The Atheism of the Gaps

First Things ^ | Stephen M. Barr

[What about Bob?]

I hope everyone will actually READ the entire piece before flame-broiling me.

[What about Bob?]

for your reading pleasure

[What about Bob?]

bumpity bump bump

[What about Bob?]

oops, mispelled your nick.. and gosh you are one of my favorites after all.

[What about Bob?]

bumps all around.

[What about Bob?]

mo' bumps

[garbanzo]

One of the big problems with AI research was the belief that minds were algorithmic computational devices. However our brains are networks of simple "computation" devices if you will. The behavior of neural nets is vastly different from the behavior of processor-based algorithms and the limitations of algorithms don't quite apply.

[Forgiven_Sinner]

I've read "Shadows of the Mind" and this is a very good summary of it. The author is more sympathetic to Penrose's book than most reviewers; most reviewers are staunch materialists and can't stomach Penrose's incontravertable argument against a materialistic mind. Most reviewers (this is about the fourth review of the book I've read, besides the endless discussion it engenders on Usenet's comp.sci.ai.philosophy) get side tracked by Penrose's propositions of a new quantum mechanics, rather than addressing his arguments against a materialistic mind.

[alegremente]

While the article is interesting, I think that it is logically incorrect to argue that because the human mind is not like a computer it is something other than a material object. True, but just as computers get their Godel theorums from their human programmers, we get ours from our intuitions and instinct, and there are very good materialist explanations for how intuition and instict work.

[What about Bob?]

How much shall I wager that you didn't read the whole thing?

[PatrickHenry]

Fine article. If we can't make a computer to act like a human mind, and if we can't understand how the mind works, and if we can't discover new laws of physics to deal with these issues, then ... what? The mind is a marvel, to be sure. But the game of science has just begun. These things take time.

[Helms]

Have you been to www.edge.org? This is for you guys:

Alter our DNA or robots will take over, warns Hawking

Special report: the ethics of genetics

Nick Paton Walsh

Sunday September 2, 2001 The Observer

Stephen Hawking, the acclaimed scientist and writer, reignited the debate over genetic engineering yesterday by recommending that humans change their DNA through genetic modification to keep ahead of advances in computer technology and stop intelligent machines from 'taking over the world'.

He made the remarks in an interview with the German magazine Focus. Because technology is advancing so quickly, Hawking said, 'computers double their performance every month'. Humans, in contrast, are developing much more slowly, and so must change their DNA make-up or be left behind. 'The danger is real,' he said, 'that this [computer] intelligence will develop and take over the world.'

Hawking, author of the best-selling A Brief History Of Time and a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, recommended 'well-aimed manipulation' of human genes. Through this humans could 'raise the complexity of... the DNA [they are born with], thereby improving people'. He conceded the road to genetic modification would be a long one but said: 'We should follow this road if we want biological systems to remain superior to electronic ones.'

He also advocated cyber-technology - direct links between human brains and computers. 'We must develop as quickly as possible technologies that make possible a direct connection between brain and computer, so that artificial brains contribute to human intelligence rather than opposing it.'

While scientists are excited by the huge possibilities of genetic engineering and human interaction with machines, ethicists urge caution as the experiments could go wrong.

Sue Mayer, director of policy research group Genewatch, rounded on Hawking's remarks. 'He is trying to take the debate about genetic engineering in the wrong direction,' she said. 'It is naive to think that genetic engineering will help us stay ahead of computers.'

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[BADROTOFINGER]

Nothing like a good article like this one on FR to make me feel very dumb. Oh well, more books for the already long "to read" list...JFK

[What about Bob?]

Helms, great post there; can I get a url to that??

[Senator Pardek]

Here.

[xm177e2]

That is one of the WIDEST posts I've ever seen.

Does everyone know there are more articles in the golden box of text, if you scroll to the left?

[What about Bob?]

sounds like your browser is fugged up.. i don't think anyone else is having that issue..

