Questions tagged [computation]
Computational theory is the study of calculations. Important questions are: what can be computed? How quickly can it be computed? What requirements or abilities must a computer have?
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Are uncomputable numbers/things a problem for Wheeler's “it from bit”?
I have some questions related to Wheeler's ideas of "It from bit" and "Law without law"
In summary, these both theories postulate that there was an initial universe with no laws from which laws of ...
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1answer
76 views
Computers, Artificial Intelligence, and Epistemology
Some classification schemes don't list logic as a separate branch of philosophy. I assume they regard logic as a component of epistemology.
Of course, others regard logic as a separate branch. The ...
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4answers
2k views
Do machine learning algorithms have knowledge (if not justified true beliefs)?
By "machine learning algorithm" I'm referring to basic, primarily statistical, machine learning algorithms; for concrete examples consider simple classifier algorithms like SVM or Bayesian classifier ...
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1answer
70 views
Where can I find arguments for animal rights?
I'm asking this question on behalf of https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/users/47/curi
I'm a philosopher (and programmer) attempting to research and diagram arguments relating to animal rights. I'm ...
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1answer
149 views
Is there a form of set theory involving imperatives and interrogatives?
I finally read the article Is there a Logic of Imperatives? Conifold showed me and it elicited the question, for me, whether imperative programming is a form of imperative logic at all? The essay took ...
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1answer
85 views
Is it there any specific and well known continous/analog alternative to Wheeler's discrete “It from Bit”?
Physicist John A Wheeler (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler) suggested the concept of "law without law" and "it from bit" which suggested that the universe did not have any laws ...
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2answers
141 views
Is there a system where it is impossible to tell the fundamental type of probability?
Premise: What does it mean to take Planck's constant to 0? When someone takes Planck's constant to 0 then they do not effective just substitute Planck's constant with 0. The actual procedure is to ...
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2answers
67 views
What are some views on the ability to transfer consciousness into a machine?
What are some views on the ability to transfer consciousness into a machine? So when discussing this question, there are two set of questions that arises. What is consciousness, is it something that ...
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4answers
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How can the physical world be an abstract mathematical structure a la Tegmark?
This is Tegmark's short formulation of the "mathematical universe" (paraphrased by detractors as "reality made of math"), and he goes out of his way to stress that he means the "is" literally:"Whereas ...
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4answers
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What is the best scientific argumentation against the Dust Theory?
The "Dust Theory", by Greg Egan, states that...
... there is no difference, even in principle, between
physics and mathematics, and that all mathematically possible
structures exist, among them ...
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10answers
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Is the universe isomorphic to a universal turing machine?
I often think about problems that require an understanding of the very essence of computation and its inherent limitations. So, my questions are as followed:
Is the universe isomorphic to a universal ...
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0answers
164 views
Are Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis and Seth Lloyd's Cosmological Model compatible?
I have been interested in Seth Lloyd's cosmological model (which proposes that the universe is a some kind of quantum computer or at least similar to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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1answer
107 views
Who first studied “logical (ir)reversibility”?
Who first studied "logical (ir)reversibility" philosophically?
By "logical (ir)reversibility" I mean questions like:Why is it easier to
multiply large numbers than to factorize them?
understand a ...
3
votes
1answer
80 views
Inconsistency in Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis?
Physicist Max Tegmark is widely known for proposing that there is a multiverse where mathematical structures would exist as real and actual universes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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1answer
96 views
Does Gregory Chaitin propose a computable or an uncomputable ontology?
Gregory Chaitin is a mathematician who thinks that the universe is itself a computer, or similar...
He has written papers closely related to the field of hypercomputation (For example, he invented ...
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1answer
246 views
Is it there any model of the universe (considered by physicists) which would be the product of a simulation?
There are various philosophical theories that propose that the universe is the product of a simulation. But I was looking for theories that propose this and are also considered by physicists (not only ...
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1answer
120 views
What is the relationship between computation and Gödel's incompleteness theorems? [closed]
In what way do Godel's incompleteness theorems impact computers/hypercomputers? Do they somehow prevent them from being capable of computing everything (of computing literally all uncomputable/...
