be able to differentiate (verb) itself: fundamental-level consciousness is the necessary aspect of the world that discerns difference.

                          2. As opposed to fundamental relationships in the universe (which are represented by equations), and numbers in the universe (which are represented by number symbols), how can consciousness be represented?

                          Fundamental-level consciousness can be represented in the following type of way:

                          category1=number1 IS TRUE

                          or

                          (category1=number1 IS TRUE) AND (category2=number2 IS TRUE) AND (category3=number3 IS TRUE).

                            Lorraine Ford
                            As indicated above, physics has no verbs: physics only has nouns and adjectives, i.e. equations that, despite the delta symbols, only describe relationships between categories.

                            Physics has nothing that animates the world. However, physics tacitly assumes that the world moves its own numbers that apply to the categories (1); and physics tacitly assumes that the world knows its own time-and-place categories and numbers, i.e. that the world is conscious of itself.

                            Is it any wonder that purely religious views of the world, with Gods and Saviours, are proliferating, when the physics, that is supposed to be the ultimate way of explaining the world, can’t even see or acknowledge its own tacit assumptions that the fundamental-level world is in fact animated?

                            So, despite obtaining the knowledge that made it possible to send a spacecraft to Mars, physics has failed to explain the world, because physics has no verbs.

                            …………….............….

                            1. The equations of physics represent number change, due to mathematical relationship, but only IF other numbers change. The “IF” is the problem.
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