[HN Gopher] Questions about the hard limits of human intelligence
___________________________________________________________________
Questions about the hard limits of human intelligence
Author : ColinWright
Score : 91 points
Date : 2022-09-10 10:35 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (aeon.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (aeon.co)
| barrysteve wrote:
| Why would you ask this question and not bump into God?
|
| That concept of a living inside a computer simulation, asking if
| we can know the unknowable, even bumping into Marduk... is
| answerable by the divine.
|
| Though the parable about the ten ox was kind of cool.
|
| Hackernews loves to revisit the zen and the art of motorcycle
| maintenance in many different forms, yet the answer is always the
| same. The 'No thing' in the ten ox parable, in zen and the art,
| in this articles pondering about what is unknowable, is god...
| pessimizer wrote:
| Saying something is only answerable by the divine is just like
| saying that you refuse to answer something. The unknowable is
| not answerable by the unknowable.
| gjm11 wrote:
| If "God" is the answer to every question (or at least every
| sufficiently ultimate-sounding question) then I suggest it is
| not really a useful answer to any question.
|
| Frankly, what you say comes across to me as "How dare all these
| people talk about deep mysterious things without giving _my_
| preferred Answer To All Deep Mysterious Things? ". Well, maybe
| your answer is wrong. Or maybe somehow more than one can be
| right. Or maybe there are in fact multiple Deep Mysterious
| Things that don't all have the same answer. Or maybe, as you
| clearly think is obvious, those other people are all wrong
| because the only right answer to any Deep Mysterious Thing is
| "God".
|
| But you might consider the following: if your current beliefs
| imply that anyone who asks questions like these should "bump
| into God", then the fact that someone asks questions like these
| and _doesn 't_ indicates that something in your current beliefs
| is wrong. Still more, the fact that (as you complain of in your
| last paragraph) people _frequently_ ask such questions without
| "bumping into God".
| brink wrote:
| Wholeheartedly agree.
|
| Our intrinsic existence with its beginning and its end is a
| contradiction, so I define God as "the unknowable thing that we
| came from", the "container of time and space". If it's
| reasonable to assume that there's consciousness down here, it's
| also relatively safe to assume that there's some form of more
| complete consciousness in the higher thing that we came from.
| [deleted]
| sdenton4 wrote:
| >> "What is truly stunning about the fact that modern science and
| mathematics are formulated through a sequence of marks is its
| exclusivity: nothing other than these finite sequences of symbols
| is ever found in modern mathematical reasoning."
|
| Well that's simply not true. We draw pictures all the time. But
| putting that aside...
|
| Written mathematics is a serialized form of mathematical
| understanding, meant to be decoded by other mathematicians. The
| understanding itself is often very non-textual, and the process
| of serialization and deserialization can be extremely difficult.
| And the reasoning process itself often proceeds in non-textual
| ways, prior to the process of serialization.
| NoToP wrote:
| You kind of just described the language faculty as well.
| tgv wrote:
| Everyday language is an entirely different thing. I don't
| think we can "serialize" maths at a speed of 3 symbols per
| second.
|
| I also think your OP is quite wrong. What (s)he calls
| serialization, is attempting to formulate and test an idea in
| a "proof language", where a successful and correct string
| determines the validity. A normal sentence has an entirely
| different use. Math is (much) more like programming than
| speaking.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| That said, much of modern mathematics is still fairly
| informal, with "the proof is left to the reader" implicitly
| showing up in nearly every written sentence for the sake of
| brevity.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Soon I start to wonder about concepts that I don't know exist:
| concepts whose existence I can never even suspect, let alone
| contemplate. What can I ever know about that which lies beyond
| the limits of what I can even imagine?
|
| I find it more interesting or even frightening to contemplate
| those differences among humans today. For those with an IQ in the
| 90's, what thoughts and concepts am _I_ able to understand that
| they can 't? And likewise, what am _I_ personally not able to to
| grok that some of the smartest people can? Even within
| engineering and software I find that some practitioners have a
| hard time with some things I find easy, and I have a hard time
| with concepts others find easy. It may just be differing
| backgrounds, but what if these are differences in raw cognitive
| capability? Levels of abstraction seem real if not well defined.