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votes
2answers
109 views
Is it possible to mathematically define a hypercomputer-universe where things that could not be computed by it could exist? [duplicate]
There are a few physicists that propose that the universe is a hypercomputer. One example is Roger Penrose, who, basing in his quantum interpretation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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0answers
85 views
Can hypercomputation compute the impossible?
There are things which are illogical/logically impossible (like saying that 2+2=4 and 2+2=5. Without changing anything in the axioms of mathematics or logic, this would be a contradiction and would be ...
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5answers
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If we live in a simulated world, doesn't there have to be a first world that's real?
There are people who believe we live in a world, simulated on a computer. That computer must have been built in either another computer-generated world or a real world (by which I mean a non-simulated ...
2
votes
1answer
58 views
A universal game [closed]
In this question by "metagame" I mean a game which functions to create the rules of a sub-game.
Is there a universal metagame that would allow to create any game (including itself). Such game would ...
4
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2answers
72 views
Similar to Douglas Adam's HGTTG, Is there any philosophy that views human society as a computation?
In Douglas Adam's Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy, Earth is a supercomputer that is computing the the Ultimate question, whose answer is 42.
I was wondering is Douglas Adams was inspired by any ...
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3answers
170 views
Is philosophy computation?
If philosophy is mathematics and mathematics is computation, can I conclude that philosophy is computation? Can we axiomatize philosophy? Can a computer think for us, given the current rise of AI?
I'...
4
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0answers
115 views
Can Schmidhuber's hypothesis reproduce all types of universes? And Wheeler's it from bit? Or Weizsäcker's ur-theory?
I found a paper that talked about paraconsistent logic systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic) and trivialist systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivialism) and the ...
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3answers
147 views
Book Recommendation for Computational Theory of Mind
These days I'm really into studying the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM)
and I have read papers and documents online.
However, I have difficulty capturing the overall (received) theories of CTM at ...
3
votes
0answers
119 views
Is 't Hooft cellular automaton compatible with Floridi's Informational (Structural) Realism?
Informational (Structural) Realism (by Luciano Floridi) relates to digital physics ideas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics)
As Floridi himself says in one of his articles (http://philsci-...
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2answers
109 views
Free will: is reality a record, a game or unpredictable?
If a world is a record (a film), then this scenario does not have conditional rules, i.e., if it can be implemented as a computer program, it will not have "if ... then ..." commands.
If a world is a ...
4
votes
1answer
290 views
The mathematical language of the brain
This question is similar, but not identical, to one I posted to the mathematics SE some time ago. I was originally unsure of where to post it. I believe this question is sufficiently different to ...
4
votes
3answers
569 views
Would a conscious computer naturally hold a solipsistic philosophy?
We're biologically incapable of ignoring our senses. I want to clarify what I mean by this, because as posters have suggested we actually can do so, for example by blinding or gouging our eyes. I'm ...
4
votes
2answers
202 views
Where is the knowledge that AI's “knowledge representations” represent?
I find this really confusing. AI often says its computer systems "know" things, but when AI explains how to program a computer to be intelligent, it talks only about "knowledge representation". E.g., ...
3
votes
1answer
109 views
Where to find the “tightened up” definitions of computing mentioned by Searle?
I think it is probably possible to block the result of universal realizability by tightening up our definition of computation. Certainly we ought to respect the fact that programmers and engineers ...
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5answers
620 views
Why doesn't the Chinese room learn Chinese?
I just can't see how John Searle's Chinese room makes sense. The room passes the Turing test. People outside the room think there's a human inside who understands Chinese. But, Searle explains, the ...
2
votes
1answer
534 views
Can computers do things Turing machines can't?
Today's electronic digital computers are often referred to as universal Turing machines. That is, the concept of the UTM is used to understand today's stored-program electronic digital computers. But ...
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1answer
116 views
What is understanding (of natural language texts) and how can we test or measure it?
