How come you ignored the crucial second part of my question, namely, to “Explain your answer in relation to the Wikipedia extract that you plagiarized in post #367”.
Because you see, SamuelA, you have just thoroughly contradicted yourself and exposed your blatant ignorance. The Wiki entry on computation, which can be found here, and which you plagiarized without understanding, includes in its definition of computation the concepts that I have herein bolded for your reading comprehension: “… includes both arithmetical and non-arithmetical steps and follows a well-defined model understood and described as, for example, an algorithm.” The crucial terms being “steps” (as in, instruction steps), “non-arithmetical”, and “algorithm”.
So you see, SamuelA, your signals, logic gates, and truth tables – all of which are present in an electronic calculator – do not meet the minimum criteria of computation. This is why Alan Turing conceptualized the Turing machine: to define the essence of what computation is. This is why Turing equivalence is so crucial. This is why you’re full of shit.
Interestingly, Jerry Fodor himself is quoted further down in that same wiki article on computation, stating that “semantic content is a necessary condition for computation”. This is why a semantic view of symbols – the semantic-representational model I’ve been discussing – the symbolic representations that you clearly stated you “don’t give a rat’s ass about” – is crucial to the question of whether a system is in fact computational or not. NOT your fucking “signals”, synapses, logic gates, or fucking “truth tables”.
“Obviously”? You are now properly exposed as full of shit. Maybe you should read the above a second time, in case it didn’t sink into your feeble brain. Or would you prefer to believe that some of the greatest minds in cognitive science, like Fodor, Putnam, Marr, and Dennett – people who actually know what they’re talking about and helped to establish cognitive science as a scientific discipline – that these people are wrong and a dipshit like yourself who just made a total ass of himself – is right? The dipshit who claimed that “obviously” everything in the brain is computational, because he doesn’t know what the word means?
I don’t know how to say this any more plainly, SamuelA. You are an ignoramus. You don’t know what you’re talking about. QED. You really should do more listening and less bloviating. You should also claim a full refund of whatever you paid for your computer science degree, if you have one.
Meh. I choose to believe computation is a catch all term that doesn’t mean Turing completeness. Which is how I read the wiki statement. Now, yeah, if you’re really biased, out to ‘prove I’m wrong’, I guess you might be motivated to misread it.
But since Webster is actually canonical, wikipedia isn’t, let’s see if my “choosing to believe” is me being full of shit or not :
Definition of computation
1 a : the act or action of computing : calculation
b : the use or operation of a computer
2 : a system of reckoning
3 : an amount computed
Looks like you’re the one slinging bullshit. Guess you better get a tuition refund yourself.
You know, just saying, I know you’re a motivated speaker. You have taken it upon yourself to say the meanest possible thing, to interpret everything the worst way. But if you read one post above, I do address every point. I didn’t smokescreen anything.
I just got bored of winning this argument. It’s like playing chess against a 3 year old where I’ve gotten checkmate, and the 3 year old is like “no you didn’t” and knocks the pieces off the table.
Wolf’s argument is that the brain might not be Turing complete and might not even meet the strict dictionary definition of “computation”. Which is completely the opposite from what I’ve been arguing. I’ve been saying that if we have machines that are Turing complete, we can definitely emulate the actions of synapses…and have, in hundreds of smaller scale experiments.
So even if Wolf is 100% correct, it doesn’t even matter. Basically after the 3 year old kicks the pieces around, I put them back on the board and play the game from there. Checkmate again. Another “poo poo head” comment. Another game. Another checkmate. Getting bored, now.
You know, let’s just assume that Meriam Webster is wrong, and these scientists you mention are more correct.
So…let’s look at this bolded statement.
I showed you in great detail how you can emulate “everything” in the brain with truth tables, or dedicated logic circuits that emulate the rules encoded in those truth tables. (that’s what an FPGA mostly is, btw…a grid of circuits, each of which is capable of implementing any truth table up to a certain number of bits)
You have done nothing to disprove (1)
Now you’re saying that computation and Turing Machines are more than what the brain does, if the brain is nothing but truth tables.
Ok. I concede, you’re right. So what? That just means superset. So it *still *doesn’t matter.
The loose non-technical meaning is completely useless in any technical context, and it’s clearly not what was meant when you made an ass of yourself here. I even explicitly pointed out here that we were discussing the formal meaning in cognitive and computer science, yet you plowed right on making a fool of yourself. And now you have to backpedal by claiming that you – a self-professed computer science genius – was just using “computational” in a loose everyday sense – a sense in which the word is essentially meaningless since it can be construed to apply to virtually any physical system, and hence completely useless. The best part was when you cribbed a paragraph out of Wikipedia with a more formal definition which actually says the exact opposite of what you thought it did.