| bumby wrote:
| This made me think about Sam Harris's comparison between
| ourselves and John Van Neumann as analogous to a comparison
| between a chicken and ourselves.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nt3edWLgIg&t=382s
| sinenomine wrote:
| JVN was a superhuman, but he is a bit oversold and a goto
| example of this class of people. Hyperbolic comparison by Sam
| doesn't help here.
|
| Now, Terry Tao is a person of the same, if not greater
| caliber. A real, living 200 IQ genius.
| [deleted]
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| Von Neumann's impact is at least an order of magnitude
| greater than Tao's. No disrespect, he is a great
| mathematician. But the sheer breath of von Neumann's impact
| is unparalleled. [1]
|
| [1]https://www.wikiwand.com/en/John_von_Neumann
| Melatonic wrote:
| Those rare few where the extreme overclocking of their
| brain from birth had somehow enough cooling to keep them
| from going insane :-D
| barrysteve wrote:
| What difference would it make? We treat poor and rich as
| equals... or should. Amputees are not treated any less than
| athletes.
|
| These questions impose artifical beliefs as plausible theorems
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| One wonders if you think ramps for amputees are considered an
| artificial belief or not.
|
| The answers to these questions have real ramifications,
| treating them as artificial is how harm to real people
| happens.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Amputees are not treated any less than athletes.
|
| I see you don't understand meritocracy. Amputees can
| physically do less than athletes, therefore they deserve
| worse food, worse housing, and worse medical care, unless
| they can offset this defect in some other way.
|
| It's almost blasphemous to do otherwise; if God has seen fit
| to punish them, your offsetting of that punishment shows a
| prideful disapproval of God's plan. God has made His judgment
| of the amputee clear, so it's actually your duty to reinforce
| that judgement. God has given us dominion over this world,
| and the responsibility to maintain it; we can do that better
| with athletes, rather than people who are missing limbs. Or
| secularly, we collectively maintain the world's wealth
| through our individual contributions. The mean athlete
| contributes more, the mean amputee contributes less, and what
| goes around, should come around. Workers, not shirkers!
|
| I like to think of it as the reverse golden rule. Accept unto
| yourself that which you would have done to others. If you're
| worth less, eat less.
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| What are you smoking. Someone's physical abilities have had
| little to do with their impact on the world for at least a
| century...
| tsol wrote:
| Let's give rewards equally to all; the builders, the
| creators, the criminals and the leeches. That is surely the
| best system of distribution. How cruel must you be to let
| another man have less than you? So we must take from those
| who labor and with a wisdom that they have not, re-
| distribute the fruit of society fairly to all. It is a
| unjust and wicked world, so let us take control and right
| the world's wrongs.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| I'm not quite sure whether this is a genuinely held point
| of view or devil's advocacy.
| oigursh wrote:
| In this instance your handle is apt.
| preordained wrote:
| This sounds like an astoundingly appealing philosophy to
| one who is towards the top of this meritocracy pecking
| order, and utterly repugnant to anyone downward. It's so
| self-serving in that regard, that the "conflict of
| interest" in those who benefit in extolling it as the order
| for all...well, it makes the whole thing highly
| questionable. Is it the best way because it's the best way,
| or because it's best for you? It's really hard to see
| anyone who is on the wrong end of this system arguing for
| it, so in the end they would have to be subjugated? That
| rarely (never?) works out (if it can be considered a good
| thing to work out at all...), so it's clear to me that a
| hard-liner meritocratic system is never really going to
| work.
| [deleted]
| chrsig wrote:
| > It may just be differing backgrounds, but what if these are
| differences in raw cognitive capability?
|
| Honestly, I think ignorance may be bliss. I loathe to think
| about what arrogance, bigotry, and manifestations of depression
| would pop up had we concrete ways to measure capability.
| anonporridge wrote:
| Ignorance isn't a real option.
|
| If the truth is knowable, someone will find it eventually.
|
| The best you can do is opt yourself into ignorance. You can't
| opt everyone around you into the same ignorance. And by
| opting yourself into ignorance, you potentially create a
| competitive advantage for those who don't have the same
| hangups for facing ugly truths as you do.
