Medium Dependent Intelligence, Uncopyable Intelligence, and Transhumanism

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Nonfinite deterministic systems are all through classical physics. Laplacian determinism, for example, works with differential equations, based on functions of real numbers, and real numbers as such are inherently impossible to express digitally.

They are also not finite -- you can store an infinite amount of data in a single real number, as long as you do not have a computability requirement.

[AlexanderHowl]

Well, we should ignore the possibility of the soul, since that is impossible to quantify. I think that if we assume that hardware rather than software matters for intelligence reflects what we know of neurology, that damage to the brain causes changes in memory, personality, thought-patterns, etc. If biological intelligence was software rather than hardware then a brain damaged individual would return to normal after the brain compensates for the damaged sections, and we really have no proof that digital intelligence will be any different (we have no proof that it won't be different, but the assumption of the argument is that digital intelligence is no radically different than biological intelligence).

In the case of free will, it is derived from the biological principles of adaptability and exploratory behavior (traits that are seen in every living organism from bacteria to blue whales). Human intelligence is geared towards the virtual simulation of adaptability and exploratory behavior, allowing humans to use their imagination to predict consequences without facing unnecessary danger. Feel will is therefore just the biological ability to make decisions between two or more choices after taking into account emotional attachment to each option and is no more mystical than the human digestive system.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

If biological intelligence was software rather than hardware then a brain damaged individual would return to normal after the brain compensates for the damaged sections...

Where does this idea come from? If I lose some disk sectors and I don't have backups, whatever was on those sectors is gone and I'm not getting it back. I might be able to continue working without what was on those sectors, but I'm never returning to my original state.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

They are also not finite -- you can store an infinite amount of data in a single real number, as long as you do not have a computability requirement.

Yes, that's what I was pointing at in the phrase "nonfinite deterministic systems."

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Yes, that's what I was pointing at in the phrase "nonfinite deterministic systems."

Oh sorry. Yes, non-quantized analog systems are not necessarily possible to emulate with a turing machine.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Oh sorry. Yes, non-quantized analog systems are not necessarily possible to emulate with a turing machine.

Right. The Laplacian system is sort of analogous to a deterministic automaton, but it's continuous rather than discrete, so you need real numbers rather than integers to describe it. Of course, whether physical reality is continuous or discrete still could be debated, though quantum mechanics makes a discrete model seem more natural.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Well, we should ignore the possibility of the soul, since that is impossible to quantify.

If you made a mind emulation and it failed to behave like a mind, even if it was confirmed to be simulating all the processes of a biological nervous system, then you kind of have established a quantifiable test for soul.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

If you made a mind emulation and it failed to behave like a mind, even if it was confirmed to be simulating all the processes of a biological nervous system, then you kind of have established a quantifiable test for soul.

Why? A picture is not a painting, a hologram is not a statue, a 3D movie is not reality. Simulation is not reality and, beyond an approximation, a simulation will never be reality. It is the reason why physicists were capable of proving that we do not live in a virtual universe (https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/p...ter-simulation).

On a more serious note, the amount of computing power required to simulate the activity of a human brain would be literally incalculable, as the program would have to 'know' which of the 100 billion neurons activate for each thought, feeling, action, etc. Since we are talking about 100 billion elements, we are talking about a 100 billion factorial (100,000 factorial is nearly 3 * 10^456,573 potential combinations and 100 billion factorial is close enough to infinity that it might as well be infinity). In addition, the connections matter, so you are probably talking about 10 trillion connections within the average human brain, so you need a minimum 10 TB of data just to simulate the biology of a single emotion or thought for a specific individual.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Whatever ideological differences we have, please don't muddy the terminology and don't call it an AI copy, since it was grown on a meat substrate naturally, not written artificially. A Ghost is no more an AI than a digital photograph is an oil painting (but you can have a digital image of a painting, i.e. an Infomorph Ghost of a human).

It is an artificial intelligence by definition though. It's a digital copy of a fundamentally different biological object, an emulation.
I'm not saying anything about their internal thoughts, feelings or behavior. But they are A.I.s. I'm not getting into the thread of doom at all by saying this.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Why? A picture is not a painting, a hologram is not a statue, a 3D movie is not reality. Simulation is not reality and, beyond an approximation, a simulation will never be reality. It is the reason why physicists were capable of proving that we do not live in a virtual universe (https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/p...ter-simulation).

They actually proved nothing of the sort. They proved that we are not living in a certain particular type of simulation, which there is plenty of other reasons to think is also the case.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

On a more serious note, the amount of computing power required to simulate the activity of a human brain would be literally incalculable

No, it's calculable, it's just unreasonably large unless it can be optimized. It almost certainly can be, but we don't know to exactly what degree.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

, as the program would have to 'know' which of the 100 billion neurons activate for each thought, feeling, action, etc.

No it doesn't. It just runs the neural emulator and doesn't worry about what the emulated neurons mean.