The Computational Universe

I do tend to agree with what I see as the main point of Searle’s article, as Professor Arora so aptly puts it, “so what if a computer passes the Turing Test”.  My main objection to  Professor Arora’s defense of AI is that it seems founded on observations that are trivial at best, incorrect or badly reasoned at worst. I raise the possibility that computers may respond logicially or correctly based on the structure or content of my questions, but not felicitously given te Gricean maxims, or other sociolinguistiic constraints which help us interpret human speech interaction; Professor Arora responds: assume one does; assume a computer responds entirely felicitously; that it’s answer to my sullen (and how would it even know I was sullen?) “some weather, huh?” is “are you feeling alright?” would I not ascribe it some level of consciousness.

Here I am inclined to disagree. I would not deem a computer conscious even if it could respond in this way. Quite to the contrary, I would still resist categorizing his device as a conscious being. Prof. Arora’s response is “how do you tell this apart from your friends? How do you judge them except by input/output responses?” Here is where the reasining becomes trivial in my mind–we judge everything rational through input/output reponses. There is no part of the world that we do  not analyze by what causes we create (or see created) and the effects they produce. But therer is more to the human experience of the world than rigidly rational cause/effect, input/output analysis. The irrational is in many ways our chief means of engaging with the world, much as we would like to think otherwise.

Professor Arora asserts that he could find a machine to be his friend, but could not marry it (or as I interpret, could not love it). But that is really the judge of consciousness to me…not a rational, text-based decision of “do I think this machine can process me felicitously”. Am I capable of loving this entity outside myself? Do I think that it could potentially satisfy me emotionally as well as intellectually? That is my Turing test. That is what would allow me to judge a computer conscious.

Ever since Perry Cook’s guest lecture I have been waiting for an opportunity to see a PLOrk concert. I was curious to see what a sustained interaction with the fascinating concepts and techniques he presented to us could generate. I got my chance this Tuesday at Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall (what’s a school to do with so many donors?). The stage was spread with laptops resting atop amplifiers, each connected in turn to a hemispherical (dodecahedral?) speaker array, and cushions for the peformers (operators? sonic engineers?). I was excited to experience something really cool and unique.

You can imagine my disappointment, then, to hear the same techno-ambient, new-age, philip-glass-derivative sound that I could get in any european nightclub or wiccan bookshop. What had impressed me so much in the lecture was the ability of computers and technology to turn a mug into a trumpet. Why, given that ability, was PLOrk content to let their digital performance come off as, well, electronica? I love bands that embrace different technologies and experiment with different cound qualities and relationships, often breaking the traditional mold (Sigur Ros, Broken Social Scene). Perry Cook seems, through his technological competence, singularly positioned to innovate with these new sounds and soundscapes. Perhaps if there had been more in way of explanation of what his performers were doing, how and why they were manipulating the sounds to come out as they were. But lacking that, I found the concert not particularly innovative, and, sadly, underwhelming.

Based on the readings and class discussions, it sounds as if Turing-Post machines are the be-all-end all of computation, at at least the simplest and most powerful expression thereof. I still find the reasoning of the Church-Turing thesis to be somewhat circular and/or trivial. First it assumes that any act of computation can be broken down into a series of yes or no queries (hey ,that rhymes)…I would argue that, like Schroedingers Cat, there are problems that defy binary analysis. Even if we accept that Turing-Post machines can simulate any program, so what? That doesn’t mean that they can do what those programs do. A Turing-Post simulation of the game of life would not yield fascinating patterns and infinitely collapsing snowflakes…it would spit out a string of ones and zeroes. I can see where simulation might be useful, in terms of studying tornadioes, designing new circuits or medicines, but the simulations themselves will never be real-world objects with purpose. Even the programs simulated by Turing-Post have more relevance than it does; at least they can make my computer play music or help me type my paper.

The real problem of Turing-Post machines and computation in general is the lack of simultaneity. The most powerful ideas and inventions in the world are able to mean many different things simultaneously, and are understandable (or at least, expereincable) on many different levels at once. I feel like any attempt to model the universe with a sequential string of binary operations will inevitably miss out on its richness and complexity. A Turing-Post program can model a snowflake, but it will never approach an understanding off all the ideas and sensations that come to mind all at once when we see one. I welcome the day when computers can recreate that experience, but I feel it will have to be in a Post-Turing-Post framework.

…and a personality and is very moody.

 One expects robots to be regular in their functioning, almost to the point of dull. My own prejudice, at least, has long lead me to believe that robots have very little capacity for variation and surprise. They will do what they are programmed to do…no more no less. My Scribller (Nuzzles) surprisingly does quite a bit more, and often less.

Nuzzles refuses to turn efficiently for example. Thinking himself a bull in a ring and myself the matador, he will scoot back and rear up on each turn, before charging ahead full speed. Amusing as this is to watch, I don’t aprrectiate the extra squiggles he makes on my assgned pentagrams.

 He is lazy with details, Nuzzles is, so that when I program spins of equal duration, they will sometimes yield greater angles, sometimes smaller. These vagaries are not entirely objectionable, and only noticable if one looks closely. Still, I feel Nuzzles must have been a beaucrat in a previous life, as his guiding logic seems to be “close enough for government work.”

My experience with Nuzzles has led me to question whether all robot have a soul, and if so…what does that mean for theology? Could I come back in the next life as Sharper Image RoboRaptor? Is the welding arm at the GMC plant my late aunt Eunice? Furthermore, the closer we get to Intelligent machines, are we creating half-souls? Poor doomed semi-consciousnesses fated to float in limbo with unbaptized babies?

 These are the things I wonder about.

Š

Long long ago, before there was a Time, there was a great mass called the Biggawustt. And from the Biggawustt came the Snorglipp. And it is from the Snorglipp that the world you now inhabit was formed. In the beginning of the world there was only Fmeer. And Fmeer was lonely because he was all alone. So from the dust of the earth he formed a companion, whom he named Krelloss. Now Krelloss and Fmeer were best of friends, and they roamed the earth together in the beginning-times and made sport with each other in the fields and deep waters.

It was not long however, before Krelloss began to grow tired of Fmeer, for unlike Fmeer he was born of the world, and therefore imperfect. Unable to match Fmeer’s godliness and brilliance, Krelloss shame grew greater and greater until he could not stand to be in the same world as Fmeer any longer. So on the 43rd day of the 17th month, Krelloss struck Fmeer with a rock. This event has been passed down to us as Arbor Day. And so it was on Arbor Day, that Fmeer’s corporeal being was sundered into a million pieces, each of which took root in the soil, and grew into towns and cities and roads and universities. Fmeer’s left kidney, so it goes, struck the earth and blossomed into Princeton, according to the great sages.

Krelloss in his grief and anger turned his homicidal hematite on himself, and was shattered too. His many shards mingled with the air forming the stuff of dreams and spirit. And where the fragments of Krelloss met the edifice of Fmeer, that is where life came from.

Dusty entered the world when two such splinters met upon a hospital bed in Washington D.C., and though his quest for Krelfmerian wholeness has led him to New York, he hopes to finally tap the knowledge hidden in his sacred eye-book through the teachings of Arora, Syed, and Xiao, and unlock the salvation of the allverse.

Update Year 2006 Month 2 Day 14 Hour 1 Minute 45:

The search continues, though Dusty has become intrigued by the concept of the Fvallunteyne…he wonders if anyone will choo choo choose him…