| sinenomine wrote:
| Why do we often implicitly consider the human cognitive
| capability as it is embodied in adult individuals' biological
| makeup to be immutable, now and in the future? Even a single
| existence proof of a method for cognitive enhancement would
| deal away with this frame.
|
| I get that we aren't (yet) spoiled by availability of (gene or
| cellular) therapies uplifting our IQs, but hey, at least those
| mice were able to receive theirs: https://www.cell.com/cell-
| stem-cell/pdf/S1934-5909(13)00007-...
|
| Given the sheer amount of capital available for trial and error
| on (sometimes ridiculous like juicero) consumer products it's
| weird that so little of it is allocated to advance the
| biotechnology of human enhancement.
| guywithahat wrote:
| If anyone's interested in learning more about human intelligence
| I'd highly recommend the bell curve by Richard Herrnstein and
| Charles Murray. It basically follows the NLSY and looks at how IQ
| varies from person to person and how that impacts that persons
| life. The book itself is a bit old however that's still arguably
| the best, most comprehensive study we've done on IQ
| skybrian wrote:
| It's interesting how much of an image can be missing if it gets
| the overall vibe right. I guessed immediately that these images
| were all computer-generated, but they still looked "okay." I
| certainly didn't notice that the bike had no handlebars, because
| there was a blob that could sort of be handlebars, maybe. And the
| missing limbs might just not be visible, maybe?
|
| In part, I think it sort-of-works because artists often make
| abstract images by leaving stuff out. A lot can be wrong with an
| image and it still gets "artistic license" if it looks painted?
|
| It seems similar to GPT-3 generated text, where if you skim it
| looks okay, but if you attempt to really understand the text,
| it's nonsense. (And it's similar for a lot of spam websites these
| days.)
| mikewarot wrote:
| This is a duplicate of
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32799953
| ColinWright wrote:
| I first submitted it at least a day ago, I think probably at
| least three days ago. Clearly it's been put into the "Second
| Chance" pool, because I did _not_ resubmit this.
|
| Mods: You might want to merge the discussions. @dang
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| mikewarot wrote:
| If we use Flowers for Algernon[1] as a model for reasoning about
| levels of intelligence, what's really different about Charlie as
| he progresses through the story is not the nature of his
| intelligence, but simply the depth of his mental stack. Once you
| have access to external means of storing context and knowledge,
| and a deep enough stack to keep the pointers to those contexts
| handy, you can slowly, but surely, grind through anything.
|
| It's possible (but silly) to set up an 8 bit based IMSAI computer
| with access to terabytes of disk space, have it emulate a 64bit
| CPU with loads of RAM, and grind through DALL-E... the state
| space of a 64bit CPU with all of its registers is well within the
| 64k address range of the S-100 bus.
|
| I strongly believe there is nothing I can't learn, eventually.
| Physical skills and grace are another matter, but learning is
| something I think is unlimited for most people, if they're
| curious about the subject.
|
| [1] https://www.sdfo.org/gj/stories/flowersforalgernon.pdf
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I don't agree. It depends on your definition of "learning" and
| "knowledge", I guess, but I think there's a big difference
| between types of knowledge to be acquired, some of which simply
| cannot be achieved via computation.
|
| For example, a person could probably easily devise an algorithm
| to compute what a "y" value must be for a given (x,y) pair on a
| coordinate plane by successively applying additions to each
| previous input (similar to how you would implement a fibonacci
| sequence). You could graph lines this way. But with an insight
| that this potentially infinite task can be represented so
| concisely as f(x) = mx + b will take all this work out of your
| hands... That's not something that you necessarily would ever
| learn by performing any amount of computation.
|
| To achieve this insight, you have to have somehow risen above
| the level of base computation to an abstraction. For things
| that someone else has already figured out, sure, you could
| always expand on their work forever.
| toss1 wrote:
| >>not the nature of his intelligence, but simply the depth of
| his mental stack.
