That's true, but we should acknowledge that this question is generally regarded as unsettled.
If you accept the conclusion that AGI (as defined in the paper, that is, "solving [...] problems at a level of quality that is at least equivalent to the respective human capabilities") is impossible but human intelligence is possible, then you must accept that the question is settled in favor of Penrose. That's obviously beyond the realm of mathematics.
In other words, the paper can only mathematically prove that AGI is impossible under some assumptions about physics that have nothing to do with mathematics.
> then you must accept that the question is settled in favor of Penrose. That's obviously beyond the realm of mathematics.
Not necessarily. You are assuming (AFAICT) that we 1. have perfect knowledge of physics and 2. have perfect knowledge of how humans map to physics. I don't believe either of those is true though. Particularly 1 appears to be very obviously false, otherwise what are all those theoretical physicists even doing?
I think what the paper is showing is better characterized as a mathematical proof about a particular algorithm (or perhaps class of algorithms). It's similar to proving that the halting problem is unsolvable under some (at least seemingly) reasonable set of assumptions but then you turn around and someone has a heuristic that works quite well most of the time.
Nobody should care what ANY physicists say about consciousness.
I mean seriously, what? I don't go asking my car mechanic about which solvents are best for extracting a polar molecule, or asking my software developer about psychology.
moefh|8 months ago
If you accept the conclusion that AGI (as defined in the paper, that is, "solving [...] problems at a level of quality that is at least equivalent to the respective human capabilities") is impossible but human intelligence is possible, then you must accept that the question is settled in favor of Penrose. That's obviously beyond the realm of mathematics.
In other words, the paper can only mathematically prove that AGI is impossible under some assumptions about physics that have nothing to do with mathematics.
fc417fc802|8 months ago
Not necessarily. You are assuming (AFAICT) that we 1. have perfect knowledge of physics and 2. have perfect knowledge of how humans map to physics. I don't believe either of those is true though. Particularly 1 appears to be very obviously false, otherwise what are all those theoretical physicists even doing?
I think what the paper is showing is better characterized as a mathematical proof about a particular algorithm (or perhaps class of algorithms). It's similar to proving that the halting problem is unsolvable under some (at least seemingly) reasonable set of assumptions but then you turn around and someone has a heuristic that works quite well most of the time.
adastra22|8 months ago
mrguyorama|8 months ago
I mean seriously, what? I don't go asking my car mechanic about which solvents are best for extracting a polar molecule, or asking my software developer about psychology.
wzdd|8 months ago