# Downloading Your Consciousness Just Before Death. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 15, 2019, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022 "2019-05-15T22:12:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2019, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/401 "2019-06-21T18:05:39Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Uh? Are you Searle? You keep using that line about personal attacks, I do not think it means what you think it means. I intended it in the sense of: [ > [@](#): > > an abusive remark on or relating to somebody’s person instead of providing evidence when examining another person’s claims or comments. ]([personal attack - Wiktionary, the free dictionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/personal_attack)) If it implies specifically that only the person against whom the attack is directed is entitled to make that claim, then I withdraw it. But the general gist of it—that merely insulting one of the most well-regarded thinkers of our time isn’t a good replacement for bringing actual arguments—still stands. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/402 "2019-06-21T18:42:20Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I intended it in the sense of: > [ > If it implies specifically that only the person against whom the attack is directed is entitled to make that claim, then I withdraw it. But the general gist of it—that merely insulting one of the most well-regarded thinkers of out time isn’t a good replacement for bringing actual arguments—still stands. Thing is that that gist against others out there is AFAIK allowed here. Again, it is really underwhelming to depend on the say so of philosophers like Searle. After all, [URL=“[Client Challenge](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1008255830248)”]when one is aware of how many do counter his arguments]([personal attack - Wiktionary, the free dictionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/personal_attack)) one could then say that 'The Chinese Room _ **played** _\* a central role in countering hard AI. Past tense, Void where prohibited, Do not pass Go! Do not collect 200 dollars! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2019, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/403 "2019-06-21T19:09:49Z")
There seemed to me to be some redundancy where the “unique computation of _f_” stuff occurred multiple times, and the table argument multiple times, so I’ve omitted those. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Exactly. And if I do so computationally, then there exists a computation that makes that choice (in just the same way I do), and hence, a way to uniquely single out _f_ by means of a computation, and consequently, a system that uniquely computes _f_. If you say that I can make a choice, and you say that all I do boils down to computation, then you’re saying that a computer can make that choice; and hence, you’re saying that _f_ can be computed uniquely, because I can compute _f_ uniquely. > It’s the only question that matters, though, because _f_ is arbitrary, and hence, the same question needs to be answered if you want to claim that a computer instantiates a mind. OK, with that, and having looked back at your clarification on this point earlier, I’ll come at it from a different angle. There is a great deal of vagueness around the concept of “you uniquely compute _f_”. What exactly are you saying, in actual mechanistic terms? Let’s suppose that what it means is that you have a list of two-bit number pairs, or their decimal equivalents, and you operate the machine to obtain their sums, reading the lights and writing down the answer in another column. Having in mind that specific interpretation of _f_, you are untroubled by the infinite number of other interpretations that might be applied. Please explain why I could not build a computer to do exactly the same thing, or just program a computer with a simulation of the box and your desired _f_ interpretation. How is this not a system that uniquely computes _f_? Furthermore, how is this not now a system that manifestly implements the semantics of _f_? > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > OK, that seems to be a salient point. Could you give an example/an illustration of how the physical architecture influences the meaning of a symbol? And what do you mean by identical physical architectures—I explicitly only consider the same physical system at all times? On the last point, by “identical physical architecture” I mean identical internal semantics; that is, exactly the same specification of what switch position means 1 and 0, and what bit value light on or off represents. The physical architecture influences the meaning of the symbols in the I/O table I proposed in that reversing the interpretation flips the value. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > OK, so then you’re explicitly saying that computation is individuated only by behavior. This entails that computationalism is trivial, since it collapses to behaviorism (which is typically considered untenable). In order to have any non-trivial content, computations must be something above and beyond behavior—which, I should say, is rather obvious, since no physical system has, for instance, addition or logical functions among its behaviors. Thus, to the extent that computations involve abstract particulars, computation must go beyond behavior. Isn’t that just what a Turing machine does? Consider for a moment a universal Turing machine (UTM). Quoting the venerable SEP, … a UTM is a Turing machine that can mimic any other Turing machine. One provides the UTM with a symbolic input that codes the machine table for Turing machine _M_. The UTM replicates _M_’s behavior, executing instructions enshrined by _M_’s machine table. In that sense, the UTM is a programmable general purpose computer. > **[The Computational Theory of Mind (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/)** So the UTM can be made equivalent to any given Turing machine by copying its state table and replicating its behavior. Has this behaviorist description trivialized computationalism? My answer would be no, because the “abstract particulars” arise, as I keep saying, from the semantics imputed to symbols by the computational processes. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Yet, as Piccini himself acknowledges (since he’s the one who wrote the SEP article on [computation in physical systems](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computation-physicalsystems/#EvePhySysCom)): Piccinini here, as I read it, is not being inconsistent with his other statement about the mainstream position of CTM in cognitive science, but acknowledging that it has challenges and issues. And most cognitive scientists neither claim that the brain is exactly like a digital computer nor that CTM is a full explanation for all of cognition. It’s just a very important framework for explaining a lot of it. Piccinini himself seems to be a significant supporter of CTM, though he believes that at the physical level neural computing is quite different than digital computing, but the same symbolic-representational paradigm that is central to CTM can manifest. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > That’s just low. Again, I’m struck by the fact that both you and **begbert2** seem to feel the need to continually resort to personal attacks of this sort; I guess if one doesn’t have any arguments, invective and insult must do. Meh, I have little patience for philosophers who antagonize real empirical researchers and usually turn out to be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2019, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/404 "2019-06-21T19:58:40Z")