|
| Excellent observation
|
| In an experiment on spiders that I found very enlightening, the
| experimenter placed some desirable food on one (small)
| platform, and the spider on another perch, and there was a 3D
| maze of links that the spider could use to get to the food, but
| only one proper path. The spiders sat for around two hours,
| then used the exactly correct path to reach the goal. The
| researchers figured that they were using their tiny memory to
| just grind through the options until they found the right path,
| then went for it.
|
| I've found this fascinating and oddly inspiring ever since I
| read about the study; I'm sorry I can't find it now to link
| here.
| dTal wrote:
| Note that those would have been some species of Portia
| (jumping spiders), known both for their unusual visual acuity
| and extraordinary intelligence. Most spiders can't do that.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| >I strongly believe there is nothing I can't learn, eventually.
|
| Well that's the crux isn't it? If some prodigy can learn QFT
| before the age of 13 they have a lifetime to go beyond those
| concepts. But if it takes you 50 years to learn you don't have
| enough time to go beyond that. That's a fundamental piece of
| intelligence, the speed you can lean at.
| toss1 wrote:
| Which is why it is said that, if we do it right, we "stand on
| the shoulders of giants". E.g., we don't each need to
| reinvent calculus, Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz did
| that already...
|
| [Edit typo: of/if]
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Except that if you started that old CPU 40 years ago a modern
| CPU would be developed years later and then started, then woild
| quickly overtake the depth to which your old CPU could have
| ground the problem to. Yes you can learn anything given time,
| but you will die before that.
| jsharf wrote:
| The notion of a "deep enough stack to keep the pointers to
| those context handy" depends on the complexity of what you're
| learning. If the task at hand has a large enough memory demand,
| then you might find yourself "swapping" to external storage too
| frequently, and someone with even a slightly better working
| memory might not have to -- they'll probably be able to learn
| much faster.
|
| That being said, this is an opportunity, not a problem -- if
| they learned something, they can probably explain the concept
| to you much more efficiently and help you learn as well. Some
| of the best learning resources online are informally written
| blogs :)
| ColinWright wrote:
| There's an interesting bit in Chocky[0] where Matthew, Chocky's
| "host", (hereinafter "M/C") asks his father, on behalf of
| Chocky:
|
| "Why do cows stop?"
|
| M/C has noticed that the cows have seen the farmer open the
| gate to let them through hundreds of times, and they seem to
| want to go through, but seem unable to work out how to open the
| gate for themselves. M/C argues that intelligence shouldn't be
| limited, and you should just be able to build and build and
| build forever. But the cows don't seem able to do that.
|
| In Pure Maths we know that we can have strictly increasing
| sequences that are unbounded above, but we can also have
| strictly increasing sequences that are bounded. How do we know
| intelligence (by analogy) is the former, and not the latter?
|
| More, some sequences grow incredibly slowly, and maybe we are
| limited _in practice_ even if not limited _in theory_.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocky
| jbotz wrote:
| Right, and all digital computers are Turing Machines. See also
| Stephen Wolfram's Principle of Computational Equivalence[1].
|
| There can be, and are theories that no one human brain can ever
| fully understand (like Quantum Mechanics) and yet we have
| developed them... no one person did, but they emerged from the
| combined work and brain power of many people _and_ the tools
| they used, be those pure mathematics or (nowadays) Google, AI,
| computer proof assistants. That 's why even Richard Feynman
| said no one ever really understands QM, one just kind of gets
| used to the way the math gives the right answers[2].
|
| A single human brain could never have developed QM, but combine
| a large number of them and the right tools, and I don't see any
| reason why there should be "hard limits to knowledge" any more
| than there's a limit to what a turing machine can compute given
| enough time (and a long enough tape).
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science#Principl...
