Post by @yoginho@spore.social

2023-09-13 18:25 UTC

@tyrell_turing@fediscience.org Cognition is not computation. It is an elaboration of organismic agency, which is not of an algorithmic nature. There is nothing magical about that. You're fundamentally misinterpreting Turing's theory of computation, which was always about the human act of computing, not about the brain or the world. Turing would turn in his grave if he would hear you. Some historical context: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/church-turing. This may also help: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.07515. Longer paper coming soon!

Replies (4)

@yoginho@spore.social 2023-09-13 18:29

@tyrell_turing@fediscience.org Computationalism may be useful as a methodological assumption. It is totally nuts (& philosophically founded on absolutely nothing but hot air) if you take it as your worldview. Same applies to reductionism in general, by the way. Good method (within its limits), crap worldview, and a disaster if you confuse the two...

Open ##2881102
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz 2023-09-13 19:29

@yoginho@spore.social @tyrell_turing@fediscience.org On that topic: I am reminded of this paper by Roth et al. 2007 on "The self-construction and-repair of a foraging organism by explicitly specified development from a single cell" https://direct.mit.edu/artl/article-abstract/13/4/347/2575 (Free PDF here: https://direct.mit.edu/artl/article-pdf/13/4/347/1662436/artl.2007.13.4.347.pdf) The authors describe and implement a self-constructing virtual organism capable of Braitenberg vehicle-like properties and which can self-repair in response to damage. The properties of the damaged organism are quite interesting, in that its performance as a vehicle degrades gracefully rather than catastrophically. #neuroscience #ArtificialLife #BraitenbergVehicle

Open ##2881103
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe 2023-09-13 20:11

@yoginho@spore.social @tyrell_turing@fediscience.org Computing being a subset of what people can do, as in the human computers that the machines were made to emulate them, being turned around to apply to everything their brains do feels a little tautological to me, even if it's effectively true and/or pragmatically useful. BTW, your second seems to lead to a paper on applying deep learning to covid research, is that what you meant to post?

Open ##2881106
@tyrell_turing@fediscience.org 2023-09-13 21:22

@yoginho@spore.social Respectfully, I disagree. I don't think you're accurately summarising computability theory, nor the implications for neuroscience. As Yoshua Bengio once said to someone at a workshop I was at (paraphrasing): "Computation just means physics. Saying the brain is a computer is just a way of saying that it is a physical device. I don't even know what a non-computational theory of the brain means, unless you're talking about magic."

Open ##2881108