I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of dreams where I’ve felt I understood some really cool concept, woke up, told it to someone, and when my head cleared the person told me I’d just spouted gibberish at them. So the feeling of understanding can definitely be simulated without actual understanding, but I’m not sure that’s the same thing as simulating the experience of understanding.
I wonder if thinking you understand mathematics without actually doing so counts as “simulating the understanding of mathematics.” When I was little there was a period of time where I thought I understood quadratic equations, but had it totally wrong, is that “simulating?”
Maybe the reason it’s not really coherent is that many branches of math can be worked out and understood entirely in your head if you have a good enough memory, so an experience machine couldn’t add anything to the experience, (except maybe having virtual paper to make notes on).
Is simulating the experience of understanding mathematics a coherent concept?
I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of dreams where I’ve felt I understood some really cool concept, woke up, told it to someone, and when my head cleared the person told me I’d just spouted gibberish at them. So the feeling of understanding can definitely be simulated without actual understanding, but I’m not sure that’s the same thing as simulating the experience of understanding.
I wonder if thinking you understand mathematics without actually doing so counts as “simulating the understanding of mathematics.” When I was little there was a period of time where I thought I understood quadratic equations, but had it totally wrong, is that “simulating?”
Maybe the reason it’s not really coherent is that many branches of math can be worked out and understood entirely in your head if you have a good enough memory, so an experience machine couldn’t add anything to the experience, (except maybe having virtual paper to make notes on).