X-Message-Number: 8539
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 21:01:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: Digital Shakespeare
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On Wed, 03 Sep 1997 "John P. Pietrzak" <> Wrote:
>Certainly, the machine itself has changed over time into a large
>agglomeration of many small parts working together, so physically it
>isn't simple; but what it *does* is still very simple.
Pi = 4 - 4/3 +4/5 -4/7 +4/9 - 4/11 + ...
Please tell me what the trillionth digit of Pi is. The short line above is
all the information you need to figure it out, so you should be able to do it
in a snap. It's very simple.
>In the end, the computer is just a glorified state machine.
In the end all Shakespeare did was put ASCII characters in a sequence.
In the end all Einstein was famous for is pushing around a pen in a
particular way. In the end all your brain does is fire neurons and release
neurotransmitters that move by diffusion, a random process, to other neurons.
>your machine may be faster, but it _can't do anything new_.
I'll bet it would take less than 5 minutes to write a computer program that
would search for the smallest even number greater that 4 that is not the sum
of two primes (ignoring 1 and 2) and then stop. Since you say that a
computer can't do anything new you should be able to answer the following
question. Would this humble little program ever stop?
The fact is nobody knows the answer to that question and there is no guarantee
that you could find an answer regardless of how much time I gave you to
figure it out. It could be true so you will never find a counterexample and
yet Turing found (same man who invented the test) that some true statements
can not be shown to be true in a finite number of steps, that is, they have
no proof. Whatever the machine does, stops or continues, it will be new
behavior to you.
>I've not seen a lot of work dealing with GA + learning, or anything
>of that sort. (Seems like an awfully hard thing to pull off.)
I never said developing human level intelligence in a computer would be easy.
>If you want to talk about the entire computer (motherboard +
>hard disk) as a unit, you should allow me to describe the human
>system as brain + external storage as well.
OK, that sounds fair to me, all the objects you mentioned, including you, are
information processing machines and information doesn't know or care what
object is processing it. That's why an upload would be you, you are nor your
brain, you are the way your brain behaves, in other words, you are the
information in it.
>I've met people who are brilliant but act like morons
Everybody acts like a moron from time to time, but if you've never seen them
act any other way then why do you say they're brilliant?
>>Me:
>>The physicists Stephen Hawking is perhaps the worlds greatest
>>authority on General Relativity and Black Holes,
>(maybe... I always wonder a little about scientists who cash in on
>their discoveries)
Why is making money evil? More particularly, what's wrong with a man
benefiting from his labor and ingenuity, especially when it results in
people becoming more educated? Who's the injured party? I hope Hawking
becomes very rich, but I doubt if he will.
>The Turing Test says basically, "if it talks like a human, it's
>intelligent."
No, it would take me about 2 seconds to write a write a program that talks
like a human, a comatose one. The Turing Test says "if it talks intelligently
then it's intelligent". That's not very deep I grant you, it's really just a
tautology, but bad mouth tautologies all you want, they do have one great
virtue, they're true. That's why is has always been so utterly mystifying to
me that some think The Turing Test is controversial, it's like debating the
question "if something is moving swiftly is it swift?".
I don't have a good definition of intelligence and I don't need one. Like any
self respecting neural network most of my knowledge, and all of the really
important stuff, is not in the form of definitions but of examples. I say
intelligence is like the way Einstein or Hawking behaves and unlike what a
rock or a tree or a bug or a politician does. That's why The Turing Test
works.
>If I'm the one using the test to determine intelligence, only people
>who speak English could pass the test.
True, but that doesn't prove they're not intelligent. If they pass the test
then they're intelligent, if they fail the test they may or may not be,
Turing says nothing about it one way or the other.
>I remember watching an episode of NOVA, showing a group of gorillas
>stripping the leaves from a small branch and using it to fish
>termites out of a hole. Obviously, no intelligence going on there.
Not obvious to me.
>People never built significant analog machines, because they were
>so darned hard to create and use.
No. Analog computers are not hard to make, they are impossible to make,
and that's not a word I often use.
>I'd prefer a test able to show more of a biological similarity
>between the two structures...
Exactly what did you have in mind? Personally, if something comes up with a
good suggestion I don't care if the thing is similar to me or even biological,
I only care if it's a smart thing to do.
In #8531 Andre Robatino <> On Wed, 3 Sep 97 Wrote:
>This is ironic - you posted a positive message a few months ago
>regarding Seth Lloyd's quantum simulator article in Science. But
>these are special- purpose analog computers for computing the
>evolution of quantum systems
I don't see the irony because they're special purpose quantum computers not
analog. As I said, an analog computer is a continuous device so it must
contain an infinite number of internal states, the great advantage of a
64 qbit quantum computer is that instead of performing an operation on one 64
bit number it performs an operation on all 64 bit numbers, all 2^64 of them.
That is certainly a huge improvement, but falls well short of infinity.
>Practical quantum simulators, on the other hand, are essentially a
>sure thing.
I hope you're right, I'm very optimistic, but I wouldn't say it's a sure
thing.
>The problem of finite accuracy of input affects any simulation of a
>physical system, regardless of what form of computation is used.
The problem is not just the accuracy of the input but the accuracy of the
output too, neither can be measured with infinite accuracy. Another problem
is that unlike digital machines internal errors are cumulative.
A digital computer can not be infinitely accurate but it can be arbitrarily
accurate, the accuracy of a "analog computer" is strictly limited by the laws
of physics.
(Thomas Donaldson) On Wed, 3 Sep 1997 Wrote:
>I have a problem with Turing machines also. You see, I too have been
>involved with computers for some time, particularly parallel
>computers. These hardly classify as Turing machines because they
>have more than one processor
Not true, a Turing machine with a finite number of heads or tapes is
mathematically equivalent to a common Turing machine with one head and one
tape.
>Suppose that our machine, instead of simply being forced to put
>down a 0 or 1, could put down any floating point number of arbitrary
>length. (Remember that we are considering an abstract machine). Such
>a machine could be taken as a model for an analog computer. [...]
>Anyone who criticises these abstract models on the ground that they
>are not possible misses their point completely.
I would agree with you if the criticism was based on practical difficulties,
but not if it's based on physical impossibility. When we're talking about
abstract machines we can't only consider mathematics, but must think about
physics too, otherwise it's would be easy, too easy, to come up with a
computer model that could do an infinite number of calculations, just conger
up a signal that moves instantaneously. Your quantity that can be measured
with arbitrary accuracy is almost as bad. Neither idea contains any
mathematical errors but does not understand about computers, intelligence or
mind.
John K Clark
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