On 1/27/25 4:11 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
One could suppose that information is stored in frequency domain as a quantum
state. The same type of quantum state could be represented on a digital
computer. Or one could use Fourier Neural Operators to do machine learning in
the frequency domain on a digital memory system. These are just conveniences
for modeling convenience, for performance and/or energy efficiency. Ordinary
digital neural nets (and especially big ones like LLMs) already distribute
information holographically, metaphorically speaking.
ORCH-OR ?
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2025 2:52 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "I hope I'm wrong. But that text reads like it was generated by
an LLM"
using an alternative metaphor as a starting point does not mandate using an alternative
metaphysics. Pribram's holographic metaphor involves matter, as do all of the other
theories of mind of which I am aware. Nevertheless, the models of "computation"
that arise in such theories are quite different, and, to me, pretty interesting.
davew
On Mon, Jan 27, 2025, at 1:56 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
It's fine if people want to imagine other metaphysics for what goes on
with consciousness, but it is a pointless violation of Occam's razor
until they show that consciousness can do things that matter cannot.
As LLMs begin to surpass human intelligence, there's really no leg for
them to stand on, other than to appeal to faith and chauvinism.
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of Santafe
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2025 11:40 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "I hope I'm wrong. But that text reads like it
was generated by an LLM"
On Jan 27, 2025, at 10:35, Marcus Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com> wrote:
Eric writes:
"He is arguing against the computation framing of consciousness. Searle’s device is
to say that my brain is like my stomach, and that the computation framing doesn’t do its
complexity justice."
Can say the same thing about quantum mechanics.
It’s an interesting response, because answering it requires deciding
what role a law has in our understanding of the world.
It happens (as these accidents do) that I was at a conference maybe 3
months ago with at least one philosopher who writes on this, so I know
it is a field. (Actually, got a dosing from other sources over the
weekend, so I know more than that….)
Somehow, each thing we create as a formalism is bounded. I don’t want
to say finite in its instantiations, because those could be infinite
in various cardinalities. But finite in the premises that generate it
as a formal system. QM as much as anything else.
So we say that the best guess right now is that there is no type of
matter (and should be no type of spacetime) that isn’t borne on by, or
limited by the constraints of, the generating premises of QM. We
would like laws to have universality of that kind, and if they don’t,
we look for ways to improve them to others that will get closer.
But if we think “the universe” refers to something about which there
could be indefinitely much to be known or understood, and somehow a
much bigger infinity than that of any formalisms that, once we create
them, are just more “things in the world”, so just parts of that
universe. It doesn’t seem like we want to say there is a containment
relation whereby the one finite thing “contains” everything — in the
sense of “everything there is that makes up an understanding”.
All the ways I know to imagine this, since it refers to things I don’t
know yet, are metaphors. I can think about “projections” in the sense
of dimension reduction, and a universe-of-everything that can have
infinitely many dimensions projected out of it, with the remainder
being _exactly_ the premises of QM. Others seem to like to think of
it in some kind of set-containment metaphor, where QM “handles” some
“subset of phenomena” “in” the universe. (The latter doesn’t appeal
to me as much.)
Does the “projection” metaphor of how QM constrains all else that we
will say about matter seem equally apt, for what one or another
computational model says about what-all goes on in heads (and where
relevant, bodies)? Seems mismatched. The set-containment metaphor
seems better for computation-like events in heads.
At the end, though, they are all metaphors, pretty clearly adopted out
of desperation to have some mental image. If we let go of the mental
image, then what we seem to be left with is just a list of cases.
Here is QM; there is geometry; this is some algebra; here’s a formal
declaration of computability; and here are various hooks and
interfaces at which they seem to make some kind of contact with one
another that we also write down explicitly. Maybe that’s all there
is; or all that we have any justification to speak as if there is.
Poor FRIAM: so far from DaveW, so close to Nick.
Dunno.
Eric
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