Hard to abondon my ways
I've been thinking a lot about machines lately. Not only the live, physical ones, but Turing machines as well. So here we go:
I guess what started it is listening to the new mix by DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, The Hard Sell, namely about 12 minutes into Side 1. What caught me right away was how weird it is, how different the sound is, and thus, how rare the track felt. I mean, where else would I hear this? Anywho, for those of you not in the know, it's a sample of a song where a robot is saying he falls in love with a girl. Silly, I know. But what got me thinking was about human emotions, and I feel one of the things I notice is that I can tell where my emotions will lead me sometimes. What actions, other emotions, consequences that will result of me feeling a certain way or doing a certain action will affect my consciousness. I think of this as analogous to the Turing machine problem, and I'll shortly relate this back to why I think robots (in the traditional sense) wouldn't really be able to feel emotions as humans do.
Ok, first Turing machines. Some of you already know this, but a brief intro for everyone else. A Turing machine is considered a pure logic machine, and is the concept in which all computer code is based. That being, every program is expressible as a Turing machine which in turn is expressible in second order logic (maybe first order, Steve help me with this). One of the major theorems, proven by Alan Turing himself, which was based loosely off of Godel's Theorem was that a generalized computer program won't be able to look at other programs to tell if they will end or not. What does that mean? A computer won't be able to tell what it's going to do in the future simply by the way it's programmed.
Second Argument: I propose that my knowledge of the very nature of my emotions (equivalent of a program being designed in the system of Turing machines) is what in itself will be able to predict what I'm going to do next. Unlike a Turing machine. Hmm. So, a robot's emotions would have to somehow be based off of computer code so QED. A robot couldn't know it's own system, bam.
Of course there are a plethora of arguments that can be made against it. I'm just throwing it out there. See if anyone takes the bait.
Also, I highly recommend the High Dials. It's solid rock.
I'll post some pictures soon enough. When I feel/look better, nobody wants to see my pallid face right now.
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Now playing: The High Dials - Save the Machine!
I guess what started it is listening to the new mix by DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, The Hard Sell, namely about 12 minutes into Side 1. What caught me right away was how weird it is, how different the sound is, and thus, how rare the track felt. I mean, where else would I hear this? Anywho, for those of you not in the know, it's a sample of a song where a robot is saying he falls in love with a girl. Silly, I know. But what got me thinking was about human emotions, and I feel one of the things I notice is that I can tell where my emotions will lead me sometimes. What actions, other emotions, consequences that will result of me feeling a certain way or doing a certain action will affect my consciousness. I think of this as analogous to the Turing machine problem, and I'll shortly relate this back to why I think robots (in the traditional sense) wouldn't really be able to feel emotions as humans do.
Ok, first Turing machines. Some of you already know this, but a brief intro for everyone else. A Turing machine is considered a pure logic machine, and is the concept in which all computer code is based. That being, every program is expressible as a Turing machine which in turn is expressible in second order logic (maybe first order, Steve help me with this). One of the major theorems, proven by Alan Turing himself, which was based loosely off of Godel's Theorem was that a generalized computer program won't be able to look at other programs to tell if they will end or not. What does that mean? A computer won't be able to tell what it's going to do in the future simply by the way it's programmed.
Second Argument: I propose that my knowledge of the very nature of my emotions (equivalent of a program being designed in the system of Turing machines) is what in itself will be able to predict what I'm going to do next. Unlike a Turing machine. Hmm. So, a robot's emotions would have to somehow be based off of computer code so QED. A robot couldn't know it's own system, bam.
Of course there are a plethora of arguments that can be made against it. I'm just throwing it out there. See if anyone takes the bait.
Also, I highly recommend the High Dials. It's solid rock.
I'll post some pictures soon enough. When I feel/look better, nobody wants to see my pallid face right now.
----------------
Now playing: The High Dials - Save the Machine!
posted by Poshy at 3:10 PM
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