Josh, Also a good post.
You seem to be defining "grounding" as having meaning, in a semantic sense. If so, why is it a meaningless question to ask if "2" in your calculator has grounding, since you say the calculator has limited but real semantics. Would not the relationships "2" has to other numbers in the semantics of that system be a limited form of semantics. And what other source besides experience can grounding come from, either directly or indirectly? The semantic model of arithmetic in you calculator was presumably derived from years of human experience that found the generalities of arithmetic to be valid and useful in the real world of things like sheep, cows, and money. Of course there could be semantics in an imaginary world, but they would come from experiences of imagination. Edward W. Porter Porter & Associates 24 String Bridge S12 Exeter, NH 03833 (617) 494-1722 Fax (617) 494-1822 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: J Storrs Hall, PhD [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 12:50 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] "symbol grounding" Q&A This is a very nice list of questions and makes a good framework for talking about the issues. Here are my opinions... On Saturday 13 October 2007 11:29:16 am, Pei Wang wrote: > *. When is a symbol "grounded"? "Grounded" is not a good way of approaching what we're trying to get at, which is semantics. The term implies that meanings are inherent in words, and this obscures the fact that semantics are a property of systems of which words are only a part. Example: is the symbol 2 grounded in my calculator? there's no pointer from the bit pattern to an actual pair of anything. However, when I type in 2+2 it tells me 4. There is a system implemented that is a semantic model of arithmetic, and 2 is connected into the system in such a way that I get the right answer when I use it. Is 2 grounded? meaningless question. Does the calculator have a limited but real semantics of arithmetic? Definitely. > *. What is wrong in traditional "symbolic AI" on this topic? These systems didn't come close to implementing a competent semantics of the parts of the world they were claimed to "understand". > *. What is the "experience" needed for symbol grounding? Experience per se isn't strictly necessary, but you have get the semantics from somewhere, and experience is a good source. The scientific method relies heavily on experience in the form of experiment to validate theories, for example. > *. For the symbols in an AGI to be grounded, should the experience of > the system be the same, or very similar, to human sensory experience? No, as long as it can form coherent predictive models. On the other hand, some overlap may be necessary to use human language with much proficiency. > *. Is vision necessary for symbol grounding in AGI? No, but much of human modelling is based on spatial metaphors, and thus the communication issue is particularly salient. > *. Is vision important in deciding the meaning of human concepts? Many human concepts are colored with visual connotations, pun intended. You're clearly missing something if you don't have it; but I would guess that with only moderate exceptions, you could capture the essence without it. > *. In that case, if an AGI has no vision, how can it still understand > a human concept? The same way it can understand anything: it has a model whose semantics match the semantics of the real domain. > *. Can a blind person be intelligent? Yes. > *. How can a sensorless system like NARS have grounded symbol? Forget "grounded". Can it *understand* things? Yes, if it has a model whose semantics match the semantics of the real domain. > *. If NARS always uses symbols differently from typical human usage, > can we still consider it intelligent? Certainly, if the symbols it uses for communication are close enough to the usages of whoever it's communicating with to be comprehensible. Internally it can use whatever symbols it wants any way it wants. > *. Are you saying that vision has nothing to do with AGI? Personally I think that vision is fairly important in a practical sense, because I think we'll get a lot of insights into what's going on in there when we try to unify the higher levels of the visual and natural language interpretive structures. And of course, vision will be of immense practical use in a robot. But I think that once we do know what's going on, it will be possible to build a Turing-test-passing AI without vision. Josh ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=53686175-b02541
