My take on why indeed the study of consciousness may not be as simple

[PixyMisa]

Everything in physics is defined in terms of physical quantities and relationships. It is never just mathematics.

And those physical quantities and relationships are expressed how?

 

[rocketdodger]

Everything in physics is defined in terms of physical quantities and relationships. It is never just mathematics.

*Ahem* Not crystallization...

Crystallization is defined without reference to any specific physical quantities or relationships, because it is relative to each substance that might crystallize.

Yet, you yourself have admitted that crystallization is a physical process.

What gives? (not that any of us are surprised that your arguments are totally inconsistent, I would just hope that eventually you yourself might realize this).

 

[westprog]

Further to above.

Is the "two" shared by, for example, two apples, two cows, the two moons of Mars, and two successive sunrises a physical or a mathematical property?

If it's a physical property, then one is implicitly accepting the physicality of mathematical concepts, which means that Turing-equivalence is a physical property as well.

If it's a purely mathematical property, then one is implicitly accepting that mathematical properties can have physical consequences, and therefore a mathematical definition of computation such as Turing-equivalence has consequences that are part of the physical world and can be studied as such.

"Two moons" is a physical property. "Two" is not.

Where physical objects are related or described mathematically, the mathematical description has an effect on the physical object - or rather, the behaviour of the physical object can be predicted by the relevant mathematics. But the mathematical theory is not physical in itself. Only a very tiny portion of mathematics has any relationship with the physical world.

Interestingly, Penrose has a couple of chapters dealing with the reality of mathematics.

 

[drkitten]

"Two moons" is a physical property. "Two" is not.

So you admit that purely mathematical similarities -- the same "two" that describes Mars' moons and a pair of apples -- have physical consequences.

Which in turn, suggests that the mathematical similarities defined by "Turing equivalence" can have physical consequences as well.

Which neatly explains what the difference is between a pile of computer parts and a functioning computer. The functioning computer is Turing-equivalent(*); the pile of computer parts is not. In this regard, the pile of computer parts is more similar to a brick or a bucket of mud, which are also NOT Turing-equivalent.

(*) within the limits of finite approximation, as is standard in the mathematical treatment of computers.

Interestingly, Penrose has a couple of chapters dealing with the reality of mathematics.

And I'm sure they're wrong beyond repair as well. Why break a trend?

 

[westprog]

*Ahem* Not crystallization...

Crystallization is defined without reference to any specific physical quantities or relationships, because it is relative to each substance that might crystallize.

Yet, you yourself have admitted that crystallization is a physical process.

What gives? (not that any of us are surprised that your arguments are totally inconsistent, I would just hope that eventually you yourself might realize this).

Crystallisation deals with the organisation of atoms. I think we can agree that atoms are physical objects? Whether a solid is crystalline or not depends on the physical relationship between physical objects. That's the difference between an ad hoc description of crystallisation (where atoms form a regular pattern) and your description of computing* which made no reference to anything specifically physical.

There is no problem with general rules that deal with classes of objects. Indeed, that's how science makes sense of the universe. Otherwise we'd have a bunch of unconnected single observations.

_{*or computation, if you want to keep the pixies happy.}

 

[westprog]

So you admit that purely mathematical similarities -- the same "two" that describes Mars' moons and a pair of apples -- have physical consequences.

Which in turn, suggests that the mathematical similarities defined by "Turing equivalence" can have physical consequences as well.

Which neatly explains what the difference is between a pile of computer parts and a functioning computer. The functioning computer is Turing-equivalent(*); the pile of computer parts is not. In this regard, the pile of computer parts is more similar to a brick or a bucket of mud, which are also NOT Turing-equivalent.

(*) within the limits of finite approximation, as is standard in the mathematical treatment of computers.

And is a human brain Turing-equivalent? This is cutting the Gordian knot all right. It sounds good but all you're really saying is that the computer is [drumroll] a computer. Physical description of computation still entirely absent.

