Doesn’t the concept of a subconscious, or inner voice, invalidate any tight analogies to Turing Machines? What logical process is putting the Fur Elise into my head (earworms etc)
I think this article is right that definitions really matter here cause one could argue “CTM is trivial, because we can describe almost any physical system as executing computations.” So we have a dual problem here—not just the difficult discussion of ‘what’s going on in minds’, but also ‘what is computation’.
Are LLMs even covered by ‘computational theory of mind’? Cause if I say “I like to bake” the LLM is only able to recognize and respond to that sentence due to the neural network making emergent connections between the tokens in the words—very different from the kind of computer programs these guys seem to have been thinking about.
Infuriatingly, computation is subjective. The experience of the inputs, the results, and the processes depends on qualia. So does logic itself.
Automating the processes doesn't change that. There's a very large number of possible processes and operations, but only a small number are perceived as valuable.
Not broad enough. Better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculating_Space
♥
Doesn’t the concept of a subconscious, or inner voice, invalidate any tight analogies to Turing Machines? What logical process is putting the Fur Elise into my head (earworms etc)
I think this article is right that definitions really matter here cause one could argue “CTM is trivial, because we can describe almost any physical system as executing computations.” So we have a dual problem here—not just the difficult discussion of ‘what’s going on in minds’, but also ‘what is computation’.
I would agree, but I recently read https://transformer-circuits.pub/2026/workspace/index.html which is quite interesting in it's own right.
What are your thoughts on this?
Are LLMs even covered by ‘computational theory of mind’? Cause if I say “I like to bake” the LLM is only able to recognize and respond to that sentence due to the neural network making emergent connections between the tokens in the words—very different from the kind of computer programs these guys seem to have been thinking about.
Wonder if the subconscious could simply be another LLM with a higher temperature setting…
Have long thought that creativity is little more than a finely tuned filter driven by noise…
Infuriatingly, computation is subjective. The experience of the inputs, the results, and the processes depends on qualia. So does logic itself.
Automating the processes doesn't change that. There's a very large number of possible processes and operations, but only a small number are perceived as valuable.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/132/About_Aboutness