Posts

David Deutsch on Universal Explainers and AI 2020-09-24T07:50:23.615Z
The universality of computation and mind design space 2020-09-12T14:58:46.759Z
Li and Vitanyi's bad scholarship 2020-09-05T08:07:02.851Z

Comments

Comment by alanf on David Deutsch on Universal Explainers and AI · 2020-09-26T07:31:07.093Z · LW · GW

If you read the quote carefully you will find that it is incompatible with the position you are attributing to Deutsch. For example, he writes about 

levels of universality between AI and ‘universal explainer/constructor’,

which would hardly be necessary if computational universality was equivalent to universal explainer.

Comment by alanf on David Deutsch on Universal Explainers and AI · 2020-09-25T21:09:24.241Z · LW · GW

The quotes aren't about Turing completeness. What you wrote is irrelevant to the quoted material.

Comment by alanf on The universality of computation and mind design space · 2020-09-16T12:30:52.961Z · LW · GW

We can't simulate things of which we currently have no understanding. But if at some point in the future we know how to write AGIs, then we would be able to simulate them. And if we don't know how to write AGIs then they won't exist. So if we can write AGIs in the future then memory capacity and processor speed won't impose a limit on our understanding. Any such limit would have to come from some other factor. So is there such a limit and where would it come from?

Comment by alanf on Li and Vitanyi's bad scholarship · 2020-09-12T14:16:15.963Z · LW · GW

You said earlier:

But not all inductivists believe in a version of inductivism that supposedly generates theories or scientific knowledge.

What is the version of inductivism that generates no theories or scientific knowledge and what does it accomplish?

Comment by alanf on Li and Vitanyi's bad scholarship · 2020-09-12T11:42:02.968Z · LW · GW
But not all inductivists believe in a version of inductivism that supposedly generates theories or scientific knowledge.

That version of inductivism isn't in Li and Vitanyi who haven't even stated the problem described by critics of inductivism. Where is it?

Comment by alanf on Li and Vitanyi's bad scholarship · 2020-09-07T11:25:58.520Z · LW · GW

I have corrected the spelling of Vitanyi.

Comment by alanf on The Fallacy of Gray · 2013-12-13T08:52:46.487Z · LW · GW

Science is not based on faith, nor on anything else. Scientific knowledge is created by conjecture and criticism. See Chapter I of "Realism and the Aim of Science" by Karl Popper.