[ExI] fun outsider's view on ai

[Brent Allsop]

On 5/9/2016 7:53 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> On 10 May 2016 at 00:44, spike <spike66 at att.net 
> <mailto:spike66 at att.net>> wrote:
>
>     Nothing particularly profound or insightful in this AI article,
>     but it is good clean fun:
>
>     https://aeon.co/essays/true-ai-is-both-logically-possible-and-utterly-implausible?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=6469cf0d50-Daily_Newsletter_9_May_20165_9_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-6469cf0d50-68957125
>
>     He reminds me a little of Roger Penrose’s take on the subject from
>     a long time ago: he introduces two schools of thought, pokes fun
>     at both while offering little or no evidence or support, then
>     reveals he is pretty much a follower of one of the two: the Church
>     of AI-theists.
>
>     There are plenty of AI-theists, but nowhere have I ever seen a
>     really good argument for why we can never simulate a neuron and a
>     dendrite and synapses.  Once we understand them well enough, we
>     can write a sim of one.  We already have sims of complicated
>     systems, such as aircraft, nuclear plants and such.  So why not a
>     brain cell?   And if so, why not two, and why not a connectome and
>     why can we not simulate a brain?  I have been pondering that
>     question for over 2 decades and have still never found a good
>     reason.  That puts me in Floridi-dismissed Church of the
>     Singularitarian.
>
>
> Penrose's argument is that neurons utilise exotic physics which is 
> non-computable. If this were true, we would not be able to emulate 
> neurons with a computer. But there is no real evidence that it is true.
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou

And simulated neurons and dendrite synapses are surely possible, but not 
the point.  Sure a word like "red" can represent, and thereby simulate a 
redness quality, but it clearly does not have the quality it can 
represent.  And unless you know how to qualitatively interpret any 
abstract representation such as a word like "red"  you can't know what 
it does represent.  The same is true for any simulation of 
consciousness.  Sure, you can simulate any consciousness, and its 
qualities, but, again, unless you know how to interpret what it is 
representing, and simulating, you can't ,now, qualitatively what that 
simulation is qualitatively representing. After all, to me, red may be 
more like your green, for all we currently know.

Brent Allsop



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