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Comment by swid | Hacker News Reader

The argument that deep network algorithms are just matrix operations is not compelling to me as a reason we aren’t getting there…

I believe two things:

-1. the universe itself operates on mostly simple rules which can be simulated to high enough precision on hardware to approach what happens in the real world. If we can simulate nuclear reactions, we can simulate consciousness, and that will result in real consciousness. The simulated entity will believe all the same things as a real one. And there are likely huge shortcuts we can use to optimize so we aren’t simulating a whole brain or person. Maybe matrix math is all you need.

- 2. I don’t know how to build consciousness, but I believe wherever it exists in the universe, some kind of interconnected network like we find in the brain or neutral networks will exist at its foundation.

Given this, I don’t think it’s crazy to say we are making in roads to sentience.

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> 1… If we can simulate nuclear reactions, we can simulate consciousness, and that will result in real consciousness

Why do you think this? What other simulations are the same thing as what they’re simulating?

Based on observation of lots of these discussions, I also think people who don’t have much experience writing simulations miss the nuances involved. What is it to “simulate nuclear reactions”? It’s entirely context dependent on the problem you’re trying to answer. If you’re trying to predict statistical behavior of a system, doable; if you’re trying to actually predict when a particular atom splits and which way the neutrons fly… no.

> 2… [Consciousness rests on] some kind of interconnected network like neural networks.

When is a computerized neural network aka a collection of tensors in RAM a network? When you’re not processing a tensor actively, there is no network. When the CPU suspends your hypothetically conscious neural network to move processing between cores and GPU, where does the consciousness go? Where does the network go?

1) I used nuclear reactions just as a fill in to say it should be possible to simulate matter with close enough approximation to facilitate thought. This was posited in "A New Kind of Math" which suggests there is a thing as "computation equivalence", which is a theory I mostly subscribe to. If we wanted to simulate a human naively, we would probably only care about biochemical reactions at earth like temps, not nuclear or quantum physics.

2) I’m not sure matrix math is sufficient, but let’s ignore that because I feel some kind of math is sufficient, and any computer program will have the same question apply. I also feel the universe might be the most efficient computer in time and space, which means we aren’t living in a simulation, because the computer would be bigger and run time slower than the reality it simulates.

- I don’t think it matters where the network is in reality. Virtual is fine. In a mostly perfect simulation of reality (let say enough to accurately model biochemical processes), there will be some state of the program, and for something living in the simulation, they will feel alive if they are complex enough.

They will experience time differently than we do, but they will arrive at their own conclusions as part of the simulation.

> I used nuclear reactions just as a fill in to say it should be possible to simulate matter with close enough approximation to facilitate thought.

If we can use Quantum Computers to hugely accelerate some calculations, then you can't use regular computers to accurately simulate nuclear reactions in a reasonable time frame.

Reasonable time frame is not a requirement of the argument I was trying to make. I’m saying that there is nothing inherently missing from a silicon based computer or Turing complete language to support human level intelligence.

>If we can simulate nuclear reactions, we can simulate consciousness, and that will result in real consciousness.

Nuclear -> consciousness doesn't really follow, especially when any simulations of nuclear reactions are founded in an extremely more comprehensive understanding of nuclear physics than we have of consciousness.

Next, the implication of simulation -> creation, when applied consistently to you example, is that simulating a nuclear reaction sufficiently well could produce an actual nuclear reaction, but I doubt anyone is going to fat-finger the next Chernobyl by screwing up a simulation.

It may be entirely possible that the tools needed to create a consciousness are as different from those needed to simulate one as are the tools needed to simulate a nuclear reaction from those needed make one.

I don’t quite get this simulation/execution distinction. Consciousness is a function, not an entity. To simulate a function is precisely to execute it. There’s no meaningful distinction whatever. (It’s the second-order distinction between simulating/executing an x86 processor in the abstract, vs simulating/executing a specific identified Intel chip product, if you like.)

I think the issue is that the word "simulation", when applied to a nuclear reaction, means something very different than when applied to consciousness, and that creates confusion. If we simulate consciousness then, well, it's really not quite a simulation, it's the thing itself. A better term might be "artificial". The simulation, as with x86, is of the hardware or conditions that allow the function to be executed and not the function itself.