Missed this earlier (bolding mine): > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > No, you can’t, because then you’d have to show how semantics boils down to behavior; otherwise, you’ve merely made (another) unsubstantiated claim. Intelligence, on the other hand, straightforwardly reduces to behavior: **what acts intelligently, is intelligent**. But, as the example with the lookup table shows, the same thing is simply false for semantic competence: even though a lookup table machine acts as if it has semantic competence, it doesn’t. > > So no, that just doesn’t work at all. It works just fine. Recall our discussion about Watson, and how the system exhibits apparently real understanding of the sentence that constitutes the Jeopardy clue, thus clearly extracting high-level semantics from it the way a person would. This is both a demonstration of semantic content in a high-level linguistic sense and most would certainly say a demonstration of apparent intelligence. But you said: > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > And of course, your Watson example doesn’t establish anything: it would be possible, in theory (although obviously not in practice), to realize Watson as nothing but a gigantic lookup table that just fetches each reply upon being given a prompt. That is, a system equaling Watson’t performance, but having no semantic competence at all, is conceivable; hence, Watson’s performance does not suffice to conclude that Watson has any semantic competence. So what happened to “what acts intelligently, is intelligent”, which you just said above? There’s nothing about lookup tables that precludes their role in driving intelligent behavior. We tend not to think of it that way because in practice (not in theory) they tend not to be scalable to complex tasks, but ultimately how a computation is implemented has no bearing on how we judge its intelligence or competence; it needs to be judged purely on results (behavior). This is exactly the same as the “it’s only symbol processing” fallacy about AI that Searle and other skeptics have advanced. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2019, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/405 "2019-06-21T20:17:10Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I don’t recall ever saying that the intent of the program isn’t a factor, and in fact the intent is rather central. What I said was that inferring semantics just from observing a series of bytes and their state changes isn’t in general realistic or even possible, but that doesn’t mean the semantics don’t exist. Your short answer was “irrelevant” which I assumed you meant applied to the primary question in that 2nd paragraph which was “Does the intended purpose of the program play any part in the meaning?”. Again, we are talking about making this notion concrete about how syntactic operations on symbols establishes the relationship to meaningful things. So, is it just the syntactic operations on symbols that establish the relationship to meaningful things or is the original intent of the creator required to establish that relationship to meaningful things. if you ignore my intent when I wrote the two byte car simulation, is it still possible to establish the relationship to meaningful things by the syntactic operations on the symbols in that program? If so WHICH meaningful things? Are they cars? Something else? Do I need to add more bytes to the tracking of the position of the car and also to the shape of the car, and to the transformations that simulate movement to be able to establish a relationship to meaningful things like a car? It seems like I could keep adding bytes and transformations, but I don’t see where it crosses the line to establishing a relationship to meaningful things. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/406 "2019-06-21T20:44:02Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Thing is that that gist against others out there is AFAIK allowed here. > > Again, it is really underwhelming to depend on the say so of philosophers like Searle. After all, [when one is aware of how many do counter his arguments](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1008255830248) one could then say that 'The Chinese Room _ **played** _\* a central role in countering hard AI. Thanks for that, GIGO! The full paper at that site appears to be paywalled, but [here’s a site that has it](http://cogprints.org/240/). It’s freely available there as HTML. I haven’t read it yet but the first paragraph of the first section is a devastating takedown of Searle’s putative academic masterwork. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/407 "2019-06-21T21:35:28Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > It’s actually pretty interesting and informative. A lot of pretty smart people have been working on these problems for a long time with no good answer to many of the questions. > > Here’s part of one page that gets at these very same issues: > “One of the most difficult questions for proponents of CTM is how to determine whether a given physical system is an implementation of a formal computation. Note that computer science does not offer any theory of implementation, and the intuitive view that one can decide whether a system implements a computation by finding a one-to-one correspondence between physical states and the states of a computation may lead to serious problems.” I’m not sure that there’s a correlation between how hard it is to _determine_ whether a machine is implementing a given computation, and how hard it is for a machine _to_ implement a given computation. I mean, consider that organic machine called “the human brain”. We’re pretty confident that it generates consciousness, but heck if we know how it does it. However the fact that we’re unable to determine whether a given brain is implementing conscious is completely irrelevant to whether brains do it. > [@RaftPeople](#): > > So you’re saying that **begbert2** , internet poster, has it all figured out and all of the smart philosophers and academics over the last thousand years just weren’t up to the challenge? > > Is it even the slightest bit possible that these smart people have raised some questions that are really pretty tough to answer? I’m not interacting with those smart people, I’m interacting with **HMHW**. And I’m not dealing with the complete breadth of **HMHW** beliefs and assertions; I’m only dealing with the ones that compose this argument and argumentation style. These facts really limit the scope of what I have to understand here. I’m pretty confident that it’s within my power. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > How do you still not get that? The idea that a system could self-interpret itself into interpreting itself is flatly inconsistent. Let’s go through the argument once more. > > [ol] > [li]In order for a physical system _P_ to implement a computation _C_, it needs to be interpreted by means of an interpretation _I_.[/li][li]The interpretation _I_ is thus prior to the computation _C_: without interpretation, no computation.[/li][li]Let now _C_ be a computation which, at least as a part of its execution, realizes the interpretation _I_.[/li][li]Thus, _P_ must implement _C_ in order to realize _I_.[/li][li]_C_ must thus be prior to _I_. [/li][li]Consequently, in order for _P_ to interpret itself, _C_ must be prior to _I_, and _I_ must be prior to _C_—which is a contradiction.