[math-fun] Mathematical Model Suggests That Human Consciousness Is Noncomputable
http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/mathematical-model-s... <http://beta.slashdot.org/%7Etimothy>timothy posted 9 hours ago | from the opposite-would-be-more-suprising dept. <http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/mathematical-model-suggests-that-human-consciousness-is-noncomputable>297 <http://beta.slashdot.org/%7EKentuckyFC>KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory. That's largely thanks to a relatively <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory>new theory that consciousness is a phenomenon which integrates information in the brain in a way that cannot be broken down. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea further using algorithmic theory to study whether this kind of integrated information is computable. They say that the process of integrating information is equivalent to compressing it. That allows memories to be retrieved but it also loses information in the process. But they point out that this cannot be how real memory works; otherwise, retrieving memories repeatedly would cause them to gradually decay. By assuming that the process of memory is non-lossy, they use algorithmic theory to show that the <https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d>process of integrating information must noncomputable. In other words, your PC can never be conscious in the way you are. That's likely to be a controversial finding but the bigger picture is that the problem of consciousness is finally opening up to mathematical scrutiny for the first time." --- co-chair http://ocjug.org/
But there's a lot of evidence that real memories DO decay. On 2014-05-09 03:02, Ray Tayek wrote:
http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/mathematical-model-s...
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7Etimothy>timothy posted 9 hours ago | from the opposite-would-be-more-suprising dept.
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7EKentuckyFC>KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory. That's largely thanks to a relatively <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory>new theory that consciousness is a phenomenon which integrates information in the brain in a way that cannot be broken down. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea further using algorithmic theory to study whether this kind of integrated information is computable. They say that the process of integrating information is equivalent to compressing it. That allows memories to be retrieved but it also loses information in the process. But they point out that this cannot be how real memory works; otherwise, retrieving memories repeatedly would cause them to gradually decay. By assuming that the process of memory is non-lossy, they use algorithmic theory to show that the <https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d>process of integrating information must noncomputable. In other words, your PC can never be conscious in the way you are. That's likely to be a controversial finding but the bigger picture is that the problem of consciousness is finally opening up to mathematical scrutiny for the first time."
--- co-chair http://ocjug.org/
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Quite so; and in any case, why postulate an association between memory and consciousness in the first place? A more plausible connection might be between memory decay and implantation of false memories: the evidence is that one of my most vivid memories from early childhood was actually fabricated from a mixture of dreaming and overheard parental conversation. WFL On 5/9/14, Mike Speciner <ms@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
But there's a lot of evidence that real memories DO decay.
On 2014-05-09 03:02, Ray Tayek wrote:
http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/mathematical-model-s...
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7Etimothy>timothy posted 9 hours ago | from the opposite-would-be-more-suprising dept.
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7EKentuckyFC>KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory. That's largely thanks to a relatively <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory>new theory that consciousness is a phenomenon which integrates information in the brain in a way that cannot be broken down. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea further using algorithmic theory to study whether this kind of integrated information is computable. They say that the process of integrating information is equivalent to compressing it. That allows memories to be retrieved but it also loses information in the process. But they point out that this cannot be how real memory works; otherwise, retrieving memories repeatedly would cause them to gradually decay. By assuming that the process of memory is non-lossy, they use algorithmic theory to show that the <https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d>process of integrating information must noncomputable. In other words, your PC can never be conscious in the way you are. That's likely to be a controversial finding but the bigger picture is that the problem of consciousness is finally opening up to mathematical scrutiny for the first time."
--- co-chair http://ocjug.org/
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On May 9, 2014, at 4:21 AM, Mike Speciner <ms@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
But there's a lot of evidence that real memories DO decay.
And the connection with uncomputability is completely spurious anyway. Really, I wish people would stop repeating the mistakes of Searle and Penrose... finding original mistakes to make would be better. Cris
On 2014-05-09 03:02, Ray Tayek wrote:
http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/mathematical-model-s...
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7Etimothy>timothy posted 9 hours ago | from the opposite-would-be-more-suprising dept.
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7EKentuckyFC>KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory. That's largely thanks to a relatively <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory>new theory that consciousness is a phenomenon which integrates information in the brain in a way that cannot be broken down. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea further using algorithmic theory to study whether this kind of integrated information is computable. They say that the process of integrating information is equivalent to compressing it. That allows memories to be retrieved but it also loses information in the process. But they point out that this cannot be how real memory works; otherwise, retrieving memories repeatedly would cause them to gradually decay. By assuming that the process of memory is non-lossy, they use algorithmic theory to show that the <https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d>process of integrating information must noncomputable. In other words, your PC can never be conscious in the way you are. That's likely to be a controversial finding but the bigger picture is that the problem of consciousness is finally opening up to mathematical scrutiny for the first time."