And I'm sure they're wrong beyond repair as well. Why break a trend?

Decided what Penrose needs to do to be a physicist yet?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

If computation is not physical, and consciousness arises from computation, that seems to imply that consciousness isn't physical either.

I think there's some ambiguity on the term "physical". A thing that is a function of a physical object is physical even though the function is not an object.

For example, "running" is not "my legs". Running is a function of my legs. Running is not an object. Running is not matter, yet in normal language we would say it is a "physical" function.

Concsciousness refers to a collection of functions/properties of the brain. These functions are physical processes. (They're the result of activity of brain structures, and we can prove it beyond any reasonable doubt. Subjective experiences correlate very well with measures of brain activity.)

In ordinary language, though, we speak of brain functions as "mental" functions, but physiologically, they are every bit as physical as running.

 

[westprog]

So, the switching of state of an electron from one orbital to another, where it can only have one of two rigidly defined energy levels, is analogue?

What a curious definition of analogue you are using there.

It doesn't matter. Whether we consider the operations of the universe as deep down digital, or deep down analogue - it doesn't alter the fact that digital and analogue processes sitting on top work in exactly the same way.

And no, DrKitten, transistors are not explicitly digital devices.

 

[PixyMisa]

And is a human brain Turing-equivalent?

No, but only because it's unreliable. It is certainly bound by the same computational limitations as the Turing machine.

Decided what Penrose needs to do to be a physicist yet?

Not be off by ten orders of magnitude without even realising it... For a start.

 

[PixyMisa]

Crystallisation deals with the organisation of atoms. I think we can agree that atoms are physical objects? Whether a solid is crystalline or not depends on the physical relationship between physical objects. That's the difference between an ad hoc description of crystallisation (where atoms form a regular pattern) and your description of computing* which made no reference to anything specifically physical.

Information is specifically physical. Fail.

 

[westprog]

Sure , whatever Westprog, I didn't make those claims (but you argued with me any how) and you made a bunch of over general statements (which you refused to clarify and bound), then you use a bunch of sophistry to avoid the issues. I asked you specific questions, I made specific points and you still just wanted to engage in doging and weaving. So ALL the response you made (to me) were not to my posts but some imaginary argument that you had with other people?

Fine , whatever.

You have made up a bogus rule that you can't defend,

I am calling you out on it.

Where else does this exclusionary criteria apply Westprog? You have not furnished ANY evidence that it applies anywhere else except in this specific case of your special pleading.

I have already explianed my defintion of the use of terms, there are a series of criteria, when the process matches the criteria, then the label is applied. Now there are cases where specific negation is sued in the defintion.

You however are engaging in a case of proof through negation in a series of statements when discussing 'digital' vs. 'analog' signals and computers.

So i ask you again,w ehere lse is this exclusionary rule applied, and please remember i am not your imaginary combatant in your imaginary battle with 'stron AI proponents', i am me, and you engaged in sspecif arguments with me.

So again before we return to the issue of digital vs. analog and ultimately to page three and four of the post i ask you again:

Where else does this exclusionary rule apply in the use of labels in discussions and especially in the realm of tools and computers?

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, and I don't know what you mean by "the exclusionary rule".

 

[westprog]

Information is specifically physical. Fail.

Information is a description of the state of all physical systems. That includes rocks, of course.

 

[drkitten]

And is a human brain Turing-equivalent?

As yet unanswered.

This is why it's called the Strong AI hypothesis (or the Church-Turing hypothesis, if you prefer).

However, there's a lot of support for the idea that the human brain is Turing equivalent, both physical and mathematical. The physical support comes from the observation that everything that we observe in the physical world can be described to arbitrary precision using computers; in particular, the QM behavior of the microtubules does not appear to be beyond the capacity of a TM to simulate. The mathematical support comes from the observation that we have no consistent theories of any notion of "computability" or "information processing" that is beyond the capacity of a TM (the various sorts of oracle computation are explicitly inconsistent by assumption as they make the counterfactual assumption that certain problems we know to be unsolvable have nevertheless been solved).

