Hrvoje1

OK, thanks wtf. I have probably misrepresented the theory from that paper a bit, so let me please rephrase my question. Is permutation the essence of reversible computation? Can reversible computation always be reduced to a permutation, ie be performed by it?

Check this out: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4309123/#idm140111704079712title Here it says: A reversible computation ℭΠ(S) is the task of performing, with or without side-effects, a permutation Π over some set S of at least two possible attributes of some substrate

Can computation always be reduced to permutation of certain states of a certain subtrate, or be performed by permutation of these, in every possible model of computation, classical or quantum? Or is it too general statement?

When I say that my PC has memory, I don't consider that neither a metaphor, nor anthropomorphism. It merely means it can store information. It is not "ascribing a human capability to an inanimate object" that it actually doesn't have, it is describing its capability that is real and literal, and not metaphorical in any way. Pretty much every regular person that I know thinks that way. Molecules have the same capability, they can store information, and that information can have causal power, such as in case of DNA. There is no logic whatsoever that inanimate object can have such capability only if some lunatic attributes human property to it, it can only be the other way around. Living beings can have such capabilities exactly because they are implementable into inanimate objects too. Negating that, is vitalism. If that irritates you, it is your problem, and there is no redefining of words here. I don't know why machine learning system cannot know things it learned. Is it because it forgets too easily? I bet you didn't forget that you admitted how nonsensical that sounds, when you said: "Granted."

This is a fallacy of (intentional) wrong analogy. Because my argument is not equivalent to that, in fact there is no resemblance at all. I would ask you to name something that can learn and cannot know, if I didn't know that you are just continuing, for the sake of arguing.

In that quote there is no mentioning of "machine learning". It says that anything capable of learning, should be capable of knowing, because knowing is a result of learning. It is a pure logic. I'm sorry if that insults you.

I didn't say that the definition of "anthropomorphic" includes "exclusively". I just said that it is arrogant to use "anthropomorphic" for attributes that are not exclusively human. Because, if you told Descartes a few hundred years ago that animals can think, and that chimpanzee is superior to human in short term memory, he would have thought that you are crazy. Because, he knew nothing better, although he was a genius. And traces of such a mindset are present to these days, in this thread particularly.

What twisted definition? Give me one example.

Who cares what humans have? Why do you have to compare everything with humans, if the same characteristic exists elsewhere? The arrogance is exactly in the fact that people don't recognize it elsewhere in nature, that is the problem.

There is nothing wrong with my logic, just don't get too distressed. You are not saying that humans have legs, you are labeling someone's claim anthropomorphic, who says about something that is not so obvious that it might have legs, that it have legs. It's not the same thing. If you can compare it with any other animal with legs, why saying it is anthropomorphic? It is not. It is a well established terminology in that domain, that has nothing to do with fables.

If you don't know, and you are aware of it, then study things a bit first, and then return for discussion, please. See my previous reply. Book of rules does not contain strategies on how to apply rules successfully to beat your opponent, that is something Alpha Zero came up with by itself. And if it can beat the best human player thousand times, out of thousand games played, using these strategies that humans don't understand, then it understands that game better. Is that good enough definition for you? I am not saying it's not, I just gave another example of molecules storing information. If they can store information, they implement memory. We agree on definition, you just didn't understand what was my objection to its usage, I apologize if I was unclear.

I am not talking about fables here, Aesop, La Fontaine and similar authors, there is nothing silly about them, or anthropomorphism in that context. Saying however that molecules having memory or knowledge is anthropomorphic, is silly, and this myth should be debunked, because there is nothing anthropomorphic in that claim. Not just that, take for example this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_digital_data_storage And you don't have to consider human manipulation with DNA at all. DNA is natural cell's memory that stores genetic information, which is information with causal power, which is according to David Deutsch, knowledge. That is his current working definition of knowledge. Anything capable of learning, should be capable of knowing, because knowing is a result of learning. OK? There is nothing specifically technical about it. Bad logic of yours. That is not the case with Alpha Zero. It created knowledge by itself. It is relevant, because labeling some claims that attribute knowledge to something else than humans as anthropomorphism, means that you don't allow anything else but humans to have that property.