--- co-chair http://ocjug.org/
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Mike Speciner: "But there's a lot of evidence that real memories DO decay." Apparently "the continuous addition of new neurons both degrades existing information stored in hippocampal circuits and simultaneously provides substrates for new learning". http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6184/598 I doubt that any degradation evident in older humans is via that mechanism.
This is very silly. Cris On May 9, 2014, at 1:02 AM, Ray Tayek <rtayek@ca.rr.com> wrote:
http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/mathematical-model-s...
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7Etimothy>timothy posted 9 hours ago | from the opposite-would-be-more-suprising dept.
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7EKentuckyFC>KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory. That's largely thanks to a relatively <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory>new theory that consciousness is a phenomenon which integrates information in the brain in a way that cannot be broken down. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea further using algorithmic theory to study whether this kind of integrated information is computable. They say that the process of integrating information is equivalent to compressing it. That allows memories to be retrieved but it also loses information in the process. But they point out that this cannot be how real memory works; otherwise, retrieving memories repeatedly would cause them to gradually decay. By assuming that the process of memory is non-lossy, they use algorithmic theory to show that the <https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d>process of integrating information must noncomputable. In other words, your PC can never be conscious in the way you are. That's likely to be a controversial finding but the bigger picture is that the problem of consciousness is finally opening up to mathematical scrutiny for the first time."
--- co-chair http://ocjug.org/
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No researcher has the vaguest idea of what consciousness is, and at least at present any scientific progress in this area is inconceivable. We can analyze the neurological correlates of feelings all we want, and we won't have the slightest idea of how a physical situation gives rise to experiences. --Dan On May 9, 2014, at 12:02 AM, Ray Tayek <rtayek@ca.rr.com> wrote:
http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/mathematical-model-s...
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7Etimothy>timothy posted 9 hours ago | from the opposite-would-be-more-suprising dept.
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7EKentuckyFC>KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory. That's largely thanks to a relatively <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory>new theory that consciousness is a phenomenon which integrates information in the brain in a way that cannot be broken down. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea further using algorithmic theory to study whether this kind of integrated information is computable. They say that the process of integrating information is equivalent to compressing it. That allows memories to be retrieved but it also loses information in the process. But they point out that this cannot be how real memory works; otherwise, retrieving memories repeatedly would cause them to gradually decay. By assuming that the process of memory is non-lossy, they use algorithmic theory to show that the <https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d>process of integrating information must noncomputable. In other words, your PC can never be conscious in the way you are. That's likely to be a controversial finding but the bigger picture is that the problem of consciousness is finally opening up to mathematical scrutiny for the first time."
--- co-chair http://ocjug.org/
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But that's a misunderstanding of what "having the slightest idea" means. We don't have the slightest idea why matter warps spacetime - but we had a good equation to calculate it. We don't have the slightest idea why charged particles obey fermi statistics - but we can calculate what they do. And when we can make robots that act just as conscious as people and we can design them to be comedians or mathematicians or artists, we still won't have "the slightest idea" how physics gives rises to consciousness at some fundamental level - but nobody will care and the question will seem moot. Brent Meeker On 5/9/2014 6:55 AM, Dan Asimov wrote:
No researcher has the vaguest idea of what consciousness is, and at least at present any scientific progress in this area is inconceivable.
We can analyze the neurological correlates of feelings all we want, and we won't have the slightest idea of how a physical situation gives rise to experiences.
--Dan
On May 9, 2014, at 12:02 AM, Ray Tayek <rtayek@ca.rr.com> wrote:
http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/mathematical-model-s...
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7Etimothy>timothy posted 9 hours ago | from the opposite-would-be-more-suprising dept.
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7EKentuckyFC>KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory. That's largely thanks to a relatively <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory>new theory that consciousness is a phenomenon which integrates information in the brain in a way that cannot be broken down. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea further using algorithmic theory to study whether this kind of integrated information is computable. They say that the process of integrating information is equivalent to compressing it. That allows memories to be retrieved but it also loses information in the process. But they point out that this cannot be how real memory works; otherwise, retrieving memories repeatedly would cause them to gradually decay. By assuming that the process of memory is non-lossy, they use algorithmic theory to show that the <https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d>process of integrating information must noncomputable. In other words, your PC can never be conscious in the way you are. That's likely to be a controversial finding but the bigger picture is that the problem of consciousness is finally opening up to mathematical scrutiny for the first time."
