What is existence?

[palou]

Nem said:

 How do our brains go about discovering different ways to think, to see reality, to discover? That, i believe, separates us currently from programs. We can accept new variables in a way a program can only accept the ones it was instructed to.

I think you're underestimating programs quite a bit, here, and overestimate humans. Machine learning is fully capable discovering patterns/paths to solve problems in manners that the program isn't directly instructed to. Very, very general LSTM machine vision programs are capable of distinguishing a set of 5 newly introduced objects (let's say - cat, dog, mug chair and pencil-case) with 80% accuracy using only 3 specific data samples, after fine-tuning *themselves* to recognize quicker with entirely separate datasets. That's a much better result than any specific recognition program humans could attempt to write, the computer thus able to create efficient methods to work with largely by itself.

 

Humans are also very much limited to the input we receive (be it sound, audio, touch, etc...), our sensors being currently much more capable than what a machine has to work with. Everything we create stems from this input, one way or another. Yes, we are able to apply it creatively, but again, that's something machine-learning can achieve quite nicely, as well.