In this sense of things, a nuclear reaction isn't a function in the same way that consciousness is a function.

Simpsons did it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n23oapBEao

Regarding consciousness: we don't know how consciousness is implemented in the brain, that's true, but we might be able to implement it quite easily in a computer.

I'm not sure if there is definition of consciousness everyone agree on, but let's try something: consciousness is the ability to perceive our own thoughts. Consciousness matters a lot because it allows reflexiveness. Sometimes we use it as scientific definition of "soul" as in sentences like: "upload your consciousness" (from believers of Singularity)

Decartes' "I think therefore I am" should be rephrase as "I perceive I think therefore I am"

The perception of own thoughts is not something difficult for a computer. Just check the activity monitor or run the ps command.

We might a attribute too much importance to consciousness because without it we don't know we think.

We can run profilers and debuggers on themselves. We can imagine a model taking as input its own internal data. Doesn't seem a big deal...

> I'm not sure if there is definition of consciousness everyone agree on, but let's try something: consciousness is the ability to perceive our own thoughts.

Since you seem to be treating 'thought' metaphorically, how about we say that consciousness is the ability to perceive our own feelings?

Are there beings that are conscious that do not have any feelings at all?

By thought I meant "process happening the brain". It is not metaphorical, it's a very concrete physical process. A perception is a particular thought originated directly from a physical phenomenon (eg. pressure on the skin, light on the retina, ...). So when we are conscious we can perceive our perceptions, our "feelings", and any kind of thoughts. We can for sure perceive our own consciousness, we are conscious of being conscious. In the same way the current ps process is in the list of active processes obtained running ps.

Btw: what is a feeling? A particular kind of thought? A emotion maybe? It seems to me that it's a thought which origin is mysterious, unknown, unconscious, ie not conscious.

> By thought I meant "process happening the brain". It is not metaphorical, it's a very concrete physical process.

> The perception of own thoughts is not something difficult for a computer. Just check the activity monitor or run the ps command.

It's not hard for a computer to reference itself, sure, but it perceiving its own thoughts is something else.

> Btw: what is a feeling? A particular kind of thought? A emotion maybe? It seems to me that it's a thought which origin is mysterious, unknown, unconscious, ie not conscious.

I probably should've said emotions. Emotions are more low-level than thoughts. I think that infants can be conscious without thinking at all, so I don't think that thinking is necessary at all for consciousness, yet it probably does color our understanding of what consciousness is.

> Regarding consciousness: we don't know how consciousness is implemented in the brain, that's true, but we might be able to implement it quite easily in a computer.

Do we know that consciousness exists? Have we been able to scientifically prove in humans that "everyone but me" isn't an NPC? Or put another way, isn't the fact of consciousness inherently subjective? It seems like we all accept that humans have Consciousness because we're not narcissists, but no one has actually pinpointed it. This paper for example, defines Consciousness as "not a process in the brain but a kind of behavior that, of course, is controlled by the brain like any other behavior." So I understand how we could implement the ability for a computer to trick a person into thinking they have consciousness, but I don't know that we could go about proving that they actually have consciousness given that we can't identify it in humans, unless we're talking about something very different than humans which we may be given your use of the activity monitor to define perception.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5924785/#:~:tex....

> The perception of own thoughts is not something difficult for a computer. Just check the activity monitor or run the ps command.

I don't know that this is a definition of perception that we could agree upon.

Though I guess one interesting point counter to mine (and I studied psychology, not AI, so I'm thinking about this from a different direction) is what would it mean to define sentience in something so seemingly sophisticated. I perceive that they AI would have to have sort of full blown human experience to be defined as sentient, but of course I might think a hummingbird has feeling and inner experience. The difference being that I expect the standard for AI to be higher because AI sounds like a human. Interesting.

There are plenty of behaviors of complex systems that we still struggle to model accurately. While we may be able to build conscious, sapient entities, I think that accurate modeling of human cognition, especially and individual human's cognition, may well be much, much further off, if at all possible.

While quantum effects may or may not be directly involved in human cognition, the fundemental difficulties getting an accurate measure of brain state may prevent us from doing any more that making a rough copy.

