This is fun, I appreciate it. I've only made it as far down this rabbit hole to the part of building AGI on current architecture. Had no idea how much deeper this thing goes. This is the reason I was engaged in the first place, thanks for leading me down here.
Tbf, I personally don’t think consciousness is necessarily non-algorithmic but that’s a different debate.
I'm looking forward to that one when it comes up!
Thank you for this. My recent hyper fixation has lead me down the rabbit hole of non-algorithmic theories of consciousness with a specific focus on the theory mentioned in this proof. Would I be interpreting this proof correctly in asserting that if consciousness is non-algorithmic, this proof means AGI is impossible?
This is the third time I have seen this story come up from three different science journalism websites recently.
Here is the actual published proof.
It seems a lot of commenters on these threads have a lot of skepticism about the authors claims, as we should with such a bold claim. Are there any mathematicians or logicians here that can actually unpack the proof with scrutiny and explain it to me in lay terms?
We don't understand gravity to the point where we have a consistent algorithmic explanation for it. As suggested, there are competing theories, all of which are algorithmically based. The holy grail of modern physics is to find the algorithm that explains gravity as that is the last missing piece to finalize the theory of everything.
The results of this research are implying that it is not possible to prove, algorithmically, that gravity is quantum but rather that quantum gravity as the foundation of the universe is non-algorithmic and therefore non-computational. And so a theory of everything is impossible, implying that the universe cannot be simulated by computing the theory of everything.
This research builds on a lot of the work that Roger Penrose did in the 90s in exploring the potential non-algorithmic nature of consciousness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose#Consciousness). If you read his book "Shadows of the Mind" published in 1993 you will find a prediction of future computational abilities that is a shockingly accurate description of AI deep fakes and the AI slop we see today with LLMs.
The no-simulated universe idea is one interesting conclusion of this research, but in my opinion, a more interesting conclusion of this research is that if you believe Penrose's argument for consciousness being non-algorithmic, than this research is implying that AGI is also impossible.
Donate it to the library or a local food bank. Simple community building.
It isn't a medical issue, or a public health issue. It is an economic issue. Pollution is widely recognized in our capitalistic world as an externality that just is. In other words, a 'public bad'. Mandatory vaccines are a public good, in the true sense of the word. Having a central government pay the cost of administering a vaccine that will improve public health and reduce risk/remediation costs will always be more efficient than if every individual in society had to pay those costs themselves. Economies of scale.
Thanks, I think that is a useful observation. I agree in that I wouldn't necessarily say it is a problem for the validity of the proof itself, but I do like the extra scrutiny.