Is Everything a Computer? A Metaphorical Look at the Universe

It is to perform various functions with a symbolic language. Apparently the brain uses no such language and works in a different way. Don't think rocks and trees use a symbolic language either.

Originally posted by mikelus

In other words a computor by itself has no fuction without the programmer. so how could this tool be used as the controller and us the game?

Originally posted by russ_watters
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle put the final nail in the coffin of determinism.

Originally posted by Kerrie
judgement, opinions, feelings, intution are not a part of our current definition of a computer...unless you don't have any of these traits, you might be considered a computer...

Originally posted by FZ+
Erm... I am not sure about that. In reality, computers do not really do their computing in a symbolic language, they do it in the flow of charge between semiconductors.

Originally posted by FZ+
You can also say that humans use a symbolic language to think, as most of us "think in words."

Originally posted by ogb p
That is a very dramatic statement but not exactly true. The Uncertainty Principle does not contradict a deterministic universe. Uncertainty rules out the possiblity of we humans, being limited and partial observers, being able to actually predict, with Certainty, the future, since we can never know all the initial variables exactly.

We humans, more generally, we observers, can never know all the factors that determine the Universe. That does not mean that the Universe is not determined by variables which we are incapable of determining.

Originally posted by Kerrie
judgement, opinions, feelings, intution are not a part of our current definition of a computer...unless you don't have any of these traits, you might be considered a computer...

Yes and that flow of charge is always in discreet units because they are using a binary language.

Originally posted by ogb p
That is a very dramatic statement but not exactly true. The Uncertainty Principle does not contradict a deterministic universe. Uncertainty rules out the possiblity of we humans, being limited and partial observers, being able to actually predict, with Certainty, the future, since we can never know all the initial variables exactly.

We humans, more generally, we observers, can never know all the factors that determine the Universe. That does not mean that the Universe is not determined by variables which we are incapable of determining.

Originally posted by Mumeishi
This is something I've been wondering about for a while. Is the Uncertainty Principle consistent with a universe which has parts with a discreet, precise existence, but information about which is fuzzy because the only way to get this information is by deflecting other particles (eg photons) off them. Thus there is not only a maximum resolution to this information but the aquisition of the information changes the state of the particle being observed. Do you have a reference for this?

The uncertainty principle is sometimes erroneously explained by claiming that the measurement of position necessarily disturbs a particle's momentum. Heisenberg himself offered this explanation initially. Disturbance plays no part, however, since the principle even applies if position is measured in one copy of the system and momentum is measured in another, identical one. It is more accurate to say that the particle is a wave, not a point-like object, and does not have a well-defined simultaneous position and momentum.

We can't MEASURE an exact position and velocity because a particle doesn't HAVE an exact position and velocity.

Disturbance plays no part, however, since the principle even applies if position is measured in one copy of the system and momentum is measured in another, identical one.

It is more accurate to say that the particle is a wave, not a point-like object, and does not have a well-defined simultaneous position and momentum.

Originally posted by ogb p
I can accept that within the framework of theory, but I don't believe it is experimentally provable: the only data you have is what we CAN MEASURE.

Originally posted by russ_watters
No, you are incorrect about what the HUP says. The unvierse has a fundamental graininess to it beyond which things can only be predicted according to probability functions. It has nothing at all to do with the capabilities of humans or number of variables involved.

Its like a blind man feeling around with only the aid of a log. (its a strong blind man ok!) He might conclude that the world had no fine details, but would he be justified?

Originally posted by russ_watters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_Principle
The uncertainty principle is sometimes erroneously explained by claiming that the measurement of position necessarily disturbs a particle's momentum. Heisenberg himself offered this explanation initially. Disturbance plays no part, however, since the principle even applies if position is measured in one copy of the system and momentum is measured in another, identical one. It is more accurate to say that the particle is a wave, not a point-like object, and does not have a well-defined simultaneous position and momentum.

Originally posted by Mumeishi
Yes and that flow of charge is always in discreet units because they are using a binary language.

Originally posted by Mumeishi
Whether determination is possible would seem to come from whether we can have a fully accurate description of the wave and whether we have equations to make accurate calculations from that description.

Some philosophers (usually of the New Age, amateur variety) erronously use the UP to demonstrate that there is no external objective reality and everything is mind-dependent.

Originally posted by Mentat
Sorry I got to this thread late, I hope someone else didn't already cover this but...

Mumeishi, the brain also computes in discreet units: neurotransmitter, released across the synaptic space.

Naturally, I'm inclined to agree with most of what Mumeishi has said in this thread, but this point I just don't get, since even Dennett's theory of consciousness allows for "stupid homunculi" or the most discreet unit of computation.

Originally posted by Mentat
But the more accurate you get, the more chaotic the system gets. That's why (IIRC) non-commutative Matrix Mechanics are used, in Heisenberg's conception, to describe the characteristics (like momentum and position) of a particle. The more accurately you pin-point the position of a particle, the less accurate you can be on it's momentum. As far as philosophy of science goes, russ_waters is right, the particle is literally not in anyone place at any given time.

Originally posted by Mentat

You are absolutely right, and I can't stand to read that kind of garbage, but it's even worse to try to exorcise such misconceptions from the minds of those who have never taken a look at the technical aspect of QM, but only at such "New Age" drivel like you mentioned.

Such exorcising was the purpose of "Clarification on QM", a thread by KL Kam, but this did not end well, as it remains logically wrong (no matter how convincing the evidence, and no matter what the consensus is) to say that something is "definitely this way".

• A computer is a syntactical manipulator. You put in variables, it does its magic internal thing, and spits out a response.
  