Yeah, your brilliance has checkmated everyone in sight! Look up “moron” in the dictionary, too. You’ll find it under “M”.
Whoosh. Still doesn’t mean anything, you’re still wrong about the central issue.
Also, the brain does branch statements, so it meets the definition of computation and always did.
Basically by your view,
Turing Complete > Computation > Calculation.
Well, ok. The brain clearly hits the Computation threshold. Maybe not the Turing complete one. Nice philosophical argument I guess, but totally irrelevant. Maybe we’ll build AI chips in the near future that are not Turing complete, either.
And you’re saying that because I was fuzzy on the meaning of computation, from a CS course 10 years ago, I must therefore just be a total moron, no more knowledgeable about the subject than a car mechanic or garbageman. You have to believe that, your ego is tied up in it somehow. But it clearly isn’t true.
To everyone who has said nasty things and failed to make any meaningful arguments, I pit you all. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, doing your part to make the world a more hostile and ignorant place. To LSLGuy and k9bfriender, who at least made reasoned arguments, thank you. To the rest of you : you’re wrong about everything, and perhaps some of you will live long enough to see it.
But hey, you’re all just average examples of humans. I shouldn’t expect any better. Enjoy your meaningless primate banter until you croak.
“We spend a great deal of time studying history," Hawking told the lecture, “which, let’s face it, is mostly the history of stupidity.” *
Yet another whiner who says he’s winning, we’re losing, and he’s leaving. So there.
“Reasoned arguments” - I’m certain he does not know what those words mean.
A rather sweeping denunciation, which closes with something that’s probably not a threat, merely a hope that we’ll learn the error of our ways before we die.
In addition to his complete inability to lay out a logical argument, or to follow an argument laid out by anyone else, I find him to be a despicable human being. I was already on the Sammy-haters list, but when he suggested that we might as well go ahead and kill dementia patients because at least that way we might save some data and learn something, he went on my “posters that horrify me” list.
Do you suppose he has added everyone but LSLGuy and k9befriender to his ignore list? Do you suppose he ever learned how to use his ignore list?
tl; dr fuck the fuck off you horrific excuse for a human
This has been a fun pitting. It’s a good thing that SamuelA is such an asshole or I might feel a twinge of guilt, kind of like beating up a three-year-old. But this is a three-year-old obnoxious brat who richly deserves it.
Me and every cognitive scientist in the world. Wrong. Totally. SamuelA, however, is always right. According to SamuelA. But not, sadly for him, according to the record of the 8 pages (so far) of this thread.
I almost spit out my drink all over the keyboard! I’m going to send this along to all my colleagues in cognitive science. Now I know what is meant by “the stupid, it burns!”
Now he’s claiming his education failed him. No, SamuelA, the nature of computation is not something one learns “from a CS course 10 years ago”. The nature of computation is so fundamental to the discipline that it’s deeply ingrained in every practitioner of even the most humble competence right from his earliest years; it’s not something you just forget. That you can’t even use the word correctly speaks volumes to your lack of such.
This is incoherent. I note for the record that no one has said such things as are claimed here, most of which is incoherent babble. The salient question is whether mental processes can be viewed as abstract operations on symbolic representations, and can thus be viewed as intrinsically computational. There is strong evidence that some are, but many are not. The computational theory of mind is simultaneously an important theory of cognition but only a partial explanation of the architecture of the mind.
Yeah, right. The ones working besides you at burger king, right?
How can you have “colleagues” when you never passed neuroscience? You obviously never passed signal processing, either.
And finally, the big one. You claim to be knowledgeable in cognitive science, yet you don’t know how to weight evidence properly. Over and over and over, you pick up some irrelevant detail and claim that this is is! This is the proof that you were right all along! And your conclusion is always sweeping.
Have you even heard of the phrase “shut up and multiply”? Do you even know how the most basic neural network works? Because you weight evidence over a lot of terms, one thing is never enough…
It is amusing SamA thinks the above is an effective response and not something confirming that he is a childish idiot. He will in no doubt ‘flounce’ again.
The best part is that once he grows his big boy hairs and gets out of middle school, he can’t delete any of his posts here and is stuck with 1,843 reminders of what a supercilious jerk he was.