I agree with that - maybe the only practical way to get a human brain map of sufficient detail to fully simulate is to grow it virtually, and maybe this would take too long compared to a human life.

I think it’s just a useful starting point to make the argument it is possible given infinite time and perfect data. Then, we can ask how much can be optimized and how to get the structure needed digitized.

>the universe itself operates on mostly simple rules

It does not. The rules are very complex. Schrodinger's equation is incredibly hard to solve. And we don't even know all the rules or if our current model of the rules is correct.

Simple is an ambiguous term. A simple cell is still very complex by other measures.

No matter how simple or complex, is it possible to implement the rules of simulated universe on a computer? Can biology be simulated (however slowly) on a computer?

I'm going by your definition and example of simulation.

The answer to your question is that it takes a super computer to simulate 5 atoms interacting with each other. And the simulation won't be real time either.

So reality is not "simple" enough to be simulated accurately.

The simulations that do exist are gross simplifications called models and in no way accurate to what's really going on. Those models are usually application specific and are only relatively accurate within that scope.

You can make an argument that human intelligence can be simulated by a application specific model, however your statement of the universe being axiomatically premised in simple rules is categorically wrong.

Simple is ambiguous as I said, people can and do claim anything is simple. So it can’t be categorically wrong. If it’s possible to simulate five atoms, why not more? I’m not placing time or memory bounds on the process.

I linked to a simulation of an artificial cell [1] in a different comment, I’ll toss the link here too. As I said there, this is not the way the universe works, but I think this approach to simulation may support real thought (ignoring time and memory requirements). It supports cell division.

[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/most-complete-simulation-of-a...

You are going off topic. I am simply addressing your claim that the universe is made up of simple rules and saying it's NOT TRUE. I am ignoring the rest of your claims.

I am saying THAT specific claim is incorrect.

Whether it's possible to simulate human intelligence on a computer, it is certainly a viable possibility. I never made a statement agreeing or disagreeing with this. I basically agree so I didn't address THAT part of your claim.

There's actually more compelling evidence for your statement. The IBM blue brain project already did this with part of the rat brain. All this stuff is nothing new though, so it was uninteresting to me. I only addressed the part of your statement that is CATEGORICALLY WRONG.

We are using different definitions of simple. Any equation can be written down and calculated by a Turing machine. By simple I mean computable.

That's a large deviation. But I can see that as a realistic possibility.

Your first stated belief was "the universe itself operates on mostly simple rules which can be simulated to high enough precision on hardware to approach what happens in the real world"

If a simulation takes resources that are exponential in the number of particles then it fails that test. All the stars will die before you manage to calculate anything meaningful in your non-microscopic simulated world.

There's a line between things that take massive resources and things that take nearly-infinite resources. Let's say the line is somewhere around the 'Dyson sphere' range.

The former can be computed on hardware. The latter cannot be computed on hardware.

For the record, I am consistent because I absolutely think it is not possible we live in a simulation, because the immense resources it would take to simulate the large, detailed, world we live in. I don’t think even the most advanced civilizations could build a computer that we live in.

But this is different from if we can simulate some amount reality at all, which I think is possible, and I use that to demonstrate why I think computers can contain human like intelligence in theory. Of course you will see instructions and be unable to tell why it feels alive if you just look at op codes.

Then I do ask, without answering, how much can you omit and still get sentience. You can likely simulate bio chemistry alone and get consciousness. And you may be able to simulate even less than that. Though each reduction would make it easier for a simulated scientist to discover they are simulated.

> But this is different from if we can simulate some amount reality at all, which I think is possible, and I use that to demonstrate why I think computers can contain human like intelligence in theory.

In what kind of theory, though?

In mathematical theory you can use a googol watts. In "things you can do in this universe" theory you can't use a googol watts.

I understand the argument of taking a small accurate simulation as a basis point and extrapolating to a larger simulation. But if you're stuck with exponential complexity, then that extrapolation doesn't work. The demonstration of simulating 5 particles becomes useless. Even if you can massively simplify it, if you can't eliminate the exponential cost you're screwed.

I agree with most of what you are saying; it absolutely applies to physical questions. Whether or not quantum computing can be practical depends on our ability to fight off decoherence in more and more qubits.

