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Comment by fc417fc802 | Hacker News Reader

> this cannot be reached algorithmically

> humans can (somehow) do this

Is this not contradictory?

Alternatively, in order to not be contradictory doesn't it require the assumption that humans are not "algorithmic"? But does that not then presuppose (as the above commenter brought up) that we are not a biochemical machine? Is a machine not inherently algorithmic in nature?

Or at minimum presupposes that humans are more than just a biochemical machine. But then the question comes up again, where is the scientific evidence for this? In my view it's perfectly acceptable if the answer is something to the effect of "we don't currently have evidence for that, but this hints that we ought to look for it".

All that said, does "algorithmically" here perhaps exclude heuristics? Many times something can be shown to be unsolvable in the absolute sense yet readily solvable with extremely high success rate in practice using some heuristic.

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OP seems to have a very confused idea of what an algorithmic process means... they think the process of humans determining what is truthful "cannot possibly be something algorithmic".

Which is certainly an opinion.

> whatever it is: it cannot possibly be something algorithmic

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44349299

Maybe OP should have looked at a dictionary for what certain words actually mean before defining them to be something nonsensical.

> Maybe OP should have looked at a dictionary for what certain words actually mean before defining them to be something nonsensical.

Making non-standard definitions of words isn't necessarily bad, and can be useful in certain texts. But if you do so, you need to make these definitions front-and-centre instead of just casually assuming your readers will share your non-standard meaning.

And where possible, I would still use the standard meanings and use newly made up terms to carry new concepts.

Maybe you need to update an outdated model?

Nothing in physics requires us to use your prior experience as some special epoch.

Meaning is mutable social relationship as language meaning is not immutable physics.

The model I am using is the conventional understanding of physics. What model are you using?

> language meaning is not immutable physics.

Our understanding of physics is not complete, so why would our model of it be final? No one is saying it is.

Everything we currently know about physics, all the experiments we've conducted, suggests the physical church turing thesis is true.

If you want to claim that the last x% of our missing knowledge will overturn everything and reality is in fact not computable, you are free to do so, and this may well even be true.

But so far the evidence is not in your favor and you'd do well to acknowledge that.

> Alternatively, in order to not be contradictory doesn't it require the assumption that humans are not "algorithmic"? But does that not then presuppose (as the above commenter brought up) that we are not a biochemical machine? Is a machine not inherently algorithmic in nature?

No, computation is algorithmic, real machines are not necessarily (of course, AGI still can't be ruled out even if algorithmic intelligence is, only AGI that does not incorporate some component with noncomputable behavior.)

Using computation/algorithmic methods we can simulate nonalgorithmic systems. So the world within a computer program can behave in a nonalgorithmic way.

Also, one might argue that universe/laws of physics are computational.

> Also, one might argue that universe/laws of physics are computational.

Maybe we need to define "computational" before moving on. To me this echoes the clockwork universe of the Enligthenment. Insights of quantum physics have shattered this idea.

You can simulate a nondeterministic process. There's just no way to consistently get a matching outcome. It's no different than running the process itself multiple times and getting different outputs for the same inputs.

> Insights of quantum physics have shattered this idea.

Not at all. Quantum mechanics is fully deterministic, if you stay away from bonkers interpretations like Copenhagen.

And, of course, you can simulate random processes just fine even on a deterministic system use a pseudo random number generator or you can just connect a physical hardware random number generator to your otherwise deterministic system. Compared to all the hardware used in our LLMs so far, random number cards are cheap kit.

Though I doubt a hardware random number generator will make the difference between dumb and intelligent systems: pseudo random number generators are just too good, and generalising a bit you'd need P=NP to be true for your system to behave differently with a good PRNG vs real random numbers.

> No, computation is algorithmic, real machines are not necessarily

As the adjacent comment touches on are the laws of physics (as understood to date) not possible to simulate? Can't all possible machines be simulated at least in theory? I'm guessing my knowledge of the term "algorithmic" is lacking here.

As far as we can tell, all the known laws of nature are computable. And I think most of them are even efficiently computable, especially if you have a quantum computer.

Quantum mechanics is even linear!

Fun fact, quantum mechanics is also deterministic, if you stay away from bonkers interpretations like Copenhagen and stick to just the theory itself or saner interpretations.

> computation is algorithmic, real machines are not necessarily

Author seems to assume the latter condition is definitive, i.e. that real machines are not, and then derive extrapolations from that unproven assumption.

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