Re: Human mind Turing computable according to Eliezer

From: Robin Lee Powell (rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org)
Date: Wed Oct 06 2004 - 18:21:40 MDT


On Wed, Oct 06, 2004 at 06:35:08PM -0400, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote:
> Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> >At http://yudkowsky.net/bookshelf.html#k_rp we have:
> >
> > Penrose isn't trying to explain quantum physics; he's trying to
> > persuade you that the human mind isn't Turing-computable.
> > (Penrose is right about this, although purely by coincidence.)
> >
> >But at http://yudkowsky.net/tmol-faq/miscellaneous.html#turing we
> >have that human thought, at least, *is* turing computable.
> >
> >I'm not certain that this is a contradiciton, but I'd like to see
> >more about Eliezer's views on this point; anybody got a link?
>
[snip]
>
> I did not comprehend the power of the mundane explanation. It's a common
> enough human problem. Now that I know what to look for, I see people doing
> it all the time. Lesson after lesson after lesson of mere history, even if
> the universe repeats the point a thousand times over, don't have the same
> emotional force as a single personal experience.
>
> But now I know better.

While this was very interesting reading, it completely fails to tell
me which of the pieces of information at those links you disagree
with now, precisely. The following statements are in the offing:

1. Penrose isn't trying to explain quantum physics; he's trying to
    persuade you that the human mind isn't Turing-computable.
    (Penrose is right about this, although purely by coincidence.)

2. [snip] the laws of physics to arbitrary precision [are not
    Turing computable]

3. [snip] the human brain to arbitrary precision [is not Turing
    computable]

>From your spiel I gather that you now disagree with statements 1 and
3, but I'm not totally certain, and I know no more about your
position on statement 2. No matter what, you should certainly
update those pages I think.

-Robin

-- 
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/
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