[FRIAM] A question for tomorrow

[Nick Thompson]

Russ II, 

 

Good to be back in touch with you. 

 

The question is certainly naïve.  So nobody other than me (John? Jon? David? Lee?  Eric?  HELP!) is willing to breath some life into it, then that IS its answer.   But while awaiting Higher Authority, let me say a couple of things.  See Larding. 

 

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 8:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for tomorrow

 

Nick, I can't believe you are asking such a question -- unless by "know" you mean something very different from the common understanding.

[NST==>  If I remember correctly our earlier argument, yours is an inprinciple argument against any claim that machines and humans are ever doing the same thing, right?  So, I could imagine the most complicated computer imaginable … quantum computer, or whatever you guys would call it … and you would say that that computer cannot “know” or “think” or “feel” or “perceive”, etc.  <==nst] 

No computer knows anything, although it may have lots of stored information. (Information is meant in the Shannon sense.) 

[NST==>So, there is no intentionality in Shannon Weaver “information”, right.  SW information is not “information that …”.  But SW information is a concept that grows out of communication theory, right?  So, Dawes communicated one bit of information when he hung out the lanterns at the top of the Old North Church.  (“One if by land and two if by sea, and I on the opposite shore shall be.”), if you take for granted that the British were coming, one way or the other.  So the basic idea is that before the lanterns went up, Revere (on the other shore) had two possibilities, and after the lanterns went up, he had only one.  His uncertainty, if you will was reduced by one bit by the information communicated by Dawes’s lanterns.  I am not sure what it means to talk about SW information outside of a communication context.  <==nst] 

 

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.)

[NST==>I think most people thought it was an ill-formed question, but were too polite to say so.  <==nst] 

 

I will lard Frank’s message in the next email.

 

Thanks, again, 

 

N

 

-- 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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