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dogma wrote:Sure, but how does a man describe what it is to be with child? He has the ability to describe his observation of the thing, but not the thing in itself.

I guess it really comes down to how you view the nature of description (I'm pretty strict about it).

Ah, but that's not what I'm saying. A man who has had no experience of a thing would not be the highly sophisticated information network that has a complete understanding of the impulses of every nerve bundle, and the effect each nerve bundle has on the brain.

Imagine that network transmitting that information to a tabula rasa with the intelligence to grasp all that information.

Its more fundamental than that. I know that when women give birth, they suffer pain in an organ 'twixt their nethers (cookie for the reference), and that is understanding, but I don't quite know what that means in terms of my body. Though, really, this conversation will boil down to what understanding really is.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is that women suffer a pain 'twixt their nethers is a limitation on our understanding, and on the ability of those who've suffered to describe. It's a real world limitation imposed by our limited brains and our limited ability to communicate, it's not a hard limit on knowledge or understanding.

sebster wrote:
Imagine that network transmitting that information to a tabula rasa with the intelligence to grasp all that information.

I can't, not in any meaningful sense. A thing with intelligence is not a clean slate. Truthfully, I don't think that clean slates can even exist, let alone be conceived of; unless we're discussing nothingness.

sebster wrote:
Yeah, but what I'm saying is that women suffer a pain 'twixt their nethers is a limitation on our understanding, and on the ability of those who've suffered to describe. It's a real world limitation imposed by our limited brains and our limited ability to communicate, it's not a hard limit on knowledge or understanding.

I don't see how those are meaningfully distinct.

dogma wrote:I can't, not in any meaningful sense. A thing with intelligence is not a clean slate. Truthfully, I don't think that clean slates can even exist, let alone be conceived of; unless we're discussing nothingness.

I was referring to pure processing power, the ability to receive immense amount of data.

I would guess a clean slate would have to be an organism or artificial intelligence created for such a purpose. It'd be an immense undertaking, and ultimately it'd inevitably have such an alien mindset you'd be almost incapable of knowing if it really understood sport or whatever the thing was that you were trying to explain.

I don't see how those are meaningfully distinct.

Our present limitations will not always be our limitations. Come on mate, get your transhumanism happening!

Anyhow, I was just playing with the idea that our inability to communicate an experience isn't because a thing is beyond communication, every element of experience has at some level a rational descriptor behind it, it's just that in total the number of things that have to be explained becomes practically impossible very quickly.

How are you going to be able to do any sort of math at all without having learned the symbols you need to manipulate? You can't even form the concept of numbers, so there are quite a few things such a being can't 'reason'.

sebster wrote:If the tabula rasa has incredible levels of processing power and access to immense amount of information, then I think they could be capable of understanding any human experience.

Isn't this (arguably) what the human mind does? The mind doesn't 'experience' anything directly, it receives input from various stimuli to create a perception of the world. So if we could completely mimic all of the experiences (all sensory inputs) a human receives, the tabula rasa should be able to understand human experience, right?

But this leads us back to the speech example. The human mind isn't a tabula rasa, it has certain pre-defined structures built in (language and the desire to communicate being one of them). You could theoretically build these pre-defined structures into the tabula rasa, but at that point, you've basically proven that the human mind can experience realitiy. Which sounds a lot like mental to me.

Ahtman wrote:

Spoiler:

Serenity

Where's mah cookie?

A challenger appears!


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sebster wrote:
I was referring to pure processing power, the ability to receive immense amount of data.

I would guess a clean slate would have to be an organism or artificial intelligence created for such a purpose. It'd be an immense undertaking, and ultimately it'd inevitably have such an alien mindset you'd be almost incapable of knowing if it really understood sport or whatever the thing was that you were trying to explain.

Sure, but you're still attributing properties to the thing in question by stating that it has a mindset, which means its not really a clean slate, but merely something that is entirely alien (itself a dubious concept).

sebster wrote:
Anyhow, I was just playing with the idea that our inability to communicate an experience isn't because a thing is beyond communication, every element of experience has at some level a rational descriptor behind it, it's just that in total the number of things that have to be explained becomes practically impossible very quickly.

Sure, but does that mean I can program a computer to feel my pain specifically, and not just pain in general? Ignoring the problems inherent in having something experience human qualities without being human.

biccat wrote:Isn't this (arguably) what the human mind does?

Yeah, that's the parallel I was thinking of, but I hadn't really thought my idea enough to actually realise it properly and state it. Thanks for helping me clarify.

Thing is, though, much of what we experience in our brain is subconscious. I feel my foot is sore, I don't consciously recognise that a nerve bundle in the heel of my foot is giving me a sensation. Similarly, my actions are largely automated, I don't consciously think about contracting my left thigh muscles, then my left knee muscles... and so on, I just decide to run forwards.

