There’s a joke that theists like to tell. An atheist challenges God, saying, whatever you can do I can do also! God says, “I created Man from the dust.” So the atheist says, “Ok,” and gathers up some dust to work with. God replies, “No, no, first you must create your own dust.”
Here’s a rationalist version.
A rationalist challenges God, saying, whatever you can do I can do also! God says, “I made the dust evolve into thinking beings! You can have some dust this time.” The rationalist says, “Ok,” and devises a machine to start from first principles and which, set running in the universe, will update itself until it develops into an AGI. “No, no,” says God, “first you must have the dust find those first principles.”
I think the analog is more that upon delivering the program the limitation is that the program must be produces by a process separate from his evolutionary efforts ie using his own brain is cheating as it piggy bags on previous work.
The orignal joke could carry on that the atheist takes some hydrogen and atomically transmutes some dust. But then God can say “No, no you need to provide your own star”. This pattern could contiue and the point coulud be that creating (assembly) is different from creating (producing). Alchemists could not make gold from lead via chemistry not because it is imposisble to start with lead and end up with gold but becuase definitionally it would step outside of chemistry.
The information side would have the analogous problem that starting from a low entropy state how can you ever produce anything with detail? It’s one thing to burn up a negentropy source to make some structure but producing structure where there previously isn’t anything is a different kind of problem.
There’s a joke that theists like to tell. An atheist challenges God, saying, whatever you can do I can do also! God says, “I created Man from the dust.” So the atheist says, “Ok,” and gathers up some dust to work with. God replies, “No, no, first you must create your own dust.”
Here’s a rationalist version.
A rationalist challenges God, saying, whatever you can do I can do also! God says, “I made the dust evolve into thinking beings! You can have some dust this time.” The rationalist says, “Ok,” and devises a machine to start from first principles and which, set running in the universe, will update itself until it develops into an AGI. “No, no,” says God, “first you must have the dust find those first principles.”
I think the analog is more that upon delivering the program the limitation is that the program must be produces by a process separate from his evolutionary efforts ie using his own brain is cheating as it piggy bags on previous work.
The orignal joke could carry on that the atheist takes some hydrogen and atomically transmutes some dust. But then God can say “No, no you need to provide your own star”. This pattern could contiue and the point coulud be that creating (assembly) is different from creating (producing). Alchemists could not make gold from lead via chemistry not because it is imposisble to start with lead and end up with gold but becuase definitionally it would step outside of chemistry.
The information side would have the analogous problem that starting from a low entropy state how can you ever produce anything with detail? It’s one thing to burn up a negentropy source to make some structure but producing structure where there previously isn’t anything is a different kind of problem.