Posted by
Phil Henshaw-2 on
Dec 28, 2006; 6:20am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/The-what-is-AI-question-tp523222.html
Rob,
It threw me off just a bit that the first two sentences of mine quoted
below were taken from a larger paragraph and placed in reverse order...
but I think you're saying I appear to be struggling with the root
problem of self reference you go on to discuss. Sometimes I come up
with wacky analogies, and this one reminding me of our minds being like
flypaper, but with only one sticky side, the other side once having been
sticky but now with its tendrils all curled up and hidden like the
missing dimensions the physicists say are needed to explain the unity of
the world....
Marketing may have some role in pre-chewing any new point of view for
people who like or need that. I think the root problem is that people
develop their ideas independent of the world and tend not to change them
till they have to. Thus, the real issue for finding good choices in
unfamiliar situations (like our present state of change) is learning how
to see where reality is different from what we imagine it to be. The
methods available are plentiful, but seem to be useless until one
realizes that all images, *however useful they may be to us internally*,
are actually just projections of our own root values and *all* of them
are infinitely different from the physical things they are images of.
Yea it's a jump, but well worth taking.
If we use our root values to judge things, and the world changes, how do
we then judge our values??? That's the way I'd state the
self-referential dilemma you mention other examples of. As far as I
can tell they can only be answered by finding a way to honestly look at
the whole physical meaning of your values, and then reaching for even
deeper values when there's a conflict. Presently there's a conflict
between the earth and growth, for example, that I think you can only
resolve by suspending all usual judgments and looking at the whole
effect of what's happening, drawing on values deeper than all the ones
you need to question. All that takes is work I think.
The reason I say "once having been sticky" in the analogy above is that
I think there were actually two major breaks with reality that occurred
in the evolution of thought, one at around 50-60k years ago, when
building our imaginary worlds took precedence over directly observing
the real one, and the other around 5-10k years ago, when the event
called the 'fall of man' blinded the creative center of human culture to
seeing that anything but man had anything inside. When you actually
look for other things built and operated from the inside, you find the
universe is chock full of them. I think being blinded to that is
where we got our obsession with control and our belief there's noting at
stake in unlimited growth. Pretty nuts? These are indeed sort of
educated guesses phrased in experimental terms, but the evidence is
pretty clear to me that events of this kind did occur at real places and
times, and that its reasonable to say it's more a matter of narrowing
down what actually happened.
Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040
tel: 212-795-4844
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
explorations: www.synapse9.com <
http://www.synapse9.com/>
-----Original Message-----
From:
[hidden email] [mailto:
[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of Rob Howard
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 12:30 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The what is AI question
[ph] An intelligent person will predictably come up with unexpected
points of view and solutions for new problems. That seems to display
something of a tendency to accept mystification in place of explanation,
but I don't see the root meaning of intelligence in it.
[ph] This is a great issue. Making a world model in our minds the way
we do does seem to require that the qualities of things are those we
bestow on them by changing our images of them. All we have to guide us
is our world model, so when we change our own or each other's world
models it displays our ultimate control over the world in which we
operate.
[ph] Another view is that things are what a scientific study would tell
you, their web of relationships with other things and the nest of
internal structures with which those other related things connect. This
refers to a an extensive group of physical systems most of which are and
will remain largely or entirely unknown. It's hard to have it both
ways, and the former surely seems to dominate, but getting rid of the
latter all together seems dangerous, don't you think?
[rh] It?s like the 100-year history of ?quantum? in six words:
?Discrete
Duality
Unpredictable
Small
Mystical
Chaotic...?. I
wonder what marketing will bring next decade. My guess is that, like
quantum mechanics, where the definitions only make sense when we realize
that we?re part of the measurement process and not independently
isolated from it, a definition for intelligence and consciousness will
likewise only make sense when we realize that we are part of the
measurement process too. We define ourselves as ?intelligent? and
?conscious? with respect to ourselves. Then we attempt to project that
reflexive definition onto outside things and act surprised when the
reflexivity instantly disappears. We are the baseline because we have
said so!