To actually consciously recognise all that stuff at a level of detail needed to actually understand an event the same as having experienced it, well you'd need the ability to consciously process a lot more information than we're capable of.

The mind doesn't 'experience' anything directly, it receives input from various stimuli to create a perception of the world. So if we could completely mimic all of the experiences (all sensory inputs) a human receives, the tabula rasa should be able to understand human experience, right?

That was very much my line of thinking. Just you said it clearer, and with less words. Dammit.

But this leads us back to the speech example. The human mind isn't a tabula rasa, it has certain pre-defined structures built in (language and the desire to communicate being one of them). You could theoretically build these pre-defined structures into the tabula rasa, but at that point, you've basically proven that the human mind can experience realitiy. Which sounds a lot like mental to me.

Oh certainly, the human mind isn't a tabula rasa. We weren't asked if such a thing were possible, just that if it were could we teach it something to the same level as having experienced it itself.

To have it "understand" even the simplest of experiences we'd have to teach it a whole lot, more than just giving it hardcoding of language, you'd have to teach it the individual's thoughts and emotions, and what produced the thoughts that led to those thoughts, and what produced the thoughts that led to those thoughts... turtles all the way down.

It'd be an impossible undertaking, but it'd be an impossible undertaking because of the scope of information required, not because the act in itself is actually impossible.


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dogma wrote:Sure, but you're still attributing properties to the thing in question by stating that it has a mindset, which means its not really a clean slate, but merely something that is entirely alien (itself a dubious concept).

The only* properties I'm attributing to it are those needed to capture the mindset of the person at the moment of the experience. Once these start being given the tabula rasa stops being a tabula rasa, of course, and starts being some kind of dedicated single event simulator, or something.

Sure, but does that mean I can program a computer to feel my pain specifically, and not just pain in general? Ignoring the problems inherent in having something experience human qualities without being human.

I think you could, if you gave it enough information to entirely understand your headspace at the point of action. You'd never know if you'd really achieved it though.



*Where "only" is still vastly more information than it would ever be possible to collect, or transmit...

sebster wrote:
I think you could, if you gave it enough information to entirely understand your headspace at the point of action. You'd never know if you'd really achieved it though.

Well, if you possessed the theoretical information necessary to actually program the thing then I think you could determine whether or not you were succeesful in doing so. After all, you have to detect the information once to even begin the process. Of course, the standard counterargument stems from embodiment, and basically holds that a simulation of a thing can never actually be the same as the thing being simulated due to variations that follow from physical differences. For example, "computer me" will never be the same as me because its a computer, and therefore governed by physical properties that are distinct from the ones that I possess (hands, feet, a need to eat pizza and drink rum).

sebster wrote:
*Where "only" is still vastly more information than it would ever be possible to collect, or transmit...

I'm not sure that's true, but I also acknowledge that it might be. We really don't know enough about neuroscience to be sure.


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sebster wrote:

The mind doesn't 'experience' anything directly, it receives input from various stimuli to create a perception of the world. So if we could completely mimic all of the experiences (all sensory inputs) a human receives, the tabula rasa should be able to understand human experience, right?

That was very much my line of thinking. Just you said it clearer, and with less words. Dammit.

Are we separating the mind from the brain? Because if we are, you end up running into the age old problem of duality; ie. if the mind doesn't experience things directly, what intervenes between it and stimuli?

A cat both being alive and dead, in a box. I had to do that one, complete with the randomly-timed execution device for myself before I understood it. Anyone else?

dogma wrote:

sebster wrote:
I think you could, if you gave it enough information to entirely understand your headspace at the point of action. You'd never know if you'd really achieved it though.

Well, if you possessed the theoretical information necessary to actually program the thing then I think you could determine whether or not you were succeesful in doing so.

Isn't there some relation to the Turing problem here? You can't solve a problem that measures the limit of X without being more advanced than X.

You couldn't tell the difference between "real" human intelligence and a really good copy of human intelligence, unless you were more intelligent than the machine. At which point, you're not copying human intelligence, but intelligence that is close to human.

Can't remember what the term is. It's related to the halting problem.

biccat wrote:
Isn't there some relation to the Turing problem here? You can't solve a problem that measures the limit of X without being more advanced than X.

You couldn't tell the difference between "real" human intelligence and a really good copy of human intelligence, unless you were more intelligent than the machine. At which point, you're not copying human intelligence, but intelligence that is close to human.

You couldn't accurately make a determination like the one you've outlined, but because of the way Turing Reductions work (Set X can be solved given knowledge of the less complicated Set Y) it is effectively possible to develop negative proof regarding what exists within any given similar set despite any lesser state of complexity.

biccat wrote:
Can't remember what the term is. It's related to the halting problem.

Turing degrees.