--- co-chair http://ocjug.org/
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Brent: Bravo! My viewpoint exactly. On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 11:12 AM, meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> wrote:
But that's a misunderstanding of what "having the slightest idea" means. We don't have the slightest idea why matter warps spacetime - but we had a good equation to calculate it. We don't have the slightest idea why charged particles obey fermi statistics - but we can calculate what they do. And when we can make robots that act just as conscious as people and we can design them to be comedians or mathematicians or artists, we still won't have "the slightest idea" how physics gives rises to consciousness at some fundamental level - but nobody will care and the question will seem moot.
Brent Meeker
On 5/9/2014 6:55 AM, Dan Asimov wrote:
No researcher has the vaguest idea of what consciousness is, and at least at present any scientific progress in this area is inconceivable.
We can analyze the neurological correlates of feelings all we want, and we won't have the slightest idea of how a physical situation gives rise to experiences.
--Dan
On May 9, 2014, at 12:02 AM, Ray Tayek <rtayek@ca.rr.com> wrote:
http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/
mathematical-model-suggests-that-human-consciousness-is-noncomputable
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7Etimothy>timothy posted 9 hours ago | from the opposite-would-be-more-suprising dept.
<http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/ mathematical-model-suggests-that-human-consciousness-is-noncomputable
297
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7EKentuckyFC>KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory. That's largely thanks to a relatively < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory>new theory that consciousness is a phenomenon which integrates information in the brain in a way that cannot be broken down. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea further using algorithmic theory to study whether this kind of integrated information is computable. They say that the process of integrating information is equivalent to compressing it. That allows memories to be retrieved but it also loses information in the process. But they point out that this cannot be how real memory works; otherwise, retrieving memories repeatedly would cause them to gradually decay. By assuming that
the process of memory is non-lossy, they use algorithmic theory to show that the <https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d>process of integrating information must noncomputable. In other words, your PC can never be conscious in the way you are. That's likely to be a controversial finding but the bigger picture is that the problem of consciousness is finally opening up to mathematical scrutiny for the first time."
--- co-chair http://ocjug.org/
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-- Thane Plambeck tplambeck@gmail.com http://counterwave.com/
My point was in the word "how" -- insofar as there is no concept of "consciousness" in physics. (By referring to neurological correlates, I was trying to imply that by "how" I mean above and beyond those.) In fact "consciousness" can refer to several potentially separate things: the ability to think, or self-awareness, or having experiences. To be clear, the one I mean (by far the most mysterious of these) is the last one. It also should be borne in mind that the examples of consciousness we would all agree on (humans, and probably at least mammals if not all animals) could be only the teensiest fraction of the kinds of consciousness that actually occur in the universe. --Dan On May 9, 2014, at 11:12 AM, meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> wrote:
But that's a misunderstanding of what "having the slightest idea" means. We don't have the slightest idea why matter warps spacetime - but we had a good equation to calculate it. We don't have the slightest idea why charged particles obey fermi statistics - but we can calculate what they do. And when we can make robots that act just as conscious as people and we can design them to be comedians or mathematicians or artists, we still won't have "the slightest idea" how physics gives rises to consciousness at some fundamental level - but nobody will care and the question will seem moot.
On 5/9/2014 6:55 AM, Dan Asimov wrote:
No researcher has the vaguest idea of what consciousness is, and at least at present any scientific progress in this area is inconceivable.
We can analyze the neurological correlates of feelings all we want, and we won't have the slightest idea of how a physical situation gives rise to experiences.
On 5/9/2014 5:09 PM, Dan Asimov wrote:
My point was in the word "how" -- insofar as there is no concept of "consciousness" in physics. (By referring to neurological correlates, I was trying to imply that by "how" I mean above and beyond those.)
And I was pointing by analogy to the fact that in most theories of physics we don't know "how" they work - only that they do. I agree that we don't have a well defined, objective (i.e. third person) concept of consciousness. We have first person experience (or at least I do) and we infer similar experience in others based on behavior. But that doesn't mean that we can't come up with definitions and distinctions that are 3rd person objective. For example, we might say that a being is self-aware if can reason that Godel's incompleteness theorem applies to it (Penrose would like that one). At a more practical, engineering level I think we will learn how to give conceptual reasoning to robots, like Mars rovers, which includes self-representation and complex levels of motivation and subtasks and learning. And to the extent we can tweak these, e.g. give the rover a sense of humor, we will have solved the "hard problem of consciousness". And when someone asks, "But how does that make it conscious?" we'll reply, "Hypothesi non fingo."
In fact "consciousness" can refer to several potentially separate things: the ability to think, or self-awareness, or having experiences. To be clear, the one I mean (by far the most mysterious of these) is the last one.