Boo fuckin’ hoo! If being “mean” is calling you out on omissions, errors, bullshit and persistence in both of them, and it finally dawns on you that you are that dumb, then I am the meanest S.O.B. on the boards.
Let me refresh your memory of what actually happened to put you on the radar (and not your attempt at revisionist history):
[ol]
[li]After mis-comprehending a question and making an unrelated response, in post #22 he tries to tell us that the AEA of '46 allows POTUS to authorize a strike, and posts a lobby group’s article as his first source. He apparently skimmed over that article, since Paragraph 2 and 3 of that article directly contradict his claims. I bring this to his attention later in post #83. [/li]
[li]He then tries a personal attack in post #89, which fails. Then in post #90 he reasserts his incorrect opinon, without really any citation or backup. I ask him to actually read the AEA of '46 and to provide a citation. He then does some handwaving about hippies at the front gate in what I presume is a redirect tactic.[/li]
[li]He then skims the AEA of '46 to provide “evidence” without reading the context of the section, or the Act for that matter. He bases his argument on “probably come from” and a “seems to give him” statements–far less than hard evidence. I bring this to his attention.[/li]
[li]He then scrambles to find actual evidence to support his claims, and indicates that he read it in the Washington Post (which hadn’t appeared in any discussion prior to this point). Again, he’d skimmed that article, missing the statement that “[the Act] firmly put the power of the atomic bomb in the hands of the president and the civilian components of the executive branch”[sub]underlining by Tripler[/sub]. He also either misses or ignores the statement from the WaPo article that “Eventually, the brass adopted the idea that, when it came to nuclear matters, they were at the beck and call of the president. It was not generals’ responsibility to make the order; it was their responsibility to carry it out.” [/li]
[li]After being baited and taken in by his first redirect, I realize it, and get back to the initial point about the POTUS having the ability to launch with the War Powers Act of 73.[/li]
[li]Then there’s some back and forth from posts #115 - 121, with Ravenman stepping in to help him understand the meaning of the WaPo article. [/li]
[li]Finally in #122, he attempts another redirect because he gets caught with his pants down, and I let it go, while the conversation rolls into some other irrelevant side discussions. [/li]
[/ol]
Why do I bring up the WaPo article? Because it’s too late in the game, and because at no point does that article state the AEA of '46 allow POTUS to launch, nor does it imply Congress passing that particular law to allow him to do so. When called out, he scrambles to find anything that he thinks will bolster his case after the fact. However, SamuelA’s lack of reading comprehension and flair for grandstanding false expertise while making fantastical claims makes me immediately suspicious of anything he says or references. Everything he says or posts is suspect.
The sickly amusing/sadly depressing part of this is that you actually thing your “winning.” You never had checkmate, you never even moved your pawn–you just kept sitting on your side, licking all of the pawns, trying to interlock the tops of the rooks together like they were cylindrical Legos. Besides, your several other “TLDR, I’m not bullshit, you’re bullshit!” belie your Royal Toddlerness. (Besides, it’s TLDR for you to read four paragraphs?)
I don’t know Computer Science, and I don’t know the criteria for ‘Turing Complete.’ But I do know the argumentative redirects of an obstinate royal diva when I see one, and later today I intend to drag your ass back through your nuclear nonsense to get some answers out of you. Case in point, your wild assumptions applied through Fermi “estimates” have reduced respectable Fermi estimates to nothing more than “WAGs” (wild assed guesses). Poor Enrico is spinning in his grave. I will get to those nuclear inconsistencies this afternoon.
:: ears perk up ::
Aaaah, the glorious ramblings of a three-year old who just knocked over the chess set.
Well if you’re feeling bad about being beaten by primates, then fare thee well.
Ahem. . . Cite?
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.
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I had an epihany while typing all this up; I’m going to kind of miss you, Ancient Aliens Guy. I can see your epitaph 100 years from now, "If they could have built an Orion Drive, it might have been built this way. . .
Tripler
We’ll see how long this “ignore list” thing works, eh!
You are now properly exposed as full of shit. Maybe you should read the above a second time, in case it didn’t sink into your feeble brain. Or would you prefer to believe that some of the greatest minds in cognitive science, like Fodor, Putnam, Marr, and Dennett – people who actually know what they’re talking about and helped to establish cognitive science as a scientific discipline – that these people are wrong and a dipshit like yourself who just made a total ass of himself – is right? The dipshit who claimed that “obviously” everything in the brain is computational, because he doesn’t know what the word means?