Much of this is begging for, as Nick pointed out, one's cryptic definition of "computer". Lee posted a nice definition awhile back, one which I think is flawed. But it was nice anyway:
On 3/11/15 3:41 PM, [email protected] posted:> A computation is a process whereby we proceed from > initially given objects, called inputs, according to a fixed > set of rules, called a program, procedure, or algorithm, > through a series of steps and arrive at the end of these > steps with a final result, called the output. The algorithm, > as a set of rules proceeding from inputs to output, must > be precise and definite, with each successive step clearly > determined. (Soare, 1996, p. 286; definitional emphases > in the original) I think it's fairly obvious that a dog is not a computer according to this definition. My primary objection to the definition is the *definite* requirement. And that objection, then, percolates out to the concepts of successive *steps* and any well-foundedness and fixedness of the rules. But none of it really relies on finiteness. I think infinite states are commensurate with this definition. It might be tempting to claim "the end of these steps with a final result" (typically part of the concept of an algorithm) conflicts with infinite states. But I don't think so. As long as we have a way to choose a value (definite or not) from that infinite set, we're good to go ... [ahem] I mean we're good to stop. I think what we see with things like Transformers, including BERT, is a challenge to the definiteness of computation more than to any stopping or finiteness. On 7/28/20 9:38 AM, [email protected] wrote: > On 7/28/20 8:20 AM, doug carmichael wrote: >> dog is highly interconnected - hormones, nerves, senses, and environment. >> neurons are not binary . every synapse is an infinite state variable. > > These points might serve as an explanation for why dogs can and computers > cannot exhibit joy – but only once we had agreed, up front, what it would be > for a computer to exhibit joy. For my part, I guess, I would say that to > exhibit joy, a computer would have to be “embodied” – i.e., be a robot acting > in an environment, probably a social environment – and that robot would have > to behave joyously. Or perhaps it could instruct an icon, in a screen > environment, to behavior joyously. But I assume any one of a dozen of the > people on this list could design such a robot, or icon, once you and I had > done the hard work of defining “joyous.” > > Programmers do this with games, etc., all the time. > > Heider and Simmel did it with a time-lapse camera and a few felt icons on a > glass draft deflector. > > Lee Rudolph, if he is still amongst us, can send you a program in netlogo > where an icon exhibits joy. -- ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