My general point is that human is not the only being capable of gaining knowledge. Nobody objected (yet) to the claim that every living being is capable too, that is more or less conditio sine qua non of survival. Then you objected to the claim that non living things are able too, at least without distorting the meaning of the word (which we did not define precisely yet), and then you stepped back with respect to artificial intelligence, that is obviously capable to achieve knowledge superior to human's, autonomously, and to store it to its neural network, such as in case of Alpha Zero. And now, rare are people who dispute that that NN understands better these games that it plays (chess, go and shogi), than human players, because there is simple test for that. But you are still not convinced about enzymes that synthesize proteins, how would one dare to say that these molecules "know" how to synthesize proteins? Well, they do, because, if living entities can gain knowledge, and non living objects cannot, and you believe in sharp delineation between them with respect that ability, then you are vitalist. There is no sharp delineation between living and non living in general, virus is just one example, that's why it cannot be with respect to that, too. There must always be something in non living world that enables implementation of any characteristic of life in living beings (ability to possess knowledge is just one of them). If that's not true, then people will never manage to produce artificial life, and natural life must have arose supernaturally. And I don't believe that's true. Do you? Funny thing is that human knowledge how to make synthetic proteins from scratch is maybe still inferior, and we still may be producing proteins only with our bodies, but if you follow scientific reports about it, you will see that things are going in the exactly opposite direction with respect to that, than in case of AI, and we will soon be able to produce it in labs. In case of playing strategic games, our ability slowly became more and more inferior to that of machines, but in case of producing proteins and DNA, our ability slowly becomes less and less inferior to those of these complex molecules. The subject of that topic were catalysts, and not homeopathy. The subject of this thread is to debunk silly myth of anthropomorphism.

It is, if you bring out another kind of crackpottery in the process.

No, this is another thread about the foolishness of anthropocentrism. One instance of it is using the term anthropomorphism, without any reason or justification. I mean, I just explained to you how unreasonable is to talk about anthropomorphism in this case, and you agreed by saying "Granted", and there you go again.

Nonsense. I would say that if machine is capable of learning, it should be capable of knowing. Besides that, the enzymes that are capable of synthesizing certain kind of protein, are able to do so due to the information they are provided with, by DNA. If I had to choose consequently the word to describe that their ability to do their work, that would not be energy, that would be knowledge. And the enzymes are not living entities, they are just molecules, molecular machines capable of utilizing information. No, it is only bad when it is mentioned, and there is no sign of it. Such as in mississippichem case.

I noticed an interesting topic here : https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/15375-how-do-catalysts-work/ There was a guy RBS who had some funny ideas about explaining how catalysts work, which I didn't follow or investigate where they lead, I believe to India, according to names he mentioned, but nevertheless, there were some ridiculous reactions to his writing, such as by mooeypoo and mississippichem. Regardless of how substantiated was anything that RBS wrote, claiming that there is anything "anthropomorphic" about "knowledge" is just a plain and utter BS. I hope I don't have to prove to anyone here that anything living can possess knowledge, but if I have to, I can, and the more important point is that non living things can too, without much twisting of the definition of the term knowledge. Second point is that claiming that "knowledge" is not "beyond" "matter" is also problematic, because that is actually true, it is just not true that "knowledge" is "beyond" "nature". Knowledge is connected to information, and its instantiation is "beyond" the material substrates in which it is instantiated. OK, maybe "beyond" is not the right term here, but to instantiation of information, material substrate in which that occurs, is definitely irrelevant. So, I am not surprised RBS didn't post any more on this forum after that.

He wrote there much more than just these two words that I mentioned, which all determine his writing style, which is insignificant to me. However, his style of expressing of key ideas, and their uncritical acceptance by others, deserves criticism.

As I said, about accepting ideas without sufficient criticism. When you talk about natural selection, what does it have to do with Darwin's writing? You may be an eloquent speaker or a lousy one, but the redundant expression that you transmit is always unnecessary and bad.

