Recent content by PeroK

I did this trick once on a climber. I was browsing through his climbing guide book and told him I had memorised all the climbs. All I had memorised was the description of the 9th climb on page 108. So, of course, by this method I got him to pick a climb supposedly at random, then reeled off...

Note that the Rovelli paper above does not consider the question of the existence of an electron, as we have been discussing it here. As far as I can tell, it is fundamentally an information-theoretic approach that attempts to avoid the problems of other interpretations. And, in particular, to...

Let's take the Stern-Gerlach experiment. There is a source of silver atoms. Those atoms pass through an inhomogeneous magnetic field and impact a detector screen in one of two (in practice fuzzy) locations. At what times in that experiment do the silver atoms exist? The evolution of a silver...

How can you measure something that doesn't exist? Would two non-existent electrons be different from one non-existent electron? If you say that in this experiment we have a single non-existent electron; and, in this experiment, we have two non-existent electrons, then you are just playing...

One could argue that if the electron does not exist between measurements, then it cannot be described by a state or wave-function (or anything) between measurements. And, if its state does not exist between measurements, then its state cannot evolve between measurements. This is, therefore...

Language belongs to all of us. It's not defined by "grammarians". It's very different from mathematics, where things are more clearly right and wrong. There is no obligation on us to use standard English in all cases. In fact, labelling [sic] non-standard English as "wrong" or "bad" could be...

There's a difference between being informal and wrong. Language isn't a historical relic. We must allow the possibility for usage to change over time. Just yesterday I used the phrase "get ye gone", which my friend had never heard. The funny thing is that Google AI gave, IMO, a perfect...

During those 10000 seconds, if energy is going into the system but the system maintains a constant mechanical energy, then that energy must be dissipated through friction, air resistance and noise. It's no different from having to keep your foot on the accelerator to maintain constant speed of...

Not at all. I think there are aspects of human thought that are objectively different from LLM's. The problem is that it's not a universal and fundamental difference. I see the attempts on this thread (and previous similar threads) to settle the debate by a priori definitions and assumptions...

This is another a priori argument. Listen to what you are saying: I, Dave C, have certain opinions about abstract art. These opinions are essentially objectively correct. Anyone who disagrees is objectively wrong. They are missing the point. Anyone who disagrees with you suffers from...

Exactly. Some process are carbon-based; some are silicon based. They are not equivalent. If your objective criteria is how something original is produced, then a priori computers cannot be intelligent, creative or understand anything. Because, intelligence, creativity, understanding are...

This is an a priori argument that "creativity is what a human does". If you define creativity this way, then machines cannot be creative by definition. Picasso's brain must have followed some process. It must have been neurons firing deterministically. That is not creativity either.

You've jumped to a false conclusion here. The documentary is about Marla Olmstead, who was a successful abstract artist by the age of four: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marla_Olmstead Apologies, but I got the title of the documentary slightly wrong. It was "kid", not "daughter"...

If you are using modern art to demonstrate that humans can be creative where a machine cannot, then you will struggle to have objective criteria on which to base any scientifically viable case. Modern Art generally cannot be judged by objective criteria. The ultimate example, perhaps, is John...

Wikipedia is a good place to start. The page has an overview and some references to follow up on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sombrero_Galaxy