computer models of the mind
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Carlos,
I think that was my point, although I am starting to get confused. (see below). It makes no sense to speak of mind as IN the body because it is an activity OF the body. Nick Nicholas Thompson nickthompson at earthlink.net http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson > [Original Message] > From: Carlos Gershenson <cgershen at vub.ac.be> > To: <nickthompson at earthlink.net>; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> > Date: 7/19/2006 10:52:11 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] computer models of the mind > > > Minds do not, in our common talk, have arms, legs, mouths, eyes, etc., > > Yes, but you cannot have a (human) mind without a body. > > In a similar way, you cannot have e.g. Linux running without a PC, > and Linux doesn't have a CPU, HD, RAM, etc... > > This has lead people to either aim at real world robotics as the only > way forward in AI, or at developing inside the computer complex > bodies and environments... > > Best regards, > > Carlos Gershenson... > Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel > Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium > http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/ > > ?To know your limits you need to go beyond them? > |
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Another one of the little things that are hard to model in how thought
works is the idea of information transfer. We imagine a speaker translates thought into words and speaks them, whereupon a listener receives the words and translates them back into thought. If you carefully trace the actual time sequence of events involved, there's no information transfer, just cross fertilization of independent worlds. It's actually the only way a listener can function, to take the jumble of non sequiturs masquerading as communication and make something of them that suites us, slowly building up a mental ecology or original design that works adequately. That 'transfer' is just the wrong model for what physically happens explains a whole lot. For me sure evidence is that when I actually construct language with unequivocal references that makes pure mathematical sense I absolutely always communicate the least. Without the play between the lines people play with, that language stuff it nearly useless. :) Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com |
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I suspect that we won't ever get a real thinking machine by
deliberately trying to model thought. I suspect that the approach that will ultimately work is one of two: One: a "sufficiently complex" evolutionary simulation system, or rather set of competing systems, will create a concious-seeming intelligence all by itself (though that intelligence will be non-human, and not modeled after human thought, and we might not understand each other well--how do you instill an AI with human concepts of morality?) or two, someone will create a super-complex physics simulation that can take hyper-detailed 3D brain CAT/PET/etc scan data as input then simply simulate the goings on at the atomic level, the "mind" being an emergent property of the "matter." Of course, the mind will probably instantly go insane, even if provided with sufficient quantity and types of virtual senses and body. And we *still* won't know how the mind happens. ;) ~~James |
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It's hard for me to imagine what's meant by the phrase "a real
thinking machine." Human level and human versatility? We can get those the old fashioned way. What we already have are programs that think better (deeper, faster, more imaginatively--whatever that means) in certain narrow domains. One of those is the far from negligible domain of molecular biology. Such programs cannot get themselves to the airport, or enjoy strawberries, but they really don't need to, do they? Contemporary molecular biology would be unthinkable (ahem) without such programs. Likewise, chess is now something machines do better than humans, and Kasparov, at least, says he is learning a great deal from how programs play chess. Some confusion has arisen because historically, the field of artificial intelligence both tried to model human thought, and tried to solve certain problems by hook or by crook (without reference to how humans do it). They were two distinct efforts. Cognitive psychologists were grateful to have in the computer a laboratory instrument that would allow them to move beyond rats running mazes (yes, folks, this is where cognitive psychology was in the 1950s). People interested in solving problems that humans are inept at solving were glad to have a machine that could process symbols. I'm just now reading Eric Kandel's graceful memoir, "In Search of Memory." Kandel, a Nobel laureate and biologist, has devoted his life to understanding human memory, which he believes is one of the great puzzles whose solution would lead directly to understanding human thought. He hasn't the least doubt that these seemingly intractable problems will someday be cracked. I don't either. And we won't go crazy doing it. Pamela McCorduck On Jul 21, 2006, at 11:23 AM, James Steiner wrote: > I suspect that we won't ever get a real thinking machine by > deliberately trying to model thought. I suspect that the approach that > will ultimately work is one of two: One: a "sufficiently complex" > evolutionary simulation system, or rather set of competing systems, > will create a concious-seeming intelligence all by itself (though that > intelligence will be non-human, and not modeled after human thought, > and we might not understand each other well--how do you instill an AI > with human concepts of morality?) or two, someone will create a > super-complex physics simulation that can take hyper-detailed 3D brain > CAT/PET/etc scan data as input then simply simulate the goings on at > the atomic level, the "mind" being an emergent property of the > "matter." Of course, the mind will probably instantly go insane, even > if provided with sufficient quantity and types of virtual senses and > body. > > And we *still* won't know how the mind happens. > > ;) > ~~James > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > "The amount of money one needs is terrifying ..." -Ludwig van Beethoven -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060721/84a29eba/attachment.html |