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAgcqgDc-YM
| ztutz wrote:
| Turing machines were invented to demonstrate the limits of
| computation. QM is fully described by math, hence computable.
| Not sure what point you are making?
| Vox_Leone wrote:
| That the essential nature of reality eludes us is evidenced by
| the way in which we develop our own simulation of the universe
| via Artificial Intelligence.
|
| Our models are a crude - albeit based on initially valid
| principles - representation of thought processes. While we can
| get interesting results from our cargo cultish approach to
| thinking [much like a cargo cult representation of an airplane
| can fly briefly if thrown off a cliff] we are clearly off
| course in our quest.
|
| Our intelligence was developed through the senses, and this
| simple fact is not considered by those who make artificial
| intelligence. We do not feed our models with information from
| the senses. We use models to recognize images that were not
| acquired by the senses.
|
| I work in an approach in which artificial intelligence is
| acquired through an evolutionary process, with sensors [image,
| acoustic, pressure, chemical] capturing -human - reality in
| real time, and processing it without having to solve a specific
| problem. In short, a model of reality recognition, in which
| each frame of reality is transformed into tensors, and each new
| frame is the result of the recognition and is weighted by the
| previous frame. That would be a closer mimicking of the human
| learning.
|
| When - human like - intelligence emerges from this system, it
| can then be used for practical purposes.
|
| Edited for clarity
| leesec wrote:
| This sounds wholy wrong to me. What do you mean there is
| nothing you can't learn? What about all of the states of a
| chessboard. Or even the best move of a given position. Humans
| will never compete with a computer in this capacity. We
| absolutely do not have an infinite space to store things in our
| brain
| mikewarot wrote:
| I certainly can learn all the rules of chess. I know most of
| them already. It's not unknowable. Knowing how things work is
| what I was talking about, not out-computing a computer.
| colineartheta wrote:
| I like your perspective, as well as some of the points other
| commentors have made in response to your own. However, there is
| one point you make that I disagree/question - is a physical
| skill and grace not also a form of knowing? The human body and
| brain are intrinsically connected "machines" (not a
| term/concept I love, but for want of a better one...) and so
| their knowing and learning must surely be tied together. But,
| larger than this yet so interconnected - is this aspect of our
| being not also where we experience our first limitations? And
| if so, then wouldn't that imply limitations to our purely
| cognitive experience? For example: I can swim (a physical
| skill), but due to pure bodily limitations (height, arm/leg
| span, etc.) will never be an Olympian (a physical achievement).
| Surely, you and I could be taught how to and practice as we
| would attempt to learn, but still likely never achieve the
| grace of a ballerina, possibly regardless of the age at which
| we begin. And so - how is it that this "failure"/limitation
| could not also be applied to the cognitive? Isn't also likely
| that our own intelligence could have similar limitations that
| we perhaps aren't even aware of, for how would we measure?
| Again, just positing some questions your comment brought to
| mind; in particular, I appreciate the idea of the depth of
| mental "stack" being the quality of measurement that matters in
| differentiating intelligence levels. And so now: to find the
| physical stack, which in this case is both metaphorical and
| real (for the weight lifters out there, anyway).
| generalizations wrote:
| You've essentially asserted that the human brain is turing
| complete. I don't disagree with you.
|
| However, the problem that I see is computational time. Just
| like that 8bit computer, if your mind is sufficiently limited,
| you don't have the lifespan to learn certain things.
|
| Which incidentally implies that there may, legitimately, be
| things that old people have learned that we are simply
| incapable of understanding before we reach old age.
| aortega wrote:
| >However, the problem that I see is computational time.
|
| We arrived quickly to the conclusion that intelligence is
| mostly speed, that I think is the correct definition.
|
| IQ tests have a time limit. Increase the limit, and anybody
| would increase their IQ score. With a infinite time limit,
| you likely would have an perfect IQ score. So what does an IQ
| test measure? it measures how fast can you complete a series
| of tasks, that is, it measures your speed, because
| intelligence is speed.
| mikewarot wrote:
| I've finished plenty of tests before time was up. The limit
| on time is NOT a limiting factor for most people, at least
| it wasn't when I went to school 4 decades ago.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| I often finish tests long before the time limit is up,
| for a variety of reasons, but I can't think of any time
| where the results took that into account. Should it? (IMO
| yes, but that gets difficult to account for)
| csdvrx wrote:
| "Is it a lucky coincidence that mathematical and physical reality
| can be formulated in terms of our current cognitive abilities, or
| is it just that, tautologically, we cannot conceive of any
| aspects of mathematical and physical reality that cannot be
| formulated in terms of our cognitive capabilities?"