But I'm more of a software guy, so it feels fair to ask if Turing completeness enough to simulate reality, and therefore human-like intelligence?

If so, what shortcuts can we take to avoid simulating "everything"?

Consciousness is the result of billions of years of random chance in the form of evolution. We can simulate a nuclear reaction, but our minds can't even conceive of the time scale of a billion years or any of the associated concepts.

"We can do one complicated thing, therefore we can do anything" is a shaky basis for beliefs. It's possible that multiplying matrices can replicate a couple of billion years worth of dice rolls. but I doubt it

I meant something else. If you can perfectly simulate a rock, as it exists in reality, you can also simulate a brain. The universe doesn’t care that the brain produces thoughts.

Thoughts are an emergent property of the network, there is no rule in the universe to treat the brain different. So if we think we can simulate matter, with sufficiently close behavior to reality, than that is already sufficient to produce AGI, and none of the code will look like it provides thinking… it will just look like math/physics.

But we can't perfectly simulate a rock, or a nuclear reaction. Perfect is an extremely high bar here.

It would probably be difficult to simulate a rock sufficiently well to fool someone with the combined skills of a geologist & 3D graphic designer.

I'm not suggesting we can do this today (no universal theory), and I'm not suggesting it is practical in the sense that we can simulate that much amount of matter in a certain amount of time. But I think it's theoretically possible.

There is also the question about how much simulation would be necessary to get approximately real life results that includes consciousness -There was a very detailed simulation of a cell[1], I think that used a library of known chemical interactions. This is not the way the universe works, but such an approach might still simulate life, including people, with enough running time.

[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/most-complete-simulation-of-a...

> But I think it's theoretically possible.

That's an unsubstantiated belief, though.

If we simulate a rock right down to the quantum level - not even remotely possible with foreseeable technology, but let's assume it is - you don't end up with an actual rock in the physical universe. You end up with a model of a rock. There are important properties that it's missing due to not having a direct physical embodiment beyond its model. You can't bash someone in the head with it in the physical world, for example.

In the consciousness case, you're assuming you can "get around this" by using communication between the model and the host universe - communication could allow a model a way to have an effect beyond its host environment, unlike the simulated rock.

But this involves a lot of assumptions about the nature of consciousness, its physical basis, how a model of consciousness would behave, etc. Given the number of unknowns here, the claim that "it's theoretically possible" is supported just as well as the claim that it's theoretically impossible - which is to say, not at all.

> You can't bash someone in the head with it in the physical world, for example.

You can bash someone in the head with it in the simulated world though, and if you simulate that person's head well enough it will be just as painful for them as it would be for a real world person.

That's tautological. We are using the thought experiment of a simulated rock to reason our way into simulated consciousness. Therefore you cannot presuppose a simulated rock to induce pain-- a property of consciousness-- before you have properly established the simulated rock. Otherwise you are saying "I know we can simulate consciousness (via simated pain) because we can simaulate the rock. And I know we can simulate the rock because it causes simulated pain (which requires consciousness)." Tautology.

That's not how I read this thread at all. What GP is saying seems to be that when you assume you're able to simulate matter and physical processes down to nuclear level (so you can "simulate a rock" with it), it would be only a matter of giving that simulation enough resources in order for it to be able to simulate a conscious being.

How do you know you're not simulated yourself? Whether we live in a simulation or not does not really have any influence on us and our consciousnesses.

Theoretically, perhaps.

But keep in mind that a simulation is, well, a simulation. Artificial consciousness may be possible. It may also be possible to simulate something with a surface appearance indistinguishable from consciousness but not actually be consciousness, while actual consciousness would require very different methods.

When thinking about these things we have to draw a line between something that can fool gross human perception and something that is actually conscious. Right now we don't even know enough to know what the tools required to make such a determination would look like. It may very well be that, from an ethical standpoint, we'll need to ascribe consciousness to systems for year or decades before we're able to determine if it's real or the equivalent of a very convincing optical illusion.

This question is like asking if a soul exists. I don’t think it does. I think, the state of brain gives way to us feeling alive. There is nothing special in there that happens outside of the physical reality. So by this view, simulating a person does indeed produce consciousness.