What is the definition of the understanding of (written) natural language and how can we test or measure this understanding? What is understanding of the symbolic knowledge be it encoded in any form? ...
2
votes
1answer
113 views
What are the philosophical points that make bear out in the ZFC vs ZF debate?
Or rather why do some people vehemently reject axiom of choice?
I am interested from this from the perspective of the philosophy of computation. Intuitively, from the little I know, it seems people ...
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vote
3answers
428 views
Does Bitcoin disprove solipsism?
According to Wikipedia, solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist.
In 1993, Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor
proposed the idea that one could use proof-of-work
to ...
0
votes
1answer
165 views
Is ESP, in particular telepathy, not computable?
In Alan Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” he writes in 6(9) The Argument from Extrasensory Perception that
I assume that the reader is familiar with the idea of extrasensory ...
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2answers
179 views
Does adding structure make the Chinese room semantic?
The Chinese room reacts just to syntax, or shape of symbols (is purely syntactic). But brains are full of structure. In the room, Chinese symbols sit scattered in "piles" on the floor or are moved ...
2
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1answer
116 views
Is computationalism really a theory, or is it more like a doctrine or creed?
When studying AI, computationalism was always referred to as a theory, a theory of mind, the theory that the mind is an executing computation. But is it really a theory? How could it be disproved or ...
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5answers
185 views
Dichotomy problem: limits of binary systems
What are the limitations of accumulating or storing knowledge in a binary system? For a more concrete question, can all knowledge information be represented by an infinite sequence of 1's and 0's or ...
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1answer
318 views
Logic and Computation : a philosophical viewpoint
The link between logic and computation is stronger than ever, especially since the establishment of the Curry-Howard isomorphism specifying that proofs can be seen as programs and formulas as program'...
3
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5answers
146 views
Does running a program about quantum mechanics on a quantum computer count as an experiment or a simulation?
When it comes to the simulation vs. experiment debate, some proponents of simulations argue they have equal epistemic value because computer simulations are physical processes happening inside a ...
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5answers
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What are computable numbers, and what is their philosophical significance?
What are Computable Numbers? Is computability (or non-computability) some sort of technology-dependent characteristic of numbers (via e.g. Turing Machines)? What are the philosophical implications or ...
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3answers
674 views
What are the philosophical consequences of the undecidability of the spectral gap in quantum theory?
An article published in Nature yesterday proves that finding the spectral gap of a material based on a complete quantum level description of the material is undecidable (in the Turing sense).
One of ...
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1answer
340 views
Given proofs of A → B and A, when do we get a proof of B?
In intuitionistic mathematics, a proposition is true only when a proof of it has been experienced. Following the BHK semantics, a proof of A → B is an algorithm that, when given a proof of A, will ...
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4answers
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How does Penrose defeat the computational theory of mind?
In Shadows Of The Mind Roger Penrose puts forth a Gödelian argument against the computational theory of mind. He then goes on to suggest that quantum mechanics plays a central role in the realization ...
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1answer
502 views
Is quantum indeterminacy inextricable from observation?
I understand uncertainty from a combinatorial and game theoretic perspective, as functions of incomplete or imperfect information, or intractability which is a type of inaccessible information in that ...
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0answers
95 views
Rethinking arithmetic operations after J.L. Austin's performativity?
According to Kant, arithmetic statements such as "7+5=12" are synthetic a priori. Could we alternatively think of this not as a statement, but as an arithmetic-logic operation to be executed (like a ...
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7answers
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Does Searle's Chinese Room model computers correctly?
Searle invented a thought experiment, the Chinese Room, which he proposes is an argument against Strong AI (that machines think) but not against Weak AI (that machines simulate thinking), he has a man ...
2
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2answers
399 views
Ancestor Simulations Theory contradicts Chaos Theory, Quantum Mechanics and Irreducibility? [closed]
(NB. I've no training as a philosopher, but I'm a student of science with an interest)
So there in the media this theory of reality as a simulation is gaining popularity, mostly because of types as ...