• Other people seem analogous to this on a behaviourist level. You do something to them, we assume something internal to their brain happens, and we get a response.
  
• We, on the other hand, personally know that there is more to ourselves than input output. There is something that it is like to be us. There is something that it is like to feel pain, there is something that it is like to think/see/hear etc. We 'EXPERIENCE' stuff.
  

THE BRAIN IS NOT A COMPUTER
Our quick review of neuroanatomy and neural dynamics indicates that the brain has special features of organization and functioning that do not seem consistent with the idea that it follows a set of precise instructions or performs computations. We know that the brain is interconnected in a fashion no man-made device yet equals. First, the billions and billions of connections that make up a brain's connections are not exact: If we ask whether the connections are identical in any two brains of the same size, as they would be in computers of the same make, the answer is no. At the finest scale, no two brains are identical, not even those of identical twins. Although the overall pattern of connections of a given brain area is describable in general terms, the microscopic variability of the brain at the finest ramifications of its neurons is enormous, and this variability makes each brain significantly unique.

These observations present a fundamental challenge to models of the brain that are based on instruction or computation. As we shall see, the data provide strong grounds for so-called selectional theories of the brain—theories that actually depend upon variation to explain brain function.

Another organizing principle that emerges from the picture we are building is that in each brain, the consequences of both a developmental history and an experiential history are uniquely marked. For example, from one day to the next, some synaptic connections in the same brain are likely not to remain exactly the same; certain cells will have retracted their processes, others will have extended new ones, and certain others will have died, all depending on the particular history of that brain. The individual variability that ensues is not just noise or error, but can affect the way we remember things and events. As we shall see, it is also an essential element governing the ability of the brain to respond to and match the countless unforeseeable scenes that may occur in the future. No present-day machine incorporates such individual diversity as a central feature of its design, although the day will certainly come when we shall build devices that are truly brainlike.

If we compare the signals a brain receives with those of computers, we uncover a number of other feataires that are special to brains. First, the world certainly is not presented tothe brain like a piece of computer tape containing an unambiguous series of signals. Nonetheless, the brain enables an animal to sense the environment, categorize patterns out of a multiplicity of variable signals, and initiate movement. It mediates learning-and memory and simultaneously regulates a host of bodily functions. The ability of the nervous system to carry out perceptual categorization of different signals for sight, sound, and so forth, dividing them into coherent classes without a prearranged code, is certainly special and is still unmatched by computers. We do not presently understand fully how this categorization is done but, as we discuss later, we believe it arises through the selection of certain distributed patterns of neural activity as the brain interacts with the body and the environment.

We have also shown that the brain contains a special set of nuclei with diffuse projections — the value systems — which signal to the entire nervous system the occurrence of a salient event and influence changes in the strength of synapses. Systems with these crucial properties are typically not found in man-made devices, yet their importance for learning and adaptive behavior is well documented. Together with the morphological peculiarities of the brain and its neural connections with a specific bodily phenotype, these systems provide an animal with a large set of constraints whose role in fostering species-specific perceptual categorization and adaptive learning cannot be underestimated.

Finally, if we consider neural dynamics (the way patterns of activity in the brain change with time), the most striking special feature of the brains of higher vertebrates is the occurrence of a process we have called reentry. Reentry, which we discuss in detail in chapters 9 and 10, depends on the possibility of cycles of signaling in the thalamocortical meshwork and other networks mentioned earlier. It is the ongoing, recursive interchange of parallel signals between reciprocally connected areas of the brain, an interchange that continually coordinates the activities of these areas' maps to each other in space and time. This interchange, unlike feedback, involves many parallel paths and has no specific instructive error function associated with it.
Instead, it alters selective events and correlations of signals among areas and is essential for the synchronization and coordination of the areas' mutual functions.

One striking consequence of reentry is the widespread synchronization of the activity of different groups of active neurons distributed across many different functionally specialized areas of the brain. This synchronous firing of widely dispersed neurons that are connected by reentry is the basis for the integration of perceptual and motor processes. This integration ultimately gives rise to percept&al categorization, the ability to discriminate an object or event from a background for adaptive purposes. If the reentrant paths connecting cortical areas are disconnected, these integrative processes are disrupted. As we discuss in detail in chapter 10, reentry allows for a unity of perception and behavior that would otherwise be impossible, given the absence in the brain of a unique, computerlike central processor with detailed instructions or of algorithmic calculations for the coordination of functionally segregated areas.

Indeed, if we were asked to go beyond what is merely special and name the unique feature of higher brains, we would say it is reentry. There is no other object in the universe so completely distinguished by reentrant circuitry as the human brain. Although a brain has similarities to a large ecological entity like a jungle, nothing remotely like reentry appears in any jungle. Nor in human communication systems: Reentrant systems in the brain are massively parallel to a degree unheard of in our communication nets. In any event, communication nets are unlike brains, in that they deal with previously coded and, for the most part, unambiguous signals.

As we discuss in detail in chapter 10, reentry allows for a unity of perception and behavior that would otherwise be impossible, given the absence in the brain of a unique, computerlike central processor with detailed instructions or of algorithmic calculations for the coordination of functionally segregated areas.

Originally posted by Mumeishi
Interesting point, although I'm not sure that counts in the same way as a language. I'll have to defer to Tononi and Edelmann on this one - that book is a great read by the way.

I'm not sure I understand you last point (perhaps because I need to catch up on what Dennett jas been saying).

Does it matter? Whats the point of wondering if there are 'minds' all over the place which are completely withdrawn from any sort of interaction?