|
| This nails it.
|
| Also, I have a simpler take: we acknowledge the limits of our
| perceptions (ex: can't see behind your head) and we have studied
| them in detail (ex: blind spot in the eye, where the optic nerve
| goes) but we haven't done nearly as much for our cognition. Why?
| mistermann wrote:
| > Also, I have a simpler take: we acknowledge the limits of our
| perceptions (ex: can't see behind your head) and we have
| studied them in detail (ex: blind spot in the eye, where the
| optic nerve goes)
|
| _To some degree_.
|
| > but we haven't done nearly as much for our cognition. Why?
|
| Observe the variety of things that happen when individual
| instances of cognition are criticized, and consider whether
| some of them may introduce limitations into The System. For
| potential greater efficiency, constrain your study only to
| ~smart people rather than focusing on idiots, which seems to
| _irresistibly_ draw our attention.
| knorker wrote:
| With one caveat: We can understand things without understanding
| them. You can understand the steps without understanding the
| why.
|
| My favorite example:
|
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1914
|
| So a question can be "can we create a model we don't really
| understand?". For which the answer is partially yes, since
| nobody can visualize 4D, but we can math it.
|
| But yes, maybe there are indivisible mental building blocks we
| can't even understand. Flatland comes to mind.
| gjm11 wrote:
| I'm not sure that's really an example of "understanding the
| steps without understanding the why". I'd say it's an example
| where there's no more to "understanding the why" than
| "understanding the steps", and the only actual problem is the
| _expectation_ that something you can describe fairly simply
| ought to have a proof that doesn 't require any calculation.
| knorker wrote:
| The comic? That's not how I read it. To me it's exactly
| that you have all the pieces, all the steps, but still find
| it completely unreasonable that it works.
|
| > the only actual problem is the expectation that something
| you can describe fairly simply ought to have a proof that
| doesn't require any calculation.
|
| No, to me it's not like that. It's easy to explain that the
| "angle" of a graph of ln x is 1/x, but after you've
| explained calculus to someone, and they understand it, they
| will NOT say "but why?".
|
| I'm also not sure why anyone would expect a proof of a math
| trick to not involve math or calculation.
| gjm11 wrote:
| Hmm. I thought what the comic was aiming at was not
|
| "Even though I have seen a proof, I still cannot really
| believe that it works"
|
| but
|
| "Even though I have seen a proof, I don't feel that I
| fully understand why it works"
|
| and I think the latter is because (so far as I can
| currently tell) there isn't any simple way to see _at a
| glance_ that it works. You just have to do the
| calculation.
|
| (I am not sure whether I am actually disagreeing with you
| here. It depends on what you mean by "completely
| unreasonable". I would not, personally, at all say that
| it feels completely unreasonable that the algorithm
| works.)
|
| Compare, e.g., a different multiplication algorithm:
| "Russian peasant multiplication", the thing with the
| doubling and halving. (Look it up if not familiar.) This
| is another technique where at first glance you might be
| completely baffled. But with this one, you _can_ , once
| you understand what's going on, pretty much see at a
| glance how and why it works. (It's just binary. The
| halving and checking for remainder delivers the bits of
| one number, least significant first. The doubling gives
| you the other number times powers of 2, starting from 1.
| You add the 2^k.n values corresponding to bits 2^k
| present in the binary representation of m.)
|
| You could write that explanation out in a form that looks
| like calculation, but I don't think you should. Once you
| see the _idea_ behind it, the only need for the
| calculation is to verify that there isn 't an off-by-one
| error or something.
|
| In contrast, for the Polish hand thing, there isn't (so
| far as I know) an explanation that doesn't involve
| calculation, and (for me) the calculation is a bit too
| big to fit comfortably in my working memory. So there's
| the sense of "I can see that this is right but I can't
| see it _at a glance_ , even though the thing it's proving
| is rather simple", and that's the nearest thing I have to
| a "but whyyyyyyy?" reaction.
|
| For me (as for you) d/dx log x = 1/x doesn't provoke the
| same reaction, and I think there are two reasons. 1. The
| thing being proved is a bit less elementary so there's
| not so much temptation to expect something "obvious". 2.