It also should be borne in mind that the examples of consciousness we would all agree on (humans, and probably at least mammals if not all animals) could be only the teensiest fraction of the kinds of consciousness that actually occur in the universe.
Unless we have some definition of consciousness (like the one based on Godelian reflection) this is a meaningless question since "kinds of consciousness" could include anything. I think it has to be consciousness similar enough to human consciousness that we recognize it through behavior. Otherwise it's hard to say what the concept would mean. Brent
--Dan
On May 9, 2014, at 11:12 AM, meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> wrote:
But that's a misunderstanding of what "having the slightest idea" means. We don't have the slightest idea why matter warps spacetime - but we had a good equation to calculate it. We don't have the slightest idea why charged particles obey fermi statistics - but we can calculate what they do. And when we can make robots that act just as conscious as people and we can design them to be comedians or mathematicians or artists, we still won't have "the slightest idea" how physics gives rises to consciousness at some fundamental level - but nobody will care and the question will seem moot.
On 5/9/2014 6:55 AM, Dan Asimov wrote:
No researcher has the vaguest idea of what consciousness is, and at least at present any scientific progress in this area is inconceivable.
We can analyze the neurological correlates of feelings all we want, and we won't have the slightest idea of how a physical situation gives rise to experiences.
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Current physics doesn't include any mechanism for "consciousness" or "will" to alter physical events that lead to things like neurons firing. You either have to postulate a new state of physics that corresponds to consciousness, or accept that there is no such thing as free will.
On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 4:36 AM, Dave Dyer <ddyer@real-me.net> wrote:
Current physics doesn't include any mechanism for "consciousness" or "will" to alter physical events that lead to things like neurons firing.
You either have to postulate a new state of physics that corresponds to consciousness, or accept that there is no such thing as free will.
Only if you define free will as being non-determinism. I consider the fact that what I do is related to the inputs that come into my brain through my senses to be a *good* thing, and think that if I did things that had no cause-and-effect relationship to the situation I was in, that would make me less free, not more. For further eludication of this argument and other interesting thoughts on free will, I highly recommend the book "Elbow Room; varieties of Free Will Worth Having", http://www.amazon.com/Elbow-Room-Varieties-Worth-Wanting/dp/0262540428 by Dan Dennett. And for discussion of the nature of consciousness, I even more strongly recommend Consciousness Explained, by the same author: http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Explained-Daniel-C-Dennett/dp/0316180661.... I really think he has it right, and this is the only case I know of where I consider an age-old problem of philosophy to have actually been solved. Andy
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-- Andy.Latto@pobox.com
On 5/10/2014 7:11 AM, Andy Latto wrote:
You either have to postulate a new state of physics that corresponds to consciousness, or accept that there is no such thing as free will. Only if you define free will as being non-determinism. I consider the fact that what I do is related to the inputs that come into my brain through my senses to be a*good* thing, and think that if I did things that had no cause-and-effect relationship to the situation I was in, that would make me less free, not more.
As Dennett says, that's all the free will worth having. Brent
On 5/10/2014 1:36 AM, Dave Dyer wrote:
Current physics doesn't include any mechanism for "consciousness" or "will" to alter physical events that lead to things like neurons firing.
You either have to postulate a new state of physics that corresponds to consciousness, or accept that there is no such thing as free will.
Or just adopt compatibilist meaning of "free" as equivalent to "autonomous", as in Daniel Dennett's "Elbow Room". Brent Meeker
This makes no sense to me. The information stored in the brain is a compressed version of the full set of experiences we have had, and that compression is lossy. Just like when I record music as an mp3, But that doesn't mean that when I play the mp3, the compressed music degrades further. So why should memories in the brain need to further degrade when accessed? Also, unless the result is a quantitative one, not a qualitative one, then the conclusion has no support unless it is shown that memories do not degrade the slightest bit when accessed. Maybe a memory that has the equivalent of a gigabyte of information degrades by a bit every time it is accessed, so if there's something you think about every 10 seconds, the memory does degrade by 10% over 30 years. If the result is "if human memory is computable, then at least the following amount of degradation must occur on each access", what is the key amount? The quantum states of the quarks and leptons in the brain can be computationally modeled in the same way as quarks and leptons anywhere else. The claim that this modeling won't work for the quarks in the brain is an extraordinary one that requires extraordinary proof. The assertions that living things are different, or human beings are different, or human brains are different, has been made over and over again throughout history, and has led to nothing. The assumption that living things and humans and human brains are composed of matter that obeys the same laws of physics as everything else has been an incredibly powerful one, that has led to huge progress in many fields. Frankly, I put "mathematics proves that the brain can't be modeled like the rest of the universe" in the same category as "I can trisect an angle with straightedge and compass"; not even worth reading through to find the fallacy. Andy On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 3:02 AM, Ray Tayek <rtayek@ca.rr.com> wrote:
http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/mathematical-model-s...
