From: rjones@soartech.com   
      
   jonesrob@emporia.edu wrote:   
   > On Mar 26, 4:02 am, rjones@soartech.com wrote:   
   >> On Mar 24, 7:50 pm, jonesrob@emporia.edu wrote:   
   >>   
   > [[ Quote trimmed, see upthread for details]]   
   >   
   >>> What might string theory bring?  Will our laws of physics   
   >>> always be changing too?  If so there goes your inviolate   
   >>> level. Will anything in science ever remain fixed?   
   >> I think you are misunderstanding what "the inviolate level" is.  For   
   >> example, an inviolate level would not change just because our   
   >> understanding changes of how the universe works, as you seem to be   
   >> implying here.   
   >>   
   >> Any formal system must have an interpreter.  The formal system can   
   >> manipulate symbols and, at some levels, may even manipulate some of   
   >> its own interpretation rules.  But there is always some level of   
   >> interpreter machinery that the formal system has no influence over.   
   >> This is the "inviolate level".  For example, DNA can be transcribed to   
   >> produce proteins.  Proteins can copy and alter the DNA, or influence   
   >> the transcription process.  But neither DNA nor proteins can change   
   >> the physical laws directing how molecules attract to each other, fit   
   >> together, and interact with each other.  A computer program can   
   >> contain "self-modifying code", but it cannot change the hardwired   
   >> microprogramming from which all of the instructions are ultimately   
   >> implemented.  Or if you *do* give your computer the ability to change   
   >> the microprogramming, you are just changing where the inviolate level   
   >> is, because the program can't change the wiring structure or the   
   >> number of registers.  Or if you *do* turn your program into a robot   
   >> that can alter its own hardware, that's still subject to some   
   >> machinery (such as how electrons flow through the circuits) that it   
   >> cannot change.  When you do math, your manipulation of mathematical   
   >> symbols may change "how you think" in terms of how you think about   
   >> math, but it can't change the physics of the neuro-chemical processes   
   >> that implementing your thinking processes (this is independent of what   
   >> our current state of understanding is about how those processes   
   >> work).  This is what Hofstadter means about there always being an   
   >> inviolate level (in my opinion).   
   >>   
   >   
   > When we only understood Newtonian mechanics we could build   
   > Babbage computers.  After we learned about electricity we   
   > could made PCs.  The machinery changed.  Can't an AI   
   > change things at increasingly lower levels?  Why believe   
   > that there is some lowest bedrock level if science has   
   > never bottomed out yet?   
      
   Can a human intelligence change things at increasingly lower levels?   
   Why believe that humans can change the physics of molecular attraction?   
      
   I think you are misunderstanding what "the inviolate level" is.   
      
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