Edward Frenkel

Because obviously a child has not been fed any training data, as far as we know.

Yet they're perfectly capable of, you know, of distinguishing between cats and dogs, for instance, and stuff like that.

But much more than that, they're also capable of that

wide-eyed sort of perspective.

So can it really be captured, that perspective, that sense of awe, can it really be captured by computation alone?

I don't know the answer, so I'm not sort of trying to present a particular point of view.

I'm just trying to question any theory that starts out by saying,

life is this, or consciousness is this.

Because when you look more closely, you recognize that there are some other things at play, which do not quite fit the narrative.

Right, the question is whether as a child, you carry that in the form of the kind of computational algorithms that we are aware today.

You see, what strikes me as unlikely,

is that, how should I put it?

How interesting that, you know, you are a computer scientist and there are other people, I have studied computer science, so I know a little bit.

And so it's tempting to say, oh, the whole world is computer science or is based, can be explained by computer science.

Why?

Because it makes me feel good because I have mastered it.

I have learned it.

My ego is very happy and people come to me

And they look up to me and they revere me, kind of like priests in old days when religion was paramount, when you would tend to explain things in theological, religious terms.

Today, science has progressed.