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Notes -
Isn't Computational Complexity Theory supposed to tackle questions of this kind?
Scott Aaronson offered the following highly evocative metaphor:
Although I doubt such general questions and theories are that helpful in guiding our research: they provide boundaries for what is possible, but what is practical typically lies far away from those boundaries.
Scott's metaphor is funny to think about but it has no philosophical rigor.
Complexity theory is not meaningfully different from other mathematics in its relationship to the metaphysical: it's a pure reason construct that attempts to map out necessary truths.
In many ways it it actually completely disconnected from the question at hand, because the machines it is concerned about are abstractions that are not and cannot possibly be real. They just happen to map onto real objects in a useful enough way. As you point out.
Scott isn't the first to connect this type of endeavor and the sacred. Pythagoras did it a long time ago. But the connection isn't relevant to the question of intelligence in my view.
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