[VadeRetro]

I suppose I should be talking to Penrose and not you but I'm not real impressed with this:

Now suppose that there could be a computer program that could perform all the mental feats of which a man is capable. (In fact, such a program must be possible if each of us is in fact a computer.) Given sufficient time to study the structure of that program, a human mathematician (or group of mathematicians) could construct a "Godel proposition" for it, namely a proposition that could not be proven by the program but that was nevertheless true, and-here is the crux of the matter-which could be seen to be true by the human mathematician using a form of reasoning not allowed for in the program. But this is a contradiction, since this hypothetical program was supposed to be able to do anything that the human mind can do.

The contradiction was introduced just before in the thought experiment's gimmee test condition:

. . . but that was nevertheless true, and-here is the crux of the matter-which could be seen to be true by the human mathematician using a form of reasoning not allowed for in the program.

Sneak it in and "Ta-dah" on it in the next sentence! If the program is a perfect human emulator, you can't disallow it any form of logic humans can do. There may be a Godel proposition for the program, but it's a Godel proposition for the human too so there's no distinction.

Maybe it's the article-writer's fault. I tried to read Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind and gave it up about 2/3 through. He's like a professor that gets lazy about making sure the class is still with him and starts to just drone on while the students, lost, doodle in their notebooks.

I don't buy that the mind is not a machine operating under the laws of physics. Maybe I just need to see the proof written up a little better.

[RussP]

Very interesting stuff. But I don't think you need to get quite so technical to prove that science can never answer certain very fundamental questions.

Ask yourself this simple question: can science explain, or will it ever be able to explain, why you are you? This may seem silly at first, but it's actually a very important question.

When you were conceived, why did you end up your particular physical body - and not another? I don't see how science will ever be able to explain that one. Do you?

By the way, if our minds (and everything else) are nothing but matter, then what is truth? Is it matter too? If you think it is something other than matter, than you are not a strict materialist. And if you think that truth is nothing but matter, then you shouldn't care about it any more than you care about a pile of dirt, should you?

[sourcery]

The relevance of all this to computers is that all computers involve- indeed are-systems for the mechanical manipulation of strings of symbols (or "bits") carried out according to mechanical recipes called "programs" or "algorithms." Now suppose that there could be a computer program that could perform all the mental feats of which a man is capable. (In fact, such a program must be possible if each of us is in fact a computer.) Given sufficient time to study the structure of that program, a human mathematician (or group of mathematicians) could construct a "Godel proposition" for it, namely a proposition that could not be proven by the program but that was nevertheless true, and-here is the crux of the matter-which could be seen to be true by the human mathematician using a form of reasoning not allowed for in the program. But this is a contradiction, since this hypothetical program was supposed to be able to do anything that the human mind can do.

Penrose's argument is based on several logical fallacies:

• It assumes, without any basis, that any purely material brain must necessarily operate as a Turing machine. In fact, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this must be true. The article claims that Penrose has proven that all physical processes must be "computational." It's true that some scientists believe that all physical processes are computational, but it's not true that consensus exists that anyone has proven this. But in any case, the unstated implication that all physical processes are equivalent to Turing machines is known to be false.
• It relies on an inconsistent usage of terms such as "physical" and "material." Sometimes these terms are used to mean "anything which is real." Other times, they are used as antonyms of "spiritual" and/or "abstract." Penrose's proof is based on slyly using these terms with first one meaning, and then the other. Unfortunately for the validity of Penrose's argument, an argument that uses terms with inconsistent semantics is invalid on its face.
• Penrose's argument involves an operation not permitted by his initial assumptions: he requires that human mathematicians construct a proposition that the human mind cannot prove to be true (according to the initial assumptions), but that these human mathematicians nevertheless know to be true. But if their human minds are not capable of proving such a proposition, then it is impossible for them to know whether or not the proposition is true. Conversely, if these human mathematicians do know these propositions to be true, then they must be able to formulate a proof--and if they can do that, then the human mind is in fact capable of proving the proposition. So yes, Penrose has demonstrated a logical contradiction--but instead of proving his argument, it invalidates it.
• Any entity that could prove propositions that are outside human competence to prove (true or false, makes no difference) would simply have minds whose mathematical power exceeded that of a human mind. Godel's proof permits such propositions to be proven by going "outside the system." There is no reason that material minds cannot exist whose principles of operation transcend those of humans, just as ours transcend those of ants. Our ability to prove what ants cannot no more implies that our minds are immaterial than does the fact that the aliens from the next galaxy can prove what we cannot.