[/li][/ol] > > The only way out of this is to deny the premise 1. You can’t both hold that computation requires interpretation, and that a system could interpret itself to give rise to that computation. Premise 1 is, of course, what my argument establishes. So, the only way out of this is to attack my argument directly—say, by showing (rather than claiming) how a computer could interpret another, or how a box can be constructed that computes _f_ exclusively. Hey, something that resembles a real formal argument! Excellent! Let’s talk about this. I dispute line 2. Specifically, the curious insertion of the word “prior”. It injects a temporal condition that isn’t present in the premise it supposedly is derived from, and then (erroneously) tries to equate the time-dependency with a simple conditional with no temporal condition. The first premise can be equivalently rewritten as a conditional statement: P1: IsComputingAnything(x,f)) ⇒ ∃y IsInterpretingAs(y,x,f) You second premise can’t be rewritten as anything that can follow from that, because conditionals don’t imply a time element, and neither does the prose verbiage of your first premise. The time element, the “prior”, is just sort of stuck in there with no valid source. And of course the “prior” is _critical_ to your conclusion. I actually agree with P1, by the way. When a program writes a 0 into memory, that 0 has no meaning or effect unless something not only references it, but also assumes it has a specific meaning. What specific meaning, which specific interpretation is used _matters_ - a 0 could mean zero, false, black, success, end of sentence - or a trillion other possible options. A zero on its own is utterly meaningless - but a 0 is completely meaningful to anything that perceives it as having a specific meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2019, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/408 "2019-06-21T23:18:41Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > There is a great deal of vagueness around the concept of “you uniquely compute _f_”. How so? Do you think I’m being vague when I say, I compute the sum of two numbers? How could I make that more clear? I punch in one number, then the other, and out pops the sum. > [@](#): > > Please explain why I could not build a computer to do exactly the same thing, or just program a computer with a simulation of the box and your desired _f_ interpretation. How is this not a system that uniquely computes _f_? Well, but that’s what I’m saying! If I can uniquely compute _f_, then there ought to be a box that uniquely computes _f_, and thus, for which _f_ has the status of the table you claim to be the ‘computation’ performed by my box. I just want to see what that box looks like, and, in particular, why I can’t then use it to compute something else, by using just the same technique as in my original version of the argument. That’s the challenge: present me with such a box, and I’ll shut up. Programming a computer with a simulation of the box, of course, is just begging the question: because it only uniquely performs that computation, if it uniquely performs the simulation. But that’s what my argument calls into question. Think about how that simulation would do its job. Do you imagine it showing kind of like a movie of switches being flipped, with added text that denotes ‘switch up’ means ‘1’, or even, with a direct translation of switch and lamp states into numbers? Maybe sequentially moving through the table I gave all those many posts ago for _f_? Because that still requires interpretation in order to represent the right computation. When the simulation shows the box as having a particular set of switches flipped—say, without loss of generality, having the switch pattern (up, down, down, up)—and displays a certain set of numbers associated with that—(2, 1)—and as a result, a certain set of lights light up—(off, on, on)—and a further number is displayed—3—then, the simulation will only be of the box implementing _f_ if the numerals are interpreted as relating to decimal numbers in the familiar way. But there’s nothing about the glyph—the sign, the symbol, the pattern of pixels—‘2’ that inherently ties it to the number 2. There is nothing that says I can’t take the numeral ‘2’ to denote the number 1, the numeral ‘1’ to denote the number 2, and the numeral ‘3’ to denote the number 6—numerals are arbitrary conventions, like all symbols—but if I do so, then, all of a sudden, the simulation intended to implement _f_ will implement _f’_. > [@](#): > > Furthermore, how is this not now a system that manifestly implements the semantics of _f_? So you see, the system intended to manifestly implements the semantics of _f_ ends up just as manifestly—or rather, interpretationally—implementing the semantics of _f’_. The problem is that you never get concrete enough in your examples. You say, a simulation will just do that, without stopping to think about how it possibly could; if you do that, you will quickly realize that there is actually no way that doesn’t rely on some ultimate interpretation you’ve been silently presupposing. > [@](#): > > On the last point, by “identical physical architecture” I mean identical internal semantics; that is, exactly the same specification of what switch position means 1 and 0, and what bit value light on or off represents. > > The physical architecture influences the meaning of the symbols in the I/O table I proposed in that reversing the interpretation flips the value. That’s again something I don’t understand. The physical architecture doesn’t have any connection I can see to internal semantics; in particular, as my examples amply show, the physical architecture doesn’t in any way fix what’s a 0 and what’s a 1, for example. To me, the physical architecture is just the hardware—the wires, switches, lamps, and whatnot. No interpretation is going to change anything about that; interpretation only comes in once you connect these physical elements to abstract objects, such as logical values. > [@](#): > > Isn’t that just what a Turing machine does? Consider for a moment a universal Turing machine (UTM). Quoting the venerable SEP, > … a UTM is a Turing machine that can mimic any other Turing machine. One provides the UTM with a symbolic input that codes the machine table for Turing machine _M_. The UTM replicates _M_’s behavior, executing instructions enshrined by _M_’s machine table. In that sense, the UTM is a programmable general purpose computer. > [The Computational Theory of Mind (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/) > So the UTM can be made equivalent to any given Turing machine by copying its state table and replicating its behavior. Has this behaviorist description trivialized computationalism? No, of course not, because the UTM implements a different function from the TM it copies. If a TM implements a function _f_[sub]e/sub, then a UTM is a device that implements a function _u_(e,x) such that _u_(e,x) = _f_[sub]e/sub, that is, a function on two inputs where one essentially codes (say, via Gödel numbering) for a given TM, and the other gives it the input on which to evaluate TM’s action. (And again, note that I’m talking about TMs as abstract machines, not their putative physical realizations.) > [@](#): > > My answer would be no, because the “abstract particulars” arise, as I keep saying, from the semantics imputed to symbols by the computational processes. That’s the problem, though. You just keep saying that; but the idea that computational processes imbue symbols with semantics is, at best, hugely controversial, and would need substantial argumentative support to take seriously. > [@](#): > > Piccinini here, as I read it, is not being inconsistent with his other statement about the mainstream position of CTM in cognitive science, but acknowledging that it has challenges and issues. Sure. But my point is that these are substantial, and indeed, possibly fatal to computationalism, which is in contradiction to your contention that they’re just silly old me farting about in, what was it, ‘fringe-lunatic la-la land’. > [@wolfpup](#): > > So what happened to “what acts intelligently, is intelligent”, which you just said above? Why do you think something happened to it? Lookup-table Watson certainly acts intelligently (although one might want to quibble that its intelligence is basically canned, offloaded to whatever agency drew up the lookup table). The point is that this intelligent action does not imply anything about its semantically understanding the questions, as this action can be replicated without such understanding (since the lookup table certainly does not possess it). So pointing to Watson and saying, see, there’s how semantics emerges if you pile up enough computation, is simply begging the question, as Watson’s performance doesn’t suffice to determine that it actually possesses any semantic understanding. > [@begbert2](#): > > I dispute line 2. Specifically, the curious insertion of the word “prior”. What’s meant there is logical, not temporal, priority. That is, the interpretation is a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the computation; thus, if the computation is a necessary prerequisite for the interpretation, the whole thing just doesn’t get off the ground: you need the computation before you (read: in order to) have the interpretation, and you need the interpretation in order to have the computation. > [@](#): > > The first premise can be equivalently rewritten as a conditional statement: > P1: IsComputingAnything(x,f)) ⇒ ∃y IsInterpretingAs(y,x,f) > > You second premise can’t be rewritten as anything that can follow from that, because conditionals don’t imply a time element, and neither does the prose verbiage of your first premise. Again, no time element is meant, but exactly the logical dependence given by the conditional. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2019, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/409 "2019-06-21T23:48:31Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > How so? Do you think I’m being vague when I say, I compute the sum of two numbers? How could I make that more clear? I punch in one number, then the other, and out pops the sum. Rather than trying to reply to your lengthy response line by line, let’s just focus on this because I think it takes us to the crux of the issue. You “punch in” one number … how? Where’s the thing that you punch? The sum “pops out”. Pops out of what? There’s a reason I’m asking these questions because I want to focus on the specific actions that you consider to be so mystical as to be distinctly non-computational. Let’s be even more specific than I was last time. What you do is you examine the first row of a list of problem statements on a piece of paper, consisting of two digits in the range of 0-3. You convert the digits to binary in your head and operate the switches to enter them, read the result in the lights, make the binary-to-decimal conversion, and write the result on the first row of a blank piece of paper. You then repeat the process for the second row. And so on. Now, I could build a computer with the appropriate interfaces and actuators and OCR reader and printer to do exactly the same thing. There you go – a machine that uniquely implements your function _f_. And before you start churning up philosophical obfuscations about interpretations of interpretations and infinite regress, understand this: the overall system – your box and my computer, _ **is doing exactly the same thing as I just described you doing** _ – it’s taking a sheet of paper with addition problems on it, using the box to perform binary addition according to the unique function _f_, and producing the answers on a blank sheet of paper. So the inputs and outputs are precisely the same as the inputs and outputs that you would produce. They are, in theory, indistinguishable. I find it hard to fathom a rational credible argument that this system is not precisely the unique implementation of your function that you were asking for. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > That’s again something I don’t understand. The physical architecture doesn’t have any connection I can see to internal semantics; in particular, as my examples amply show, the physical architecture doesn’t in any way fix what’s a 0 and what’s a 1, for example. > > To me, the physical architecture is just the hardware—the wires, switches, lamps, and whatnot. No interpretation is going to change anything about that; interpretation only comes in once you connect these physical elements to abstract objects, such as logical values. No, you misunderstand. The physical architecture is not the hardware at all. The physical architecture is meant to be the _ **specification** _ of the machine – what I’ve been calling the internal semantics. If you change the specification of what bit value switch up vs. switch down represents, you have to change the table accordingly in order to achieve the same result. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/410 "2019-06-22T00:11:53Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > What’s meant there is logical, not temporal, priority. That is, the interpretation is a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the computation; thus, if the computation is a necessary prerequisite for the interpretation, the whole thing just doesn’t get off the ground: you need the computation before you (read: in order to) have the interpretation, and you need the interpretation in order to have the computation. > > Again, no time element is meant, but exactly the logical dependence given by the conditional. [Logical priority](https://blog.plover.com/misc/philosopy/logical-priority.html), as distinct from temporal priority, is not a thing. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/411 "2019-06-22T00:13:10Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Why do you think something happened to it? Lookup-table Watson certainly acts intelligently (although one might want to quibble that its intelligence is basically canned, offloaded to whatever agency drew up the lookup table). The point is that this intelligent action does not imply anything about its semantically understanding the questions, as this action can be replicated without such understanding (since the lookup table certainly does not possess it). So pointing to Watson and saying, see, there’s how semantics emerges if you pile up enough computation, is simply begging the question, as Watson’s performance doesn’t suffice to determine that it actually possesses any semantic understanding.. This is just self-contradictory. You were correct in your original statement that “what acts intelligently, is intelligent”. Now you appear to be trying to backtrack all over the place. The above is self-contradictory because a lookup table in theory can be a solution to any given problem domain fully equivalent to the actual Watson computational model or any other. It’s just impractically huge, and in reality could never be built. But in theory, and in general, given a problem domain, a simple lookup table can emulate the results of any computational algorithm, and therefore engender exactly the same behaviors. “What acts intelligently, is intelligent”. Peeking under the covers and deciding that this is just a table lookup is exactly like deciding that it’s just “symbol processing”, as I said before. It doesn’t matter. This is the bullshit that philosophers like Dreyfus and Searle and all their ilk got dragged into believing. As Marvin Minsky used to say, “when you explain, you explain away”. Intelligence can only be judged on its objective behavioral merits, not by passing judgment on its underlying implementation. I stress this because the argument about semantics follows the same logic, and indeed as we see here the two are closely related. ---