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Interesting book ! Much more interesting than the bad complexity book from Remo Badii and Antonio Politi that gets dusty somehwere on my bookshelf. Even if it is from Cambridge University Press, the Badii and Politi book is one of those disappointing books that you put down again soon everytime you pick it up, because you neve get any interesting inspiration from the mathematical quagmire. Quite different from those classic, timeless books where you discover everytime something new. The book from Kandel is probably much more rewarding. The amazon.com link for it can be found here http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393058638 Kandel has written this great neuroscience book with James Schwartz and Thomas Jessel, the Kandel Schwartz and Jessell tome, perhaps a kind of neuroscience bible (by the way did you that Obidos is a jungle town on the real-world Amazon near Manaus, located at the bottleneck - the narrowest and swiftest part - of the Amazon river, and also a historic town in Portugal ? I don't know the exact meaning at Amazon.com, probably it was the name of their custom-built e-commerce system that powered the original Amazon.com website - a large CGI program for the e-commerce system which handled different inventory queries, the home page, book detail pages, search, shopping cart, and the order pipeline. All of these pieces of business functionality are now wrapped and executed by different services, today "obidos" seems to be only a custom layer on top of the web servers that parses requests and builds web pages) -J. ________________________________ From: Pamela McCorduck Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 9:50 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] real tinking I'm just now reading Eric Kandel's graceful memoir, "In Search of Memory." Kandel, a Nobel laureate and biologist, has devoted his life to understanding human memory, which he believes is one of the great puzzles whose solution would lead directly to understanding human thought. |
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In reply to this post by Pamela McCorduck
Pamela--
That's a nice clarification of discussions that were getting waaaay out there. --Bruce ----- Original Message ----- From: Pamela McCorduck To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 1:49 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] real tinking It's hard for me to imagine what's meant by the phrase "a real thinking machine." Human level and human versatility? We can get those the old fashioned way. What we already have are programs that think better (deeper, faster, more imaginatively--whatever that means) in certain narrow domains. One of those is the far from negligible domain of molecular biology. Such programs cannot get themselves to the airport, or enjoy strawberries, but they really don't need to, do they? Contemporary molecular biology would be unthinkable (ahem) without such programs. Likewise, chess is now something machines do better than humans, and Kasparov, at least, says he is learning a great deal from how programs play chess. Some confusion has arisen because historically, the field of artificial intelligence both tried to model human thought, and tried to solve certain problems by hook or by crook (without reference to how humans do it). They were two distinct efforts. Cognitive psychologists were grateful to have in the computer a laboratory instrument that would allow them to move beyond rats running mazes (yes, folks, this is where cognitive psychology was in the 1950s). People interested in solving problems that humans are inept at solving were glad to have a machine that could process symbols. I'm just now reading Eric Kandel's graceful memoir, "In Search of Memory." Kandel, a Nobel laureate and biologist, has devoted his life to understanding human memory, which he believes is one of the great puzzles whose solution would lead directly to understanding human thought. He hasn't the least doubt that these seemingly intractable problems will someday be cracked. I don't either. And we won't go crazy doing it. Pamela McCorduck On Jul 21, 2006, at 11:23 AM, James Steiner wrote: I suspect that we won't ever get a real thinking machine by deliberately trying to model thought. I suspect that the approach that will ultimately work is one of two: One: a "sufficiently complex" evolutionary simulation system, or rather set of competing systems, will create a concious-seeming intelligence all by itself (though that intelligence will be non-human, and not modeled after human thought, and we might not understand each other well--how do you instill an AI with human concepts of morality?) or two, someone will create a super-complex physics simulation that can take hyper-detailed 3D brain CAT/PET/etc scan data as input then simply simulate the goings on at the atomic level, the "mind" being an emergent property of the "matter." Of course, the mind will probably instantly go insane, even if provided with sufficient quantity and types of virtual senses and body. And we *still* won't know how the mind happens. ;) ~~James ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org "The amount of money one needs is terrifying ..." -Ludwig van Beethoven ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060721/e5bf54ef/attachment.html |
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-3
Jochen Fromm wrote:
> > Much more interesting than the bad > complexity book from Remo Badii and Antonio Politi that > gets dusty somehwere on my bookshelf. Even if it is > from Cambridge University Press, the Badii and Politi > book is one of those disappointing books that you put down > again soon everytime you pick it up, because you neve > get any interesting inspiration from the mathematical > quagmire. Quite different from those classic, timeless > books where you discover everytime something new. Sure, it's no page turner - but it's a formal treatment, and sometimes you just have to work through those tomes. Formal books will never make it to your bedside (except as a surrogate for sleeping pills ;-) The reward comes afterwards, maybe after a couple of weeks, when the stuff "conglomerates" in your brain and leads to new insights. G?nther |
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