Comment on Researchers Dropped 1,000 AIs in Minecraft and Watched a Civilization Form
partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 2 days agoInformation Integration Theory would suggest that phi (Φ) can be used to measure the degree to which a system generates irreducible, integrated cause–effect structure. The irreducible nature of something is exactly as you postulate: it cannot possibly be modeled mathematically. If it could, that would make it reducible to smaller parts.
You can describe the function of the human brain mathematically, of course… For example, some low hanging fruit might be:
- Define the system’s transition probabilities.
- Define its cause–effect repertoires.
- Define Φ mathematically.
But that’s not going to model human experience. The experience isn’t reducible. That, instead, models something closer to the quality of experience. Human rationality is derived downstream of human experience. So it’s just not a fair argument to say that a tool mimicking only the downstream patterns of human experience will somehow also possess the upstream experience capacity, or even a relatable sense of rationality at all.
I don’t think we’re going to get a deterministic explanation for human behavior, ever. Most likely just statistical truths. Unless you can somehow mathematically model the entire universe as well. Good luck, because now the endeavor sounds god-like.
deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
What you’re saying sounds extremely interesting. Do you have any recommendations on resources that could help me delve deeper into this topic?
partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Im no academic, so apologies for the lack of substance. I mostly just get stuck in rabbit holes reading about philosophy and consciousness while I should be working.
Check out these theories for some interesting ideas:
My summarized take is that modeling consciousness is akin to modeling the three-body problem or the double-pendulum. Even if the system is deterministic and capable of being modeled, you’ll forever be bottlenecked by finite precision in your model. The system itself is one where errors grow exponentially. For example, tiny differences in the double pendulum’s initial angle (like 0.000001°) rapidly amplify over time to produce wildly different trajectories. It is computationally intractable without unlimited precision — hence, this is why I said you’d need to model the entire universe. This is deterministic chaos, and we have no reason to think human-brains aren’t heavily dependent on its utility.
deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Interesting. I was working off of the assumption that any entity the size of a human brain could be modeled, at some point in the future, simply because we can make artificial computational devices that are bigger than, and thus capable of being more complex than, it. But obviously that assumption is just blind intuition, and lacks the nuance and established theory you’re bringing to the table. I’m kind of embarrassed that I believed that would be enough time throw my hat into the ring. I’ll have to check those out.