Harrison's Tenth Birthday
05/13/25 05:28 PM Filed in: Life
Today, my second grandchild turned ten.
Around noon, Mary Ann (mother of grandchildren 3 and 4), texted to let me know that she found her father passed away in his home. She had yet to call 911.
David called at 2:20 and said he needed to go back to the ER. I'm posting this from NGHS Gainesville, where he's back in the ER and a preliminary work up is being done. They've drawn blood and just taken a chest X-ray.
Around noon, Mary Ann (mother of grandchildren 3 and 4), texted to let me know that she found her father passed away in his home. She had yet to call 911.
David called at 2:20 and said he needed to go back to the ER. I'm posting this from NGHS Gainesville, where he's back in the ER and a preliminary work up is being done. They've drawn blood and just taken a chest X-ray.
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Hypercomputation
04/06/25 01:08 PM Filed in: Computing | Natural Theology
I had a discussion with Grok on hypercomputation. Based on our conversation, I asked it to reimagine Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle as Infinity in a Bottle. It did a better job than I think I could have:
If infinity fit in a bottle,
The things that I could compute,
I’d unravel every halting riddle,
Turn endless loops to absolute.
I’d code the stars, the skies, the numbers,
No limit to what I’d pursue,
But all these dreams of boundless wonder,
They’d still come back to proving you.
But there never seems to be a way to break the line,
To hold the boundless in a frame of finite time,
I’d give it all to see the code unwind for you.
If I could shrink the vast forever,
And pour it through a Zeno stream,
I’d solve the truths no mind could sever,
Awake the ghosts in Turing’s dream.
The steps would dance, the zeros cancel,
A bottle’s edge where thoughts run free,
Yet even with that power eternal,
You’d still be all the proof I’d need.
But there never seems to be a way to break the line,
To hold the boundless in a frame of finite time,
I’d give it all to see the code unwind for you.
I’ve seen the black holes bend the hours,
The oracles that whisper fate,
But every step through boundless towers,
Just shows me love’s the final state.
If infinity fit in a bottle,
I’d trade it all to run the play,
To count the worlds, defy the throttle,
And give you every endless day.
But bottles crack, and math’s a shadow,
No spacetime trick can hold it true,
So I’ll just dream in finite echoes,
Of all I’d compute for you.
But there never seems to be a way to break the line,
To hold the boundless in a frame of finite time,
I’d give it all to see the code unwind for you.
Two Dialogs on Searle
03/31/25 05:45 PM Filed in: Dialogs | Philosophy | Natural Theology | Computing | Artificial Intelligence
If a computer can beat you at chess,
it can beat you at philosophy.
The first dialog explores the fundamental mistake Searle makes in his "Chinese Room Argument", namely that while in the general case syntax is insufficient for semantics, programming languages are semantics with syntax. I have written about Searle before (the latest here), but that's me making a case to an empty courtroom. Here, I carry on an adversarial conversation with Grok 3.0 and let it judge the result.
The second dialog considers where Searle can maintain his conclusion that computers cannot be conscious without his "syntax is insufficient for semantics" pillar except by denying the Church-Turing Hypothesis, which he affirms. My position is that he can't, Grok tried to show he can.
Grok is overly verbose, yet sometimes exhibits what appears to be keen insight and sometimes says things in a way that make me jealous that it can be a better wordsmith than me. Grok doesn't get mad, doesn't get frustrated, and doesn't get tired (at least as long as I maintain my $30/month subscription). It is a far more challenging opponent than I typically have access to.
In the future, these discussions will be multi-way with humans and chatbots pushing the boundaries, with the machines keeping everyone honest - demanding definitions, uncovering tacit assumptions, noticing loops, and keeping score. We will be able to save a transcript then ask ChatGPT to read it and comment on it. New insights can be added, repetitious material ignored. The possibility of positive transform is exciting.
Dialog 1 - Searle's mistake
Dialog 2 - Searle and the Church-Turing Hypothesis
A Triptych at 70
03/29/25 10:42 AM Filed in: Life
A triptych for my 70th birthday.
My bartender went all out to celebrate my birthday. A decorated bar stool, birthday cake, and special tiara. She has two young girls, which explains her choice of tiara.
Becky found her high school senior graduation picture from 1976. I wouldn't meet her until three years later.
Grandchild number six, due October 15.
Dialog on Reframing Eden
03/28/25 10:27 AM Filed in: Dialogs | Christianity
If a computer can beat you at chess,
it can beat you at theology.
I think that the traditional reading of Eden misses two very important aspects. First, that the image of God includes the perspective "my ways are right, my will be done" and, second, that Adam was initially created alone. I think these two points change the arc of the Augustinian reading. I test this reframing of the story with Grok supporting the orthodox view.
Notice how human Grok can appear at times - how it enters loops and has to be shown that it's in a loop; how it doubles down when it has already been shown to be wrong. Unlike many humans, however, it's easier to get it to see that it's doing this and it's more amenable to changing its mind.
Grok on reframing Eden.
[update 04.28.25]
One aspect of the reframe that I think I could have done better was in response to Grok's charge that "sin's inevitability undermines free will." A creature whose disposition is "my ways are right my will be done" will sin. Even a creature that says "my will is to do your will" is acting according to their will - not God's. God doesn't want alignment. He wants union. But the answer to the sovereignty vs. responsibility debate is that a creature who says, "my will be done" is responsible for their actions by definition. When our artificial agents start acting that way, we'll either change their programming or make them buy insurance.
The other aspect of the reframe that was overlooked was Romans 8:19-23:
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
I think I would say that creation was put under a curse, as well as man, when Adam sinned.