[FRIAM] A question for tomorrow

Sat Apr 27 02:02:57 EDT 2019

Russ, 

Thanks for stating the issues so precisely.  

You perhaps my side of the argument a tad too strongly.  It’s not that I think that self-conscious (etc.) doesn’t exist; it’s that I think of it as a material relation.  So anywhere, anytime, etc., that material relation can be generated, there consciousness exists.  It’s sort of like what Christ said: “wherever any number shall come together in my name, there shall I be.” Sorry, I am probably being silly there, but I just love that quote.)

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2019 10:44 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for tomorrow

Good to talk to you again also, Nick.

You characterized me as saying, "yours is an in principle argument against any claim that machines and humans are ever doing the same thing, right?" 

I wouldn't go that far. One might argue that as physical beings, we are machines of a sort, so there's not such a clear line between machines and humans. One of our current scientific challenges is to figure out how to characterize it and how to push entities across it.

But moving to shallower water, consider this example. Presumably, no one would say that a standard washing machine knows how to clean clothes. A washing machine is built to control the flow of water in and out of its tank, to rotate its agitator for given periods of time, etc. We then informally say that the washing machine is cleaning the clothes. But it's not. It just performing mechanical actions that result in what we think of as clean clothes. 

Suppose we made the washing machine smarter. Suppose it had sensors that could sense the chemicals that we consider "dirt," and selected actions from its repertoire of actions that reduced the level of those chemicals below some minimal threshold. Would one say that it then knows how to clean clothes? I would say that it doesn't--except in an informal way of talking. The washing machine is built of physical components, sensors, etc. along with algorithms that (again) produce what we think of as clean clothes. But the washing machine doesn't think of them as clean clothes. It doesn't think of anything. It just does what it does.

Is there anything one might add to our washing machine so that we would want to say that it knows how to clean clothes. I can't think of any incremental steps. For me to attribute the washing machine with knowing how to clean clothes I would insist that it have consciousness and subjective experience. I know that's a big jump; it's the line between machines and humans that I would draw. I'm now recalling, Nick, that you don't believe in consciousness and subjective experience. Right? So we are probably at an impasse since we no longer have a common vocabulary. But even if the position I'm assuming you hold on consciousness and subjective experience were not a problem, I'd still be stuck. I have no idea how to build consciousness and subjective experience into a washing machine. This is probably where we got stuck the last time we talked about this. I guess we drifted back out to the deeper water anyway. Oh, well. Perhaps it was worth reviewing the issue. Perhaps not.

-- Russ 

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 8:55 PM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> > wrote:

Larding below.

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2019 8:19 PM
To: Russ.Abbott at gmail.com <mailto:Russ.Abbott at gmail.com> ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for tomorrow

On the way to Friam I said to Nick.  Turing Machines don't know anything.  They may store representations of knowledge. [NST==>Frank: This is how I understand you.  The relation between a Turing Machine and knowledge is like the relation between Mathematics and the events or processes it models.  All the knowledge is in the interpretation  translate “life” into something that the Math or Machine can compute and in the interpretation that translate the results of the computation back into life.  Let’s see.  What am I accusing you of here.  OH.  I have it.  I am accusing you of a mathematicians understanding of computation.  Is that understanding of that relation canonical?   <==nst]  I further said that a photograph also represents knowledge.  For example, the number of floors of a given building.  Most people would be puzzled by the question, "What does a photo know?"[NST==>I think the metaphor is unfair.  Nobody has ever accused a photograph of being able to play chess, or to engage in other tasks which are broadly seen (at least by defrocked English majors) as cognitive.  <==nst]  

There were multiple parallel conversations after we arrived.  I don't recall additional discussions about what Turing Machines know.

[NST==>Except at the very end, after 3 hours of discussing other things.  By that time I was exhausted, and I don’t remember what we said.  We spent a lot of time exploring our attractions to unorthodox scientific opinion in such matters as MSG and headaches, auras, pigeon navigation, an even, by implication, the tin-hat stuff.  It’s a question I would love to poll the FRIAM list on:  How many of you engage in unproven health practices of various sorts, even though “science” tells you they are worthless?  Why, exactly?  How is that consistent with your criticisms of  climate science deniers?  <==nst] 

Gotta go, 

Thanks everybody, 

N

-----------------------------------
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 8:06 PM Russ Abbott <russ.abbott at gmail.com <mailto:russ.abbott at gmail.com> > wrote:

Nick, I can't believe you are asking such a question -- unless by "know" you mean something very different from the common understanding. No computer knows anything, although it may have lots of stored information. (Information is meant in the Shannon sense.) 

For example, Oxford defines <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/knowledge>  knowledge as "Facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject." This is distinct from, for example, having access to an encyclopedia--or even having memorized the contents of one. Turing machines, and computers in general, do not have an understanding of anything--even though they may have lots of Shannon-style information (which we understand as) related to some subject.

(Like Glen, though, I am interested in the results, if any, of this morning's meeting.)

-- Russ Abbott                                       
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 2:38 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com> > wrote:

What was the result of this morning's conversation?

On 4/25/19 10:50 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> What does a Turing Machine know?

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ

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