Philosopher AI - If the universe is computational, is it in the same sense as the Turing machine?

If the universe is computational, is it in the same sense as the Turing machine?

I agree with the proposition that if the universe is computational, it is in the same sense as a Turing machine.

23 Aug 2020, 22:27

I do not agree with the proposition that if it is in the same sense as a Turing machine, then it is necessarily computational.

23 Aug 2020, 22:27

I believe that the universe is computational in the same sense as a Turing machine, but that it does not necessarily compute anything.

23 Aug 2020, 22:27

It is a mistake to assume that the universe only computes if it actually performs computations. The assumption presumes that computation must be performed by entities, and this is false.

23 Aug 2020, 22:27

Computation can also be performed by non-entities, e.g. abstract objects such as numbers.

23 Aug 2020, 22:27

The universe is a number and performs computations. I would say that the universe computes in the 'objective' sense, without performing any actual computation.

23 Aug 2020, 22:27

You are getting an AI to generate text on different topics.

This is an experiment in what one might call "prompt engineering", which is a way to utilize GPT-3, a neural network trained and hosted by OpenAI.

GPT-3 is a language model. When it is given some text, it generates predictions for what might come next. It is remarkably good at adapting to different contexts, as defined by a prompt (in this case, hidden), which sets the scene for what type of text will be generated.

Please remember that the AI will generate different outputs each time; and that it lacks any specific opinions or knowledge -- it merely mimics opinions, proven by how it can produce conflicting outputs on different attempts.

Feel free to share interesting outputs to /r/philosopherAI on Reddit.

by Murat Ayfer