This is cutting the Gordian knot all right. It sounds good but all you're really saying is that the computer is [drumroll] a computer.

But I'm also saying that a pile of computer parts is not a computer, which is an observation that your framework has been singularly unable to make.

By defining "a computer" functionally in terms of Turing-equivalence, we can neatly divide the world into things that are computers and things that aren't.

The fact that this division is in terms of functional instead of physical properties is largely irrelevant.

Physical description of computation still entirely absent.

Exactly. That's because I do not need to provide a physical description of computation, because computation is not appropriately described in physical, but in functional terms.

You might as well complain because I'm not providing a description of what "yellow" tastes like. Or how much "salty" weighs. Or what the temperature of "playing hopscotch" is.

Decided what Penrose needs to do to be a physicist yet?

Not get the physics obviously wrong is a necessary but sufficient condition.

 

[drkitten]

And no, DrKitten, transistors are not explicitly digital devices.

Every time you make a statement that is blatantly wrong, you lose credibility.

In this case, you lose credibility because transistors are explicitly digital devices; each individual electron falls into each individual (discrete) "hole" in order to operate it.

And the relationship between the quantum properties of semiconductors and the transistor is exactly why it's Nobel-caliber physics.

 

[westprog]

And those physical quantities and relationships are expressed how?

Usually mathematically. Not always, but usually.

Physics involves mathematical relationships between physical objects.

Mathematics involves mathematical relationships between mathematical objects.

It's not really that difficult to tell the two apart.

 

[westprog]

As yet unanswered.

This is why it's called the Strong AI hypothesis (or the Church-Turing hypothesis, if you prefer).

I suggest you tell Rocketdodger and Pixymisa that. They seem pretty confident.

 

[westprog]

Exactly. That's because I do not need to provide a physical description of computation, because computation is not appropriately described in physical, but in functional terms.

If you can't provide a physical description, that's because it's not a physical property. It's not a matter of it being really complicated to describe. Computation is quite simple when described appropriately - that is, in functional terms. It's not possible to describe it in physical terms because it's not a physical process.

 

[westprog]

And justly so, because you are slipping the term "processed" into the discussion without warrant.

Non-computational systems do not process information; processing is inherently teleological. In that regard, it's like the teleological definition of a digital signal; what makes a signal digital is the response of the receiver in responding identically to two similar signals.

IOW, what defines information processing is the use made of the information by a conscious human being. If there's no human being using the information, it isn't being processed.

 

[rocketdodger]

Crystallisation deals with the organisation of atoms. I think we can agree that atoms are physical objects? Whether a solid is crystalline or not depends on the physical relationship between physical objects. That's the difference between an ad hoc description of crystallisation (where atoms form a regular pattern) and your description of computing* which made no reference to anything specifically physical.

There is no problem with general rules that deal with classes of objects. Indeed, that's how science makes sense of the universe. Otherwise we'd have a bunch of unconnected single observations.

_{*or computation, if you want to keep the pixies happy.}

OK, lets play. This is fun.

Remember my earlier definition of computation? Append it to include:

where "internal state" refers to a specific equivalence class of possible configurations of all PHYSICAL PARTICLES within the system and "external state" refers to a specific equivalence class of possible configurations of all PHYSICAL PARTICLES outside of the system, and "system" refers to a specific subset of PHYSICAL PARTICLES within the set of all PHYSICAL PARTICLES in the universe.

There. Is the definition "physical" yet?

 

[Wudang]

I may be missing something here (again) but is westprog asking us to define an abstraction in terms of things which are at a lower level of abstraction? And is this not what Russell's Theory of Types was about?

Sorry, westprog, I continually feel we are talking at cross purposes and a whiteboard and bottle of whisky would help.