It would be interesting to know would apes in that hypothetical case on their evolutionary path to a dominant species that at the end develops artificial self-reproducible intelligent conscious machines in their own image and likeness, necessarily acquire selective breeding at certain point in time as we did, and as an indicator of something, I guess their special role on Earth, at that moment? I watched a lot of documentaries about animal intelligence recently, and I was always irritated by the fact how biologists get surprised each and every time when they discover something they presumed only homo sapiens can do. I mean, how can they be not embarrassed at all while they admit that much arrogance in their anthropocentric views at nature? I was never that biased, although I never had that much resources at disposal to observe all fascinating creatures of this world, and I am surely less biased regarding natural intelligence (animal or plant) than Darwin, who thought he has to single out human selective breeding as something special in nature. Besides that, the question about apes is totally rhetorical, since in case of human self destruction, apes would most likely be destroyed too, however, robots may "survive" it... In fact, in all our great wisdom, we already managed to destroy apes and their habitat, while we still live in illusion we will not destroy us. And to answer studiot, my objection to style was never directed towards someone's writing, Darwin's or anyone else, especially Darwin's since I did not read his papers, but towards passing the ideas without sufficient criticism, and towards redundant expressions in science in general, I can mention some other examples if you want.

@studiot Generally speaking, there is a merit in reading original scientific papers, and I see your effort to study Darwin's work thoroughly, but I think I should be much more into it, to start reading all his stuff, and I think I have decent picture about his ideas without it, from numerous indirect sources. @Sensei The work of Japanese scientists was already familiar to me, I watched not only that, but some other videos on youtube about it. And I was impressed both by their work and chimp abilities, although not surprised, because I think I am less biased than an average person (at least in my neighbourhood) when judging about animal intelligence. There can be other not yet revealed mental capabilities of chimpanzee's that are also superior to human's. But still, to produce general artificial intelligence, and artificial life, only a human is capable of, at least at this moment on Earth. If we destroy each other in a nuclear war, and they miraculously survive, then perhaps planet of the apes scenario might happen after millions of years, who knows.

What exactly did you mean by that? Please be more concrete.

OK, so, homo sapiens is perversely cunning species, capable of devising exceptional strategies. Already changing from hunter-gatherer to farmer-pastoralist is a big step, that is agricultural revolution, that abandoned foraging as main strategy and established domesticating instead. And from there to selecting and selective breeding is actually much smaller, and natural step. The question is, are these strategies so unnatural, that they deserve the attribute "artificial"? And is it natural to devise a theory, that was supposed to remind the human kind alienated and distanced from nature, that we are part of that nature, that we have common ancestors with other species, and that there is no sharp delineation between "us and them", and then to insist on distinction between the selection that we do and that they do? What's the point? And did you ever see monkeys producing artificially intelligent self-reproducible robots in the image and likeness of monkey? How do you explain that? What is the cause of that difference between human and monkey, and is that more or less impressive difference than selective breeding vs just choosing the fruit for eating, and shitting around to spread its pits or seeds.

I believe they can be selective in eating, mating, and in other activities, based on the output they want to reach. But since you insist so much on homo sapiens being so special, let me pose back a question to you, provoked by Sensei's question. Let's say people produce one day general artificial intelligence and implement it into self reproducible robots, and build into them instructions to obey three Asimov laws. Only humans can do it, not monkeys or dogs, they are not sufficiently intelligent to produce artificial intelligence, they can only produce natural intelligence (offspring), by self-reproducing, as any other species does. But man is special with respect to that, much more than when he does selective breeding. Is it because, unlike monkey or dog, man was made in the image and likeness of God? Just as, unlike watch, or TV, or a pocket calculator, self reproductive robot with general intelligence will be made in the image and likeness of Man? And let's say that we produce robots so that they cannot perceive us. Or that we disappear in nuclear war, after we produced them. How could one robot prove to another the existence of Man, in that case?

Or, perhaps I should have said just animals, instead of “other animals” there.