**Author:** ![neutro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc8723/32.png) [@neutro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutro)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/412 "2019-06-22T03:15:22Z")
There aren’t enough atoms in the universe to implement Watson as a lookup table. There are simply too many variants of language. Theoretically it could be done but not in this reality. Lookup tables tend to explode quickly and the universe isn’t that large. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/413 "2019-06-22T07:15:28Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Now, I could build a computer with the appropriate interfaces and actuators and OCR reader and printer to do exactly the same thing. There you go – a machine that uniquely implements your function _f_. And once again, you’ve only succeeded in a machine that implements _f_ if its inputs and outputs are interpreted in one particular, arbitrary way. You give it, say, scraps of paper with numerals ‘0’,‘1’,‘2’, or ‘3’ printed on them; the machine then translates these numerals into switch flips—say, if it first received a scrap with the numeral ‘2’, it will flip S[sub]11[/sub] up; then, if it receives a scrap with the numeral ‘1’, it will flip S[sub]22[/sub] up. As a result, the lamps L[sub]2[/sub] and L[sub]3[/sub] light up. Then, the computer will print out, in response, the numeral ‘3’. So now, that’s a system computing _f_ uniquely, you say. But you haven’t actually made one step forward here. The user of that total system still needs to interpret the numerals in a specific way, for it to implement _f_. If I have been taught a different set of digits, whose ‘2’ embodies the number 1—the multiplicative identity—, whereas the numeral ‘1’ denotes the number 2—the successor of the multiplicative identity—, and the numeral ‘3’ denotes the number 6—the successor of the successor of… you get the idea—then, to me, with an equal claim to being right, the machine you’ve constructed will instead have computed _f’_(1, 2) = 6. Any proposed implementation will run into exactly this issue. But I have to thank you for finally at least trying to address this point, it helps me understand where we’re talking past each other. > [@](#): > > And before you start churning up philosophical obfuscations about interpretations of interpretations and infinite regress, understand this: the overall system – your box and my computer, _ **is doing exactly the same thing as I just described you doing** _ – it’s taking a sheet of paper with addition problems on it, using the box to perform binary addition according to the unique function _f_, and producing the answers on a blank sheet of paper. The claim that it’s doing exactly the same thing is, of course, question-begging. Your apparatus merely manipulates symbols; I map symbols to meanings, I interpret them. When I flip switches S[sub]11[/sub] and S[sub]22[/sub], the resulting configuration means, to me, the pair of numbers—not numerals; not signs—(2, 1). This happens the same way as when I read ‘dog’ and think of a canine. Now, this faculty of interpretation isn’t some magical capability (indeed, I’ve published a naturalistic theory on just how this sort of thing works, which would however take us a bit too far afield right now). But it is something that at least needs to be shown to be implementable by computer in order for computationalism to make a serious claim to explaining the mind, and the way one shows this is by exhibiting an apparatus that uniquely implements _f_, since that’s what my faculty of interpretation enables me to do. If that should turn out to be impossible—as the above arguments suggest—, then computationalism simply fails. > [@](#): > > No, you misunderstand. The physical architecture is not the hardware at all. The physical architecture is meant to be the _ **specification** _ of the machine – what I’ve been calling the internal semantics. If you change the specification of what bit value switch up vs. switch down represents, you have to change the table accordingly in order to achieve the same result. So is this ‘physical architecture’ just the table of how switch flips connect to lamp lights I presented in my last post, or is it not? > [@begbert2](#): > > [Logical priority](https://blog.plover.com/misc/philosopy/logical-priority.html), as distinct from temporal priority, is not a thing. Nonsense. (And by the way, your ‘cite’ doesn’t bear you out, concluding that the two seem close but not identical; an example of the sort where there’s no temporal component, by the way, is [logical supervenience](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supervenience/).) In a relation of the form ‘iff A, then B’, A is called the [antecedent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antecedent_(logic)), or literally, ‘that which comes prior’ (B is called the consequent—‘that which follows’). The point, however, is that the interpretation is a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the computation (you could somewhat sloppily consider it its cause, or that which generates the computation). If you now want to use that computation to produce the interpretation, then the computation is a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the interpretation. So, you have the same sort of circularity inherent in the omnipotent being creating itself—the interpretation creates the computation, which creates the interpretation. > [@wolfpup](#): > > This is just self-contradictory. You were correct in your original statement that “what acts intelligently, is intelligent”. Now you appear to be trying to backtrack all over the place. I’m in the snippet you’re quoting explicitly affirming my earlier stance, so how you get from that that I’m ‘backtracking’ is rather mysterious to me. Let’s step back a bit. You claimed that Watson’s semantic competence is proven by its Jeopardy-playing competence. This entails an argument that for this Jeopardy-playing competence, semantic competence is necessary. So I introduced a system—lookup-table Watson—that equals Watson (ex hypothesi) in its Jeopardy-playing competence, but entirely and transparently lacks semantic competence. Hence, semantic competence is not necessary for Jeopardy-playing competence; consequently, Watson’s performance in playing Jeopardy does not imply any semantic competence. This is one of the main reasons why the collapse of computationalism to behaviorism your approach threatens would be fatal. > [@](#): > > I stress this because the argument about semantics follows the same logic, and indeed as we see here the two are closely related. The opposite is true. As we see here, simple behavior does not tell us anything about semantic competence, while it tells us everything about Jeopardy-playing competence. > [@neutro](#): > > There aren’t enough atoms in the universe to implement Watson as a lookup table. There are simply too many variants of language. Theoretically it could be done but not in this reality. Lookup tables tend to explode quickly and the universe isn’t that large. Sure. But that’s entirely irrelevant to the argument. I only need for the lookup table to be logically possible to show that it’s consistent for a system to have no semantic capabilities, while still showing the desired competence in playing Jeopardy (or chess, or filling out intelligence tests, and so on). ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/414 "2019-06-22T09:01:54Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > And once again, you’ve only succeeded in a machine that implements _f_ if its inputs and outputs are interpreted in one particular, arbitrary way. You give it, say, scraps of paper with numerals ‘0’,‘1’,‘2’, or ‘3’ printed on them; the machine then translates these numerals into switch flips—say, if it first received a scrap with the numeral ‘2’, it will flip S[sub]11[/sub] up; then, if it receives a scrap with the numeral ‘1’, it will flip S[sub]22[/sub] up. > > As a result, the lamps L[sub]2[/sub] and L[sub]3[/sub] light up. Then, the computer will print out, in response, the numeral ‘3’. So now, that’s a system computing _f_ uniquely, you say. > > But you haven’t actually made one step forward here. The user of that total system still needs to interpret the numerals in a specific way, for it to implement _f_. If I have been taught a different set of digits, whose ‘2’ embodies the number 1—the multiplicative identity—, whereas the numeral ‘1’ denotes the number 2—the successor of the multiplicative identity—, and the numeral ‘3’ denotes the number 6—the successor of