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7Etimothy>timothy posted 9 hours ago | from the opposite-would-be-more-suprising dept.
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7EKentuckyFC>KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory. That's largely thanks to a relatively <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory>new theory that consciousness is a phenomenon which integrates information in the brain in a way that cannot be broken down. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea further using algorithmic theory to study whether this kind of integrated information is computable. They say that the process of integrating information is equivalent to compressing it. That allows memories to be retrieved but it also loses information in the process. But they point out that this cannot be how real memory works; otherwise, retrieving memories repeatedly would cause them to gradually decay. By assuming that the process of memory is non-lossy, they use algorithmic theory to show that the <https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d>process of integrating information must noncomputable. In other words, your PC can never be conscious in the way you are. That's likely to be a controversial finding but the bigger picture is that the problem of consciousness is finally opening up to mathematical scrutiny for the first time."
--- co-chair http://ocjug.org/
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-- Andy.Latto@pobox.com
This is reminiscent of the once commonly believed assertion that life did not obey the second law of thermodynamics. I wonder how many of our tax dollars were wasted on this piece of trash. -- Gene
________________________________ From: Andy Latto <andy.latto@pobox.com> To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Friday, May 9, 2014 7:52 AM Subject: Re: [math-fun] Mathematical Model Suggests That Human Consciousness Is Noncomputable
This makes no sense to me. The information stored in the brain is a compressed version of the full set of experiences we have had, and that compression is lossy. Just like when I record music as an mp3, But that doesn't mean that when I play the mp3, the compressed music degrades further. So why should memories in the brain need to further degrade when accessed?
Also, unless the result is a quantitative one, not a qualitative one, then the conclusion has no support unless it is shown that memories do not degrade the slightest bit when accessed. Maybe a memory that has the equivalent of a gigabyte of information degrades by a bit every time it is accessed, so if there's something you think about every 10 seconds, the memory does degrade by 10% over 30 years. If the result is "if human memory is computable, then at least the following amount of degradation must occur on each access", what is the key amount?
The quantum states of the quarks and leptons in the brain can be computationally modeled in the same way as quarks and leptons anywhere else. The claim that this modeling won't work for the quarks in the brain is an extraordinary one that requires extraordinary proof. The assertions that living things are different, or human beings are different, or human brains are different, has been made over and over again throughout history, and has led to nothing. The assumption that living things and humans and human brains are composed of matter that obeys the same laws of physics as everything else has been an incredibly powerful one, that has led to huge progress in many fields. Frankly, I put "mathematics proves that the brain can't be modeled like the rest of the universe" in the same category as "I can trisect an angle with straightedge and compass"; not even worth reading through to find the fallacy.
Andy
On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 3:02 AM, Ray Tayek <rtayek@ca.rr.com> wrote:
http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/1957225/mathematical-model-s...
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7Etimothy>timothy posted 9 hours ago | from the opposite-would-be-more-suprising dept.
<http://beta.slashdot.org/%7EKentuckyFC>KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory. That's largely thanks to a relatively <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory>new theory that consciousness is a phenomenon which integrates information in the brain in a way that cannot be broken down. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea further using algorithmic theory to study whether this kind of integrated information is computable. They say that the process of integrating information is equivalent to compressing it. That allows memories to be retrieved but it also loses information in the process. But they point out that this cannot be how real memory works; otherwise, retrieving memories repeatedly would cause them to gradually decay. By assuming that the process of memory is non-lossy, they use algorithmic theory to show that the <https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d>process of integrating information must noncomputable. In other words, your PC can never be conscious in the way you are. That's likely to be a controversial finding but the bigger picture is that the problem of consciousness is finally opening up to mathematical scrutiny for the first time."
--- co-chair http://ocjug.org/
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Tononi article: "This work was supported by a Paul Allen Family Foundation grant and by the McDonnell Foundation.” On May 9, 2014, at 11:46 AM, Eugene Salamin <gene_salamin@yahoo.com> wrote:
This is reminiscent of the once commonly believed assertion that life did not obey the second law of thermodynamics. I wonder how many of our tax dollars were wasted on this piece of trash.
-- Gene
participants (12)
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Andy Latto -
Cris Moore -
Dan Asimov -
Dave Dyer -
Eugene Salamin -
Fred Lunnon -
Hans Havermann -
meekerdb -
Mike Speciner -
Ray Tayek -
Thane Plambeck -
Veit Elser