Earlier examples of this defining process applied to the definition of
?life?. We are alive because we say so! So we look for these
characteristics in other animals. Early theocracy associated life with a
soul only to deduce that insects must not really be alive because they
?of course, have no soul?. Later science, wanting to include this
taxonomy, starts looking at dynamic qualities, such as burning food and
exhaling the byproducts. Along comes the industrial age fuel-burning
machines, and then ?self replication? becomes the quintessential element
of life. Then certain crystallization processes are observed to satisfy
the definition. Wanting to exclude them (I suppose for aesthetic
reasons) science then adds mutation, fitness functions and other
evolutionary terms to the definition. Someone takes a closer looks at
RNA-viruses isolated from their hosts, and
well, it?s back to the
drawing board.
Are we not playing the same self-referential definitions game with
intelligence and consciousness as we once did, and are still doing, with
life?
Robert Howard
Phoenix, Arizona
Well, how about the ability to respond to unexpected situations with
useful choices? Is that low or high on the tests of intelligence?
Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Howard
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2006 12:32 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The what is AI question
>What if the analogy of intelligence is unexpected predictability?
>I can roll a pair of dice, and that is unpredictable; but it?s not
>unexpected. I expect a Gaussian curve of totals.
[ph] I think you're saying that people have frequently bestowed
'intelligence' on things that were merely predictable. That seems to
display something of a tendency to accept mystification in place of
explanation, but I don't see the root meaning of intelligence in it. An
intelligent person will predictably come up with unexpected points of
view and solutions for new problems. It's the aspect of invention
there, not the mystery of the process, that displays the intelligence
involved I think. ph
>A few thousand years ago, the states of the moon were unpredictable
>(eclipses, elevation, and to some extent, phases). Humans consequently
>animated it with intelligence by calling it Luna?the moon goddess.
>All deities have intelligence. The same occurred with the planets,
>weather; and even social conditions like love and war. Only when these
things became >expectedly predictable did they loose their intelligence.
You all
>remember ELIZA! At least for the first five minutes of play, the game
>did take on intelligence. However, after review of the actual code did
>the game instantly lose it mystery. Kasparov bestowed intelligence on
>Deep Blue, which I?m sure the programmers did not.
>In this sense, intelligence is not a property that external things
>have. It?s something that we bestow upon, or perceive in external
>things. Is not one of the all time greatest insults on one?s
>intelligence the accusation of being predictable?
[ph] This is a great issue. Making a world model in our minds the way
we do does seem to require that the qualities of things are those we
bestow on them by changing our images of them. All we have to guide us
is our world model, so when we change our own or each other's world
models it displays our ultimate control over the world in which we
operate.
[ph] Another view is that things are what a scientific study would tell
you, their web of relationships with other things and the nest of
internal structures with which those other related things connect. This
refers to a an extensive group of physical systems most of which are and
will remain largely or entirely unknown. It's hard to have it both
ways, and the former surely seems to dominate, but getting rid of the
latter all together seems dangerous, don't you think?
>I suspect that any measure of intelligence will be relative to the
>observer?s ability to predict expected causal effects and be pleasantly
>surprised?not too unlike the Turing Test.
>Robert Howard
>Phoenix, Arizona
_____
From:
[hidden email] [mailto:
[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of Phil Henshaw
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 5:33 AM
To: rolandthompson at mindspring.com; 'The Friday Morning Applied
Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The what is AI question
I checked the description of Touring's test again...
[
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=touring+test] Doesn't it
actually say "a good fake is the real thing"? I always thought the
identifying characteristics of 'real thing' included having aspects that
make a real difference that can't be faked, there for anyone to see if
they look for them?
Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040
tel: 212-795-4844
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
explorations: www.synapse9.com <
http://www.synapse9.com/>
-----Original Message-----
From:
[hidden email] [mailto:
[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of rolandthompson at mindspring.com
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2006 8:51 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The what is AI question
in a reverse turing test, if a human could convince other humans that he
was a macine/computer would he then be unintelligent. From" fooled by
randomness", if memory serves.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061228/a955c386/attachment-0001.html