zlacker

>>mdszy+(OP)
Why is there never any fundamental research whether human intelligence is even computable? All these huge, expensive projects based on an untested premise.

>>yters+GI
I think it’s pretty certain that we can improve a lot. If that leads to human intelligence or something else we don’t know. But it’s worth working on improving things and trying different approaches even if the final result isn’t known.

>>Ididnt+qJ
But there might be even better approaches if human intelligence is not computable. E.g. if the mind is a halting oracles that can get us all kinds of cool things.

>>yters+nT
If the mind were a halting oracle I don't think most of our open problems in mathematics would be.

>>inimin+VK1
It's possible for the mind to solve more halting problems than any finite computer, yet still not be as powerful as a complete halting oracle. Thus, the fact we haven't solved every problem does not count as evidence against the mind being a halting oracle.

>>yters+Oa2
Actually it does. While it's logically possible, evidence for a hypothesis A is still provided by any data that is more likely under hypothesis A than under hypothesis B.

The hypothesis that the mind is computable but is using heuristics, of various levels of sophistication, explains the data better and is more parsimonious than your hypothesis, because we already have reason to believe that the mind uses heuristics extensively.

Where you see uncomputable oracular insights, others see computable combinations of heuristics. If you introspect deeply enough while problem-solving, you may be able to sense the heuristics working prior to the flash of intuition.

>>inimin+SL2
In that setup the evidence makes the uncomputable partial Oracle the most likely hypothesis, since the space of uncomputable partial oracles is much much larger (infinitely so) than either computable minds or perfect halting oracles.

>>yters+2e5
Well, no. That is the same kind of error as Zeno's paradox.

One assigns a prior to a class of hypotheses, and the cardinality of that set does not change the total probability you assign to the entire hypothesis class.

If one instead assigns a constant non-zero prior to each individual hypothesis of an infinite class, a grievous error has been committed and inconsistent and paradoxical beliefs can be the only result.