the successor of… you get the idea—then, to me, with an equal claim to being right, the machine you’ve constructed will instead have computed _f’_(1, 2) = 6. > > Any proposed implementation will run into exactly this issue. But I have to thank you for finally at least trying to address this point, it helps me understand where we’re talking past each other. So, IOW, your position is that **computation is not computation until a human observes the results**! Putting aside the question of whether it’s still a computation if my dog observes it, one notes that your requirement to build a computing device that computes only _f_ has been rather trivially beset with a condition that makes such a device _ **obviously impossible by the intrinsic terms of the requirement itself** _. You know, I used to enjoy philosophy back in college but I have little patience for what essentially amounts to a kind of philosophical dissembling, like asking someone how they would create a force so powerful that it can move an immovable object, or whether reality exists if it’s not being observed. My approach to philosophy, such as it is, leans heavily to pragmatism. In those terms I considered the problem domain here to be one where someone could make a logically coherent but unintended interpretation of the box’s output, and how one could constrain the interpretation to the intended one using only computational methods. I gave you that solution. Again in the context of pragmatism, I see the “interpretation” or homunculus objection as having absolutely no value in the CTM discussion. Rightly or wrongly, CTM holds that mental representations have a syntactic structure analogous to sentences, and that cognition essentially consists of syntactic operations on these structures which endows them with meaning; for example, there is ample evidence (albeit controversial) that mental images are representational in this way rather than depictive. Indeed the homunculus argument creates a paradox in the context of vision because it posits that the image that vision creates on the retina, in order for us to perceive it, must somehow be “seen” by a homunculus inside the brain, which of course leads to infinite regress. Yet vision is actually a thing, so there’s some basic problem with this argument, and the problem is that it tries to explain a phenomenon in terms of itself, and hence lacks any explanatory value at all. One can now draw an analogy with computer vision. Robots can see things and act on them, and not just in the lab – it’s becoming commonplace. So where is the homunculus? To reiterate the point, as I said above, one can only conclude from your position that computation is not computation until a human observes the results. So where is the human (and all the purportedly necessary “interpretation”) when a computer observes a scene and takes specific autonomous actions based on what it sees? And regardless of your answer to that, the followon question is, in what way is this fundamentally different from what a human might do? > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > So is this ‘physical architecture’ just the table of how switch flips connect to lamp lights I presented in my last post, or is it not? If it’s the table of explicit switch positions and light status, then yes. Though of course we have to agree on what “d”, “u”, “x”, and “o” mean. 😉 > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I’m in the snippet you’re quoting explicitly affirming my earlier stance, so how you get from that that I’m ‘backtracking’ is rather mysterious to me. > > Let’s step back a bit. You claimed that Watson’s semantic competence is proven by its Jeopardy-playing competence. This entails an argument that for this Jeopardy-playing competence, semantic competence is necessary. So I introduced a system—lookup-table Watson—that equals Watson (ex hypothesi) in its Jeopardy-playing competence, but entirely and transparently lacks semantic competence. Hence, semantic competence is not necessary for Jeopardy-playing competence; consequently, Watson’s performance in playing Jeopardy does not imply any semantic competence. > > This is one of the main reasons why the collapse of computationalism to behaviorism your approach threatens would be fatal. This I just have to forcefully reject as an obvious contradiction, and if you can’t bring yourself to concede the point, then we can just drop the discussion. Intelligence can only be determined as a set of behaviors; the underlying mechanism is of no consequence, and as you said, if it acts intelligently, it’s intelligent. You even seem to agree with all this. But a crucial part of the intelligent behavior in Watson is extracting the linguistic semantics from the natural language input. As a matter of fact considerable effort went into this part of the project. If you continue to deny that Watson has in fact computationally inferred semantics in the sentence and appropriately decomposed it – and bolster your denial with the trivial claim that the whole thing could just be a table lookup – a claim that obviously can be applied to any computation whatsoever – then let’s just drop it, because at this point you’re starting to sound rather disturbingly like John Searle. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/415 "2019-06-22T11:20:28Z")
It is not necessary for an entity, or a system, to be ‘conscious’ or ‘self-aware’ in order to be able to ‘choose’. Humans can select an interpretation, and thereby implement a computation; but natural selection is perfectly capable of making a choice in the same circumstances. If a dragonfly sees a prey species, flying past on a complex trajectory, that dragonfly can calculate where the prey will be in the future- this is a calculation it does using a system of processors which it has inherited, and which implement a single computation (call it f[sup]1[/sup] if you must). If by any chance another dragonfly implements f[sup]2[/sup] in the same set of circumstances, then that dragonfly will not intercept its prey, and may starve to death. **Unless, of course, f[sup]2[/sup] is better at calculating the same problem - in which case, this interpretation maybe selected for, and the trait may be inherited.** This is the great innovation of Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection- it allows selection to occur without recourse to a conscious mind. Humans, and gods, are not the only things which can make choices in an evolving world. It seems obvious to us now, but it was earth-shattering at the time. For some reason \*\*HalfManHalfWit \*\*appears to have dismissed the idea of ‘computation plus evolution’ as ‘trivialising’- far from it, this combination is probably adequate to explain most, if not all mental processes. It doesn’t help us much with the problem of replication of consciousness, however, since the process of evolution has taken four billion years to get to this stage, and we ain’t going to unravel the details in a few decades. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/416 "2019-06-22T13:39:07Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > So, IOW, your position is that **computation is not computation until a human observes the results**! No, not in the least. As I have been tirelessly reiterating, I consider a system to compute if it implements a given computable function; that is, once the symbolic vehicles it manipulates have acquired the appropriate semantics as given by the function as an abstract mathematical object. Your system doesn’t do that; it merely manipulates symbols, syntactic tokens, which can be interpreted in different ways. The numeral ‘1’ is not identical to the number it refers to, which is demonstrated by the fact that it can refer to different numbers. Thus, a system producing that numeral does not in itself suffice to establish that it has any connection to the number. But this connection is needed to implement the function. Consider a written word. It is not intrinsically connected to its meaning; only upon being read, upon being interpreted, does it acquire this meaning. This very same process is what I use to implement a given function using my box. It’s something a human mind evidently can do, as demonstrated by the fact that you’re understanding what I’m writing (to some extent). So, since it’s a capacity the human mind possesses, and since computationalism is the claim that everything a mind does is computational, computation must be able to reproduce this capacity in order to be viable. Hence, my challenge if implementing the function computationally, without any necessity for an interpreting mind. This has nothing to do with me claiming that computation is only properly computation if a mind is involved; I merely point out that when a mind is involved, a certain thing happens (namely, a function is unequivocally computed), and thus, every proposed explanation of the capabilities of mind will need to account for that. > [@](#): > > You know, I used to enjoy philosophy back in college but I have little patience for what essentially amounts to a kind of philosophical dissembling, like asking someone how they would create a force so powerful that it can move an immovable object, or whether reality exists if it’s not being observed. My approach to philosophy, such as it is, leans heavily to pragmatism. Great! Then you’ll be familiar with Charles Sanders Peirce’s approach to semiotics. In his terms, what I’m pointing out is nothing but the fact that the signifier does not imply the signified. > [@](#): > > Again in the context of pragmatism, I see the “interpretation” or homunculus objection as having absolutely no value in the CTM discussion. Well, the thing is, human minds evidently have an interpretive capacity, which thus a computationalist account must be capable of explaining. But to do so, the homunculus problem needs to be defused. > [@](#): > > Indeed the homunculus argument creates a paradox in the context of vision because it posits that the image that vision creates on the retina, in order for us to perceive it, must somehow be “seen” by a homunculus inside the brain, which of course leads to infinite regress. Yet vision is actually a thing, so there’s some basic problem with this argument, and the problem is that it tries to explain a phenomenon in terms of itself, and hence lacks any explanatory value at all. And indeed, there lies the salient analogy. The way we use systems to compute can’t be explained by computation, since, as you say, ‘it tries to explain a phenomenon in terms of itself, and hence lacks any explanatory value at all’. > [@](#): > > So where is the human (and all the purportedly necessary “interpretation”) when a computer observes a scene and takes specific autonomous actions based on what it sees? And regardless of your answer to that, the followon question is, in what way is this fundamentally different from what a human might do? There is no need for a homunculus, since the robot never interprets what is being seen. Take a simple photodiode, that transmits voltage in proportion to the light that reaches it. We could use it to create a simplistic vision system that, say, moves towards the light. There is no homunculus because it’s merely the light inpinging on the diode that physically causes a certain current to flow, and a certain motor to activate. All computer vision works along those lines. As for humans, as noted, I do actually have some idea here, but it would take us too long to work through that. But of course, I’m under no obligation to provide a better solution to be allowed to point out that yours doesn’t work. > [@](#): > > If it’s the table of explicit switch positions and light status, then yes. Fine, but then, you should quit claiming to be a computationalist, and call yourself a behaviorist instead. > [@](#): > > This I just have to forcefully reject as an obvious contradiction, and if you can’t bring yourself to concede the point, then we can just drop the discussion. I’m literally unable to concede a point you haven’t made. Simply rejecting a conclusion—no matter how forcefully—just doesn’t constitute an argument. > [@](#): > > Intelligence can only be determined as a set of behaviors; the underlying mechanism is of no consequence, and as you said, if it acts intelligently, it’s intelligent. You even seem to agree with all this. But a crucial part of the intelligent behavior in Watson is extracting the linguistic semantics from the natural language input. This is, once more, just a baseless claim; moreover, as I have shown, it is simply false, as Watson’s intelligent behavior can be duplicated without extracting linguistic semantics from the language input. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/417 "2019-06-22T13:48:23Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > It is not necessary for an entity, or a system, to be ‘conscious’ or ‘self-aware’ in order to be able to ‘choose’. Humans can select an interpretation, and thereby implement a computation; but natural selection is perfectly capable of making a choice in the same circumstances. As I have already pointed out to you, natural selection only works on the level of behavior, and thus, can’t select for computational interpretations. Unless, of course, you also want to consider the behavior to be the computation; but then, that’s also just behaviorism, and widely (nearly unanimously, in fact) considered refuted. Plus, if you do want to make that claim, you also need to provide an account regarding how we can associate behavior with different computational interpretations (as in my box example). > [@](#): > > If a dragonfly sees a prey species, flying past on a complex trajectory, that dragonfly can calculate where the prey will be in the future- this is a calculation it does using a system of processors which it has inherited, and which implement a single computation (call it f[sup]1[/sup] if you must). Basically, assuming that the dragonfly performs calculations to do so is question-begging. But actually, nothing on my argument precludes it doing so; however, the way in which that particular computation is implemented—in which its symbols acquire their semantics—can’t itself be computational (or else, the regress follows). ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/418 "2019-06-22T16:09:29Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Basically, assuming that the dragonfly performs calculations to do so is question-begging. But actually, nothing on my argument precludes it doing so; however, the way in which that particular computation is implemented—in which its symbols acquire their semantics—can’t itself be computational (or else, the regress follows). That’s right, the way that the dragonfly selects the interpretation is not computational, but natural selection. So you are both right and wrong. Right in that the process is not wholly computational, wrong in saying that it cannot be (partly) computational because it is not wholly computational. The processing that occurs in a dragonfly’s brain (and a human brain) is partly computational, but it is implemented by natural selection. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/419 "2019-06-22T16:10:08Z")
