Humans do something other than follow algorithms: An algorithm has 1) an input, and 2) an output that's related to the input in a prescribable way (i.e. it has to halt—Turing) Creativity can't be an algorithm, because one can't specify criteria for what the output would be.
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Replying to @reasonisfun
Wondering how many “The Church-Turing Thesis proves that’s impossible; you are advocating supernatural woo” replies you will get to this.
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Replying to @Meaningness
There are many (non-supernatural!) computations that don't halt, and don't produce an output. For example, trying to compute a noncomputable function. Ditto crashing (assuming you don't count crashing as an output). Not all computation is algorithmic (in the above sense).
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Replying to @reasonisfun
Also, people don’t have inputs or outputs, in the computational sense in which those are mathematical objects.
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Replying to @Meaningness
Is it not the case we can do that if we want to? If you give me two numbers, I can add them together and tell you the answer. We can do other things, though. And I could decline to do the calculation. Is that what you mean?
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Replying to @reasonisfun
Well… I can’t actually give you two numbers. I can only perform physical actions, such as writing a numeral on a piece of paper. Then we can agree that the number represents a non-physical thing; but no one has been able to coherently explain what “represents” means.
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Replying to @Meaningness @reasonisfun
You can perform the addition and tell me the answer, and it may be right or wrong, and this is obviously extremely useful, but it is not at all clear how exactly it relates to the formal theory of computation.
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Replying to @Meaningness @reasonisfun
This *could*, in principle, just be philosophical nitpicking: but Part III of The Eggplan, which I’m currently attempting to write, explains that it has substantive implications for how we can be use formal rationality in the physical world.
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(More typos: “Eggplant”; “best use,” not “be use.” Am packing for a trip and not paying proper attention!)
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