Are people only algorithms?

[Terxpahseyton]

The Theory of evolution makes a key claim. That simple algorithms can create ingenious design. Computer sciences have proven that right, to some extend. With mere changes of 0s and 1s programs can create virtually anything.

If all of it is true, it means, that even the capabilities of a human are not beyond the reach of plain algorithms. So perhaps, all that brain activity, all those senses - maybe this is all just part of a biological version of a binary code. Just, that it is far more than binary. It is multi-dimensional. Which comes with the price of some chaos. But also a great gain in raw computing power.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I don't think that's a particularly revolutionary notion to be fair.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Well do you believe it?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Well... sort of. I mean there's no algorithm as such, just random mutation. But I supposed to could classify "random mutation + natural selection of the results" as an algorithm. I'm not sure if the word "algorithm" requires purposeful design or not.

Also, being the result of an algorithm doesn't mean we actuall are algorithms ourselves. So I guess in that sense, no I don't agree with it.

But the notion that we're just the outcome of a simplistic, random process is not novel.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Also, being the result of an algorithm doesn't mean we actuall are algorithms ourselves.

Why does it not mean that?

 

[Cheetah]

If you want to go a step further, an argument can be made that life itself is simply a chemical process to expedite the transfer of energy from high energy states to low energy states.

In essence, life is just a byproduct of physics, and completely irrelevant to the universe.

 

[onejayhawk]

Is a coastline only a fractal? No. The latter is a potentially useful simplified representation of the former.

J

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Why does it not mean that?

Well cars are made in car plants. That doesn't mean they are car plants.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Theory of evolution makes a key claim. That simple algorithms can create ingenious design. Computer sciences have proven that right, to some extend. With mere changes of 0s and 1s programs can create virtually anything.

If all of it is true, it means, that even the capabilities of a human are not beyond the reach of plain algorithms. So perhaps, all that brain activity, all those senses - maybe this is all just part of a biological version of a binary code. Just, that it is far more than binary. It is multi-dimensional. Which comes with the price of some chaos. But also a great gain in raw computing power.

Where does the Theory of Evolution say that?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

In essence, life is just a byproduct of physics, and completely irrelevant to the universe.

How ironic, given that something being relevant or irrelevant ultimately only makes sense when referring back to (sentient) life.
That never made sense to me. That something so special as sentience or any kind of experience - I mean we are talking about the very birth of meaning hear - should be a weird by-product. Maybe it just does not make sense. But maybe we also just haven't really understood that phenomena.

 

[Kozmos]

Yuval Noah Harari makes that claim quite well in Homo Deus. Besides our self-consciousness might just be a cognitive cancer evolutionary speaking, there are very few theoretical use cases for having it in practical, evolutionary terms.

 

[Borachio]

I'm not sure. I've been thinking about this lately and wondering how neural networks work in practice (maybe someone here can explain it to me). AlphaGo and AlphaZero seem especially impressive.

I very much doubt, however, that DeepMind can be in any way thought of as self-conscious.

And there's the rub. Without machine self-consciousness somewhere on the near horizon (never mind the forever postponed 15 years away), I don't think we can at all draw the conclusion that our own consciousness is analogous to machine algorithms.

On the other hand, if our consciousness isn't algorithmic, what is it?

 

[warpus]

The Theory of evolution makes a key claim. That simple algorithms can create ingenious design.

That is not one of the claims of TOE but alright

With mere changes of 0s and 1s programs can create virtually anything.

Excluding NP-complete/incomplete considerations, assuming reasonable levels of abstraction and complexity, and keeping in mind storage and computational power considerations, yes, almost anything.

If all of it is true, it means, that even the capabilities of a human are not beyond the reach of plain algorithms.

Yeah, well I wouldn't say "plain", but if you could build a machine that mirrors our exact body down to the interactions between atoms, then you'd have yourself a working human on your hands. And probably a moral dilemma as well

But the problem is that the way evolution designs things is insane. Right now we can only master that sort of design on a super tiny scale. Give us a couple decades and things are going to get weird

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Where does the Theory of Evolution say that?

By claiming to be right. As warpus has said, bio-design is absolutely amazing. Without a "designer", relatively blind and "dumb" algorithms must be able to do amazing design-work. Because that is all evolution got to work with.
The key to great design - which in its greatness appears almost magical - then is the mere assembly of in themselves pretty ordinary or rudimentary design elements which chance can produce so plentiful that eventually they will assemble in an intelligent way all by themselves.
That is pretty much the anti-thesis to the mythical idea of a human consciousness which is more than the sum of its parts.

 

[warpus]

The theory of evolution makes these key claims:

Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms, and molecules.

It describes the mechanism by which we have so much diversity in life today. It is not a description of what's possible or what happened, and it is not a theory that treats humans and other species as machines and asks the question from an engineering pov

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That is not one of the claims of TOE but alright



Excluding NP-complete/incomplete considerations, assuming reasonable levels of abstraction and complexity, and keeping in mind storage and computational power considerations, yes, almost anything.



Yeah, well I wouldn't say "plain", but if you could build a machine that mirrors our exact body down to the interactions between atoms, then you'd have yourself a working human on your hands. And probably a moral dilemma as well

But the problem is that the way evolution designs things is insane. Right now we can only master that sort of design on a super tiny scale. Give us a couple decades and things are going to get weird

Well put.

Just the other night I was talking about what the future holds and your final words here were my exact conclusion.

Things are going to get weird. That's the perfect word for it.

 

[warpus]

We're totally not ready either, but then again I guess we also weren't in any other transformational period in our development

 

[hobbsyoyo]

We're totally not ready either, but then again I guess we also weren't in any other transformational period in our development

Agreed. But the changes will be so fast and so drastic we may be overwhelmed. That's part of why I harp on the situation of young people here (student loans, housing, low wages, etc) because if we don't set this generation up for success then everyone will pay. They are already super vulenrable due to ongoing shifts and they will also be the ones to confront all the coming changes.

I hope for the best but who knows. We certainly seem to have our collective heads up our own arses.

 

[warpus]

I don't want to sound like a pessimist, but I think future generations are screwed. They are going to survive, but IMO there's going to be "a lot less fun overall"

Mind you I also hope for the best. You might as well!

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I think things will either get drastically better or worse. The time of incremental steps forward or back are ending in my opinion.