Well, well, perhaps we’re coming to the end of the road here. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > No, not in the least. As I have been tirelessly reiterating, I consider a system to compute if it implements a given computable function; that is, once the symbolic vehicles it manipulates have acquired the appropriate semantics as given by the function as an abstract mathematical object. > > Your system doesn’t do that; it merely manipulates symbols, syntactic tokens, which can be interpreted in different ways. The numeral ‘1’ is not identical to the number it refers to, which is demonstrated by the fact that it can refer to different numbers. Thus, a system producing that numeral does not in itself suffice to establish that it has any connection to the number. But this connection is needed to implement the function. The problem here is that, as you’ve been doing throughout this thread, you assume as a given an issue that is far from a given and is, at best, contentious in the theory of computation. It’s inseparable from Searle’s much-despised (by most cognitive scientists and virtually all AI researchers) Chinese Room argument, which in turn implies that your position not only argues against CTM, but against artificial intelligence itself (and certainly against strong AI). Here’s a snippet from the previously cited refutation of the Chinese Room argument, which I haven’t finished reading yet, but I note that there are numerous others from some eminent AI researchers. I quote this particular bit because it seems especially relevant: Secondly (the point that will concern us), the detour through semantics allows Searle to respond to the accusation that the experiment relies, essentially, on question-begging Cartesian “intuitions” about privileged access by insisting, _The point of the argument is not that somehow or other we have an `intuition’ that I don’t understand Chinese, that I find myself inclined to say that I don’t understand Chinese but, who knows, perhaps I really do. That is not the point. The point of the story is to remind us of a conceptual truth that we knew all along; namely, that there is a distinction between manipulating the syntactical elements of languages and actually understanding the language at the semantic level. What is lost in the AI simulation of cognitive behavior is the distinction between syntax and semantics. (Searle 1988, p. 214)_ Such insufficiency of syntax for semantics has been argued for variously and persuasively; most famously by Quine, Putnam, and Wittgenstein (seconded by Kripke).23 **Since processes are not purely syntactic, however, the “conceptual truth” Searle invokes is hardly decisive.** In practice, there is no more doubt about the “cherry” and “tree” entries in the cherry farmer’s spreadsheet referring to cherries and trees (rather than natural numbers, cats and mats, undetached tree parts or cherry stages, etc.) than there is about “cherry” and “tree” in the farmer’s conversation; or, for that matter, the farmer’s cogitation.24 Conversely, in theory there is no less doubt about the farmer’s representations than about the spreadsheet’s. Reference, whether computational, conversational, or cogitative, being equally scrutable in practice and vexed in theory, the “conceptual truth” Searle invokes impugns the aboutness of computation no more or less than the aboutness of cogitation and conversation. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > As for humans, as noted, I do actually have some idea here, but it would take us too long to work through that. But of course, I’m under no obligation to provide a better solution to be allowed to point out that yours doesn’t work. Would the following be a fair translation? “I know the answer, but I’m not gonna tell you.” > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > This is, once more, just a baseless claim; moreover, as I have shown, it is simply false, as Watson’s intelligent behavior can be duplicated without extracting linguistic semantics from the language input. This is simply an oxymoron. The major purpose of the Watson/DeepQA project can fairly be described as extracting semantics. It’s what it does – or at least, it’s a crucial element of what the system does. Any system implemented differently that does the same thing is, by definition, functionally identical. This is true even if the proposed implementation is so outlandish that there manifestly aren’t enough computing resources in the universe to actually implement it. That’s just about all there is to say about that, other than the fact that it’s more evidence that philosophers have rarely made useful contributions to computer science. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022/420 "2019-06-22T18:18:03Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Nonsense. (And by the way, your ‘cite’ doesn’t bear you out, concluding that the two seem close but not identical; an example of the sort where there’s no temporal component, by the way, is [logical supervenience](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supervenience/).) And then my cite goes on to detail how the dude realized that logical dependence without temporal dependence _doesn’t actually happen_ The thing about cites is that you actually have to read them. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > In a relation of the form ‘iff A, then B’, A is called the [antecedent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antecedent_(logic)), or literally, ‘that which comes prior’ (B is called the consequent—‘that which follows’). And guess what you can always, _always_ deduce from “iff A, then B”? iff B, then A. Welcome to logic! (Seriously, this is pretty basic stuff.) The term “antecedent” just talks about where it is in the statement. It doesn’t imply actual _dependence_. Seriously man, remember your logic classes. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > The point, however, is that the interpretation is a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the computation (you could somewhat sloppily consider it its cause, or that which generates the computation). If you now want to use that computation to produce the interpretation, then the computation is a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the interpretation. So, you have the same sort of circularity inherent in the omnipotent being creating itself—the interpretation creates the computation, which creates the interpretation. An entity can’t create itself, true. But that doesn’t apply to the computation/interpretation ‘loop’, for the following reason: it’s not a creation thing. Deity creation fails because it explicitly presumes that creation requires a _temporal_ predecessor. Which seems to most to be a reasonable assumption. Your interpretation/computation thing, though, doesn’t require a temporal predecessor. It’s more like the relationship to a bulb being lit. A bulb can’t be a glowing bulb unless it’s lit. But a bulb can’t be lit unless it’s a glowing bulb. Oh no, it’s a circular infinite regress! I guess glowing bulbs are impossible. Except not, obviously, because (unlike the self-creation thing) it’s entirely possible for the two descriptions “lit” and “glowing bulb” to suddenly start applying at the same moment when the object in question changes from a state that supports the descriptions. The same thing applies to the descriptions “the computational device is doing a computation” and “the computational device is being interpreted as doing a computation”. The minute one description applies the other does too. But there is no regress, because the terms “computing” and “being interpreted as computing” are actually just synonyms. When the interpretation is applied to a computational device, anyway. Speaking of which (since you offered to clarify any description I asked), could you remind me, what exactly _is_ a “computational device”, anyway? How would I recognize one if I saw one? You argument purports to say something about computational devices, but I don’t actually recall you defining the thing you’re arguing about. I know that your theoretical box with inputs and outputs is defined to be a computational device, and you said that it didn’t matter to your argument what the inner workings were. However I also know you threw a fit when I posited that there was a human sitting inside the box. So clearly there’s more to it. So how can I correctly identify and categorize something as being a “computational device” or not? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downloading-your-consciousness-just-before-death/834022.md?page=22)