Mark,
Indeed. Many confusions are caused by the ambiguity and context
dependency of terms in natural languages.
For this reason, it is not a good idea to simply label a system as
"deterministic" or "non-deterministic" without clarifying the sense of
the term.
Pei
On 5/6/07, Mark Waser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi Pei,
I liked your definition so I went to dictionary.com and found two
different definitions of deterministic which seem to clearly show our
dilemma
=======================
Free On-line Dictionary of Computing - Cite This Source
deterministic
1. Describes a system whose time evolution can be predicted exactly.
Contrast probabilistic.
For all practical purposes, NARS and the human mind are non-deterministic by
this definition.
=======================
WordNet - Cite This Source deterministic
adjective
an inevitable consequence of antecedent sufficient causes
And I would argue that both the human mind and NARS are deterministic by
this definition. :-)
=======================
Makes it kind of tough to argue, doesn't it?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pei Wang" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <agi@v2.listbox.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007 3:48 PM
Subject: Re: [agi] The Advantages of a Conscious Mind
> Mike,
>
> I believe many of the confusions on this topic is caused by the
> following "self-evident" belief: "A system is fundamentally either
> deterministic or non-deterministic. The human mind, with free will, is
> fundamentally non-deterministic; a conventional computer, being Turing
> Machine, is fundamentally deterministic". Based on such a belief, many
> people think AGI can only be realized by something that is
> "non-deterministic by nature", whatever that means.
>
> This belief, though works fine in some other context, is an
> oversimplification in the AI/CogSci context. Here, as I said before,
> whether a system is deterministic may not be taken as an intrinsic
> nature of the system, but as depending on the description about it.
>
> For example, NARS is indeed "nondeterministic" in the usual sense,
> that is, after the system has obtained a complicated experience, it
> will be practically impossible for either an observer or the system
> itself to accurately predict how the system will handle a
> user-provided task. On the other level of description, NARS is still a
> deterministic Turing Machine, in the sense that its state change is
> fully determined by its initial state and its experience, step by
> step.
>
> Now the important point is: when we say that the mind is
> "nondeterministic", in what sense are we using the term? I believe it
> is like "it will be practically impossible for either an observer or
> the mind itself to accurately predict how the system will handle a
> problem", rather than ""it will be theoretically impossible for an
> observer to accurately predict how the system will handle a problem,
> even if the observer has full information about the system's initial
> state, processing mechanism, and detailed experience, as well as has
> unlimited information processing power". Therefore, for all practical
> considerations, including the ones you mentioned, NARS is
> nondeterministic, since it doesn't process input tasks according to a
> task-specific algorithm.
>
> [If the above description still sounds confusing or contradictionary,
> you'll have to read my relevant publications. I don't have the
> intelligence to explain everything by email.]
>
> Pei
>
>
> On 5/6/07, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Pei,
>>
>> Thanks for stating your position (which I simply didn't know about
>> before -
>> NARS just looked at a glance as if it MIGHT be nondeterministic).
>>
>> Basically, and very briefly, my position is that any AGI that is to deal
>> with problematic decisions, where there is no right answer, will have to
>> be
>> freely, nondeterministically programmed to proceed on a trial and error
>> basis - and that is just how human beings are programmed.
>> (Nondeterministically programmed should not be simply equated with
>> current
>> kinds of programming - there are an infinity of possible ways of
>> programming
>> deterministically, ditto for nondeterministically).
>
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