Duncecap Posted:

Clarification:

All computation seems to me to also be thought.

I cannot think of a computation which cannot be thought.

Of course you can’t…Think about it. Log in to see images!

But, setting the possibility of “unthinkables” aside for a moment: having the ability to translate from, say, Japanese to Spanish doesn’t mean Japanese and Spanish are the same.

That is why I do not conflate thought with other forms of computation, while I am fairly comfortable calling thought a type of computation.

It’s interesting sometimes, but most of the time you just end up reinventing the wheel with a different name and a different number of spokes. Everything I do has to satisfy a constructivist . . . it all has to be mathematically provable from the bumumptions. A lot of computer science is like: “Yeah, we can’t prove it, but you can see where it goes, right?”. Indirect proofs are rarely allowed.

So yeah, that guy Dijkstra and his algorithm? That so useful algorithm you could use in every computation ever by defining nodes and edges reasonably? I’m not allowed to use that unless the axioms of choice for graph theory are accepted. Hamiltonian paths/graphs? Same thing.

And what if I run into NP complete? I’m not allowed to estimate . . .

Ah…Validity.

Still sounds like a neat job.

But yeah, looking forward to your answer.

Sorry about the delay, been distracted lately.

The brain is hardware; the part that you identify as ‘you’ is the software, and merely an internal state of the brain.

Lose that internal state, lose that arrangement, and what is left? The blank hardware. No personality, no memories.

One must be careful with the hardware/software analogy, useful though it is…A brain with its particular set of connections between neurons is hardly a tabula rasa.