| The explanation isn't very calculation-heavy; to whatever
| extent you understand it, what you've got is a series of
| basically-simple steps leading to the conclusion. (For
| instance, if you're happy to start from d/dx exp x = exp
| x, then you really _can_ see at a glance that d /dx log x
| = 1/x, because since log and exp are one another's
| inverses their graphs are one another's reflections in
| the line y=x. No calculation at all required.)
| NoToP wrote:
| There's a complete opposite possibility that the rules of the
| universe are computational, and that our math seems suited to
| represent it all because any system complex enough to require a
| turing machine to parse is capable of representing anything and
| everything within our turing-machine-equivlant universe. In
| this case, there is no cognitive blind spot, we really are
| seeing it all.
| blackbear_ wrote:
| What kind of hypothesis and experiment would you set up to
| explore that?
| goatlover wrote:
| The philosopher Colin McGinn has suggested that certain
| philosophical questions which have gone unanswered despite much
| attention are evidence for human cognitive limitations. He
| calls this cognitive closure. The nature of consciousness being
| one such example.
| philipov wrote:
| Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, though. We
| have had other questions that have sat unanswered for
| centuries that had a breakthrough and were figured out when
| the time was right. The answer might just be eluding us
| because there are other questions we need to solve first.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence
| bumby wrote:
| How would you relate that to the OP's example of the nature
| of consciousness?
|
| The hard problem of consciousness seems particularly suited
| to avoid the mechanisms that "we" "know" anything (e.g.,
| objective evidence and the scientific method).
| the_af wrote:
| From your link:
|
| > _Despite what the expression may seem to imply, a lack of
| evidence can be informative. For example, when testing a
| new drug, if no harmful effects are observed then this
| suggests that the drug is safe._
|
| Evidence of absence is at least a non-arbitrary but partial
| suggestion of absence.
| mistermann wrote:
| > Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, though.
|
| It is evidence for it, but not proof.
|
| There's an essay somewhere out there go into more detail on
| the matter.
|
| Relevant to the article: is meme-based cognition net
| beneficial or harmful? What if examined across different
| dimensions?
|
| Also: is it still net beneficial that humanity invests most
| of its resources in studying physical reality, or might
| studying metaphysical reality generate a larger return on
| investment?
|
| Might there be a way to ~trick humanity into _being able
| to_ discuss such ideas _in a serious manner_?
| optimalsolver wrote:
| How would you distinguish cognitive limitations from having
| insufficient data?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Thoughts that come to mind as I read:
|
| - why has increased energy availability stopped increasing
| cognitive ability in the massive leaps it used to?
|
| - I definitely know there are things that I struggle to grok that
| a few people rapidly do, and there are things that I rapidly grok
| that others fail to - and often this appears monotonically so
| general intelligence appears real
|
| - is modern intelligence just the result of sufficiently diverse
| training? i.e. do we have similar brains to our ancient ancestors
| just with far superior stimulation?
|
| - I suspect that all sorts of models will arise from the same
| base machine (our brains) scaled up (more neurons with more
| density and more energy). It's likely that physical constraints -
| energy use, mother birth canal - are bigger determiners since we
| have decoupled high intelligence from gener survival now
|
| - I find the simulation discussion tiresome. It seems
| masturbatory because it is so indulgent but does not advance
| thought. No one ever provides future hypotheses that are useful
| from a sim perspective or future thought experiments that go
| anywhere or testable experiments. I think the sim theory is a
| philosophical dead end and we'll conclude that one day.
|
| - If new cognition is needed, is it possible from the brain
| scale-up I mentioned before? Or is it like an aleph0 to aleph1
| transition? I suspect there is a Turing completeness to cognition
| - in that there are some base laws which makes access to all math
| possible.
|
| - however, if scale-up is possible and if math is all accessible,
| we could imagine set-sets who are specialized optimized
| intelligence. Does the general absence of these imply that we
| haven't yet decoupled general intelligence from individual
| outcome?
