The question by and an answer to Yuval Noah Harari The processes of life are algorithmic, life is supported by data processing, but the be...
The question by and an answer to Yuval Noah Harari
The processes of life are algorithmic, life is supported by data processing, but the behaviour of a living being with an advanced data processing organ is not deterministic.
What is the algorithm?
A process or set of rules to be followed in operations. Algorithm is a step-by-step procedure, which defines a set of instructions to be executed in a certain order to get an output.
The living organism algorithm?
Biological life is a complex system of interconnected, interrelated chemical reactions based on specific, complex carbon compounds. Biological processes in living systems use specific initial conditions to produce a specific outcome state through a deterministic processing sequence. The biochemical processes of a living organism operate algorithmically.
Is life data processing?
Algorithm-like processes that exist in reality can be represented in an abstract way, by representing the components and changes that are concretely involved in the process of algorithms symbolized as information, described as data. At the level of description, by abstractly representing the algorithm-like biochemical processes of life, life is an information process. Life can be represented by data, by information, and can be described as a data processing operation. However, such a description is only a model, an abstraction of reality from a particular point of view.
A living system can be represented as an information process, with data and changes in data, but life is not an information-based input-output process. The functioning of a living system is not about processing data. Life is a flow of energy based on specific material changes.
But concrete, actual data processing can be part of the biochemical algorithms of life. Living systems can implement and apply data processing procedures.
The interaction of living systems with the environment is information-based, a process that is made more efficient by data processing. The data processing procedure used by living systems models the environment using an information-based description. Information-based modelling of the environment and appropriate processing of the collected data helps the living system to use the environment and adapt to the ecosystem.
Appropriate data processing makes the processes necessary to sustain life more efficient, and thus provides an evolutionary advantage.
Evolutionary processes create evolutionary pressures for the development of biological subsystems specialized for increasingly complex interactions with the environment during the evolution of life, and thus for increasingly complex data processing. The brain is the most important data processing organ of living systems.
Is the data processing mechanism of living systems algorithm?
The brain, the data processing organ of living systems, is a network of interconnected and interacting neurons that functionally operate on logical principles. The brain extracts information from the environment through the sensory organs, processes it in a brain-specific mode, and finally responds to the state of the environment in the form of output, controlling effectors (e.g. muscles) to assist the life processes of the biological organism. The brain is an input-output information processing system that converts input information into output information in a well-defined way. The neuron that constructs the brain works like an algorithm.
But an advanced brain does not work like an algorithm. The fundamental requirement for algorithm-like operation is the sequential order of operation. An algorithm is a strict sequence of strictly ordered states. This is true even if the algorithm contains branches, feedbacks, still the order is strictly fixed, even if it contains logical conditions.
The nerve cells that form the brain, the neurons, are interconnected deterministic logical devices, creating algorithmic processes. The interconnected neurons of a simple brain operate algorithmically because the sequences of processes, even if they run in parallel, have little interaction.
In a complex brain, however, the neural processes that run in parallel are also interconnected and influence each other. A complex brain is not only a system capable of parallel processing, but the parallel processes also interrelate dynamically. In this process, linear, algorithmic operation is transformed into non-linear, and hence into non-algorithmic operation.
The elementary structures of the complex brain are algorithm-like in their operation, and therefore have deterministic behavior, but the whole system is no longer linear, and therefore not deterministic, and cannot be described algorithmically.
The consequence of this non-algorithmic operation is the unpredictable behavior of the complex brain (the illusion of free will), and the emergent phenomenon of consciousness. The complex brain operates on a resonance mechanism, which is inconceivable to describe as an algorithm.
In today's artificial intelligence research, the computational model of deep learning works in an iterative, algorithm-like way. Since this process is built up of logical elements suitable for logical deductions, it is suitable for creating intelligent behavior, suitable for modeling intelligence, the strictly algorithmic operation makes it unsuitable for the artificial realization of higher brain functions such as consciousness.
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