Another (unsubstantiated) way of looking at it is that the universe is a kind of computer already, which we seek to emulate. We are already running on a computer if the universe can be considered one.

The double negatives in your first sentence are hard to parse.

I think I agree with what you’re arguing though. Basically the scaling hypothesis.

you know what...i am amazed that noone picks up that we have a planet scale network that could be exactly that (conscious)! The internet! we all send packets of information to various systems that then amplify thst data to other neurons... (us humans and our computers are the neurons in this situation)...

Edit: spelling grammar

With humans, the activity in the network results in coherent macro-level actions. With the internet, there is no such coherence. If the internet is conscious it is probably having a full-brain, 24/7 epilepsy seizure.

Assumption: determinism

Counterexample: quantum mechanics

What, exactly, in quantum mechanics is nondeterministic and how does that translate to nondeterministicness in the macroscopic/biochemical world?

wavefunction collapse is nondeterministic (at least, that's my simple understanding). There is no known relationship between wavefunction collapse macroscopic biological systems. There are examples of quantum coherence, though.

It's my understanding that the many worlds interpretation puts us back on track for a fully deterministic universe, no?

I do not think the many worlds interpretation provides any value. I only care about what is experimentally determinable.

100% agree. Theory is nice but meaningless until we have evidence

Like all interpretations of quantum mechanics, then.

My understanding was that we don't have the ability to predict collapse, but that doesn't make it nondeterministic. I could be wrong about this, physics is not my field

If there is no connection between wave function collapse and macroscopic biological systems, then that would mean that it doesn't matter. The macroscopic/biochemical world is still deterministic

There's more than enough evidence that macroscopic biological entities use processes that depend on qm effects. See for example photosynthesis or enzymatic reactions.

As I understand it, the wave collapse is wholly probabilistic and there's no "hidden data" (hidden variable[0]) that we could now to predict the outcome. At least not if we want keep expecting locality.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-variable_theory

The level that I understand photosynthesis and enzymatic reactions is that of electron transfer, but I'm not sure how the probabilistic nature of wave collapse impacts that. I would also think its reasonable to assume that we just don't understand wave function collapse in order to be able to predict it. But again, my understanding is at a slightly larger scale

While quantum indeterminacy is fairly offensive to most of our experience, and creating a theory which doesn’t have it is definitely possible, the result is a theory with some equally (or perhaps more so) offensive ramifications. Assuming you accomplish this with hidden variables, this theory would by necessity have to have global hidden variables and instantaneous information transfer.

I don’t know if this actually impacts this broader discussion, and of course we can always discover new science, but there is a reason quantum indeterminacy is so widely accepted despite the near universal distaste for its existence.

Here some more examples of qm effects in biological systems. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5454345/

Wave collapse is only one possible interpretation of qm. And the Copenhagen interpretation - that proposes wave collapse - is not a complete theory. So yes; we just don't understand it.

I wonder in what areas of science are we living/will we be viewed by future humans in a similar light as we view adherents of the “4 Elements” theory big nature are viewed today.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element

Quantum theory is only around 100 years old. Maybe we’ve got everything right, but I suspect we’re not the first people to have that thought and therefore we’re probably due for significant learning about the universe in the next 100 years.

Assumption: consciousness depends on quantum effects in the brain

Counterexample: quantum effects are rare in non-atomic scale, no data whatsoever that indicates they are involved in high level brain functions, rather a lot of data pointing towards the opposite, given rapid progress in modeling said functions.

It might not depend on indeterminacy, but a number of “large” effects are themselves the result of an underlying quantum process, e.g. the black body radiation spectrum.

Quantum mechanics isn't a blocker here.

Even if you think quantum mechanics are a necessary part of consciousness, we could use quantum mechanics to simulate quantum mechanics.

Counter-counterexample: Superdeterminism.

It may not be needed for consciousness, but even if it is, we can simulate quantum mechanics on traditional hardware, just slowly compared to real life. This is why I brought up possible optimizations to the real world.

If it takes us 100 years to simulate 1 second of consciousness with quantum effects, the consciousness will just experience time differently than we do.

Personally, I think we don’t need to take quantum effects into account to achieve consciousness.

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