|
| - I don't think direct experimentation on the limits of our
| intelligence will yield any outcome. I do think that we will
| eventually invent either biological or electronic super
| intelligences and this will likely result in conclusions that
| reveal something here.
|
| - I do notice that on psychedelics I become more susceptible to
| the idea that there is some greater truth out there that I'm just
| barely missing but considering that I never produce anything from
| that - perhaps this Missing Greater Truth feeling is actually a
| lesser form of consciousness - I.e. it's what you get when you
| leave intelligence and full consciousness behind. It's what
| bootstraps things. Anyway, I subscribe to that side because I
| find a slightly losing-myself feeling when I attempt to fully
| chase the "ideas I can't hold" concept.
| sinenomine wrote:
| I like the questions, esp. this one:
|
| > If new cognition is needed, is it possible from the brain
| scale-up I mentioned before? Or is it like an aleph0 to aleph1
| transition? I suspect there is a Turing completeness to
| cognition - in that there are some base laws which makes access
| to all math possible.
|
| There is indirect evidence from multiple studies of ML models
| and animal intelligence pointing in the direction of "scaling
| up is good for intelligence, if your system isn't limited by
| global connectivity too much".
|
| If you want to know more, see https://www.gwern.net/Scaling-
| hypothesis and Haier's The Neuroscience of Intelligence.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I follow Gwern's Twitter but I must have missed that. Thanks
| for the two recommendations.
| sukruh wrote:
| The brain is a biological organ, and like all other biological
| organs it has its limits. A human heart can only pump a certain
| amount of blood per minute. A human liver can only perform
| certain chemical reactions. The brains's limits in mental
| arithmetic or memorization are obvious, but is its ability to
| form and understand abstractions also limited?
|
| A dog will never understand how a credit card works. Are there
| concepts that our human brains are biologically incapable of
| understanding? Maybe some of the current philosophical questions
| like consciousness or the illusive appearance of free will are
| beyond our limits.
|
| I wish I knew more about computability, decidability, the
| Incompleteness Theorem etc to think further about this.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| " The brains's limits in mental arithmetic or memorization are
| obvious"
|
| Those limits are pretty high up, though, given the incredible
| performances of math savants:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercalculia
|
| Safe to say that most of us are nowhere near those limits.
| astrobe_ wrote:
| > Are there concepts that our human brains are biologically
| incapable of understanding
|
| As silly as it sounds: UFOs. Chasing UFOs with jet-fighters is
| probably as silly as a dog eating a credit card.
|
| To be clear, I don't imply that UFOs exist. Science says "I
| don't know" for the few serious cases that are still unsolved,
| and that's my answer too.
| andorov wrote:
| We can't even fully understand chess (or even checkers), in the
| way that we can completely understand tic-tac-toe.
| glitchc wrote:
| This refrain has been repeated through time immemorial,
| stretching as far back as the ancient Mediterranean, Chinese and
| Vedic cultures. They have consistently been wrong.
|
| Ergo, the conclusion I draw is that if there is a limit to human
| intelligence, we are not even close to it.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Knowledge or intelligence ?
| x86x87 wrote:
| I believe that humans and human intelligence is pretty limited.
|
| We are overcoming our limitations by using abstractions and
| tools. People today are not significant smarter than people
| 5000 years ago. We just have better tools which allow us to
| create better tech which in turn allows us to create better
| tools. And we keep going.
| ngvrnd wrote:
| "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen." L.
| Wittgenstein
| eyeundersand wrote:
| "Whereof one can not speak, thereof one must be silent."
|
| (per google translate)
| peterweyand wrote:
| To anyone interested I wrote a small paper on this and I'm
| looking around for commentary. It's mostly a philosophy paper,
| but it considers AI as well. I then go on to discuss moral and
| ethical questions.
|
| Here's a link to the latest draft. I don't know that it will ever
| be good enough to be an academic paper, but maybe someone will
| find it entertaining.
|
| Always looking for any substantive commentary. I'd be incredibly
| interested to know if anyone thought there might be a way to
| model A^ using a neural network that satisfied the conditions in
| the paper.
|
| https://www.dropbox.com/s/uveu8eiq2snsojs/Sep12Noon.pdf?dl=0
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