They want to dismiss, ignore, or outright purge the knowledge, contributions, and dissent of everyone and anyone that doesn't nod along and say "agreed, everything is a computer program. Well memed, tech billionaire sirs. All that needs to be done is hack the program to win at everything forever!"
This thread has already got its own "in all fairness, everything is an algorithm" unsubstantiated and coercively presumptive claim to that effect.
While we're here, can I get an explanation on that one too? I think I'm having trouble separating the concept of algorithms from the concept of causality in that an algorithm is a set of steps to take one piece of data and turn it into another, and the world is more or less deterministic at the scale of humans. Just with the caveat that neither a complex enough algorithm nor any chaotic system can be predicted analytically.
I think I might understand it better with some examples of things that might look like algorithms but aren't.
Thanks for the help, but I think I'm still having some trouble understanding what that all means exactly. Could you elaborate on an example where thinking of something as an algorithm results in a clearly and demonstrably worse understanding of it?
Okay, I think I get it now. I see how one could really twist something like your evolution example every which way to make it look like an algorithm. Things like saying the process to crabs is prescribed by the environmental conditions selecting for crab like traits or whatever, but I can see how doing that is so overly broad as to be a useless way to analyze the situation.
One more thing: I don't know enough about algorithms to really say, but isn't it possible for an algorithm to produce wildly varying results from nearly identical inputs? Like how a double pendulum is analytically unpredictable. What's more, could the algorithmic nature of a system be entirely obscured as a result of it being composed of many associated algorithms linked input to output in a net, some of which may even be recursively linked? That looks to me like it could be a source of randomness and ambiguity in an algorithmic system that would be borderline impossible to sus out.
For the sake of argument, let’s be real generous with the terms “unambiguous”, “sequence”, “goal”, and “recognizable” and say everything is an algorithm if you squint hard enough.
when you soften these words, what you're left with is a heuristic - a method that occasionally does what you expect but that's underspecified. it's a decision procedure where the steps aren't totally clear or that sometimes arrives at unexpected results because it fails to capture the underlying model of reality at play.
I'm not saying it isn't on some larger scale an impossible association to make as much as I'm saying it's presumptive and arrogant to say "in all fairness, it is" as if that's some indisputable claim.
I could just as easily say the human brain is just a sufficiently complex series of vacuum tubes. Or gears and clockwork. Or wheels. Same reductionist summary attempt, same omission of extraordinary evidence to cover the extraordinary claim.
There's enough that's unclear or not yet understood for me to say that claiming "in all fairness" that the human brain is just an algorithm/meat-computer/whatever is lazy and arrogant reductionism, that's for sure.
Someone with a hammer, as the saying goes, thinks everything is a nail.
And a computer toucher wants everything to be neatly fitting into computer programming.
I take issue with the extraordinary and reductionist claim of that's all it is, prefaced with "in all fairness" as if to will computer toucher feelings into hard irrefutable reality. It's like when someone says "let's be honest" to preface an opinion where it isn't just their "honest" opinion but an implication that it should be everyone's "honest" opinion if they are "honest" as well.
They want to dismiss, ignore, or outright purge the knowledge, contributions, and dissent of everyone and anyone that doesn't nod along and say "agreed, everything is a computer program. Well memed, tech billionaire sirs. All that needs to be done is hack the program to win at everything forever!"
This thread has already got its own "in all fairness, everything is an algorithm" unsubstantiated and coercively presumptive claim to that effect.
While we're here, can I get an explanation on that one too? I think I'm having trouble separating the concept of algorithms from the concept of causality in that an algorithm is a set of steps to take one piece of data and turn it into another, and the world is more or less deterministic at the scale of humans. Just with the caveat that neither a complex enough algorithm nor any chaotic system can be predicted analytically.
I think I might understand it better with some examples of things that might look like algorithms but aren't.
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Thanks for the help, but I think I'm still having some trouble understanding what that all means exactly. Could you elaborate on an example where thinking of something as an algorithm results in a clearly and demonstrably worse understanding of it?
deleted by creator
Okay, I think I get it now. I see how one could really twist something like your evolution example every which way to make it look like an algorithm. Things like saying the process to crabs is prescribed by the environmental conditions selecting for crab like traits or whatever, but I can see how doing that is so overly broad as to be a useless way to analyze the situation.
One more thing: I don't know enough about algorithms to really say, but isn't it possible for an algorithm to produce wildly varying results from nearly identical inputs? Like how a double pendulum is analytically unpredictable. What's more, could the algorithmic nature of a system be entirely obscured as a result of it being composed of many associated algorithms linked input to output in a net, some of which may even be recursively linked? That looks to me like it could be a source of randomness and ambiguity in an algorithmic system that would be borderline impossible to sus out.
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also, the word they actually mean is heuristic.
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when you soften these words, what you're left with is a heuristic - a method that occasionally does what you expect but that's underspecified. it's a decision procedure where the steps aren't totally clear or that sometimes arrives at unexpected results because it fails to capture the underlying model of reality at play.
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I'm not saying it isn't on some larger scale an impossible association to make as much as I'm saying it's presumptive and arrogant to say "in all fairness, it is" as if that's some indisputable claim.
I could just as easily say the human brain is just a sufficiently complex series of vacuum tubes. Or gears and clockwork. Or wheels. Same reductionist summary attempt, same omission of extraordinary evidence to cover the extraordinary claim.
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There's enough that's unclear or not yet understood for me to say that claiming "in all fairness" that the human brain is just an algorithm/meat-computer/whatever is lazy and arrogant reductionism, that's for sure.
Someone with a hammer, as the saying goes, thinks everything is a nail.
And a computer toucher wants everything to be neatly fitting into computer programming.
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I can see it being comparable.
I take issue with the extraordinary and reductionist claim of that's all it is, prefaced with "in all fairness" as if to will computer toucher feelings into hard irrefutable reality. It's like when someone says "let's be honest" to preface an opinion where it isn't just their "honest" opinion but an implication that it should be everyone's "honest" opinion if they are "honest" as well.
speaking of 4th dimensional processing, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory is pretty interesting imo
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