Pei:"it is important to understand
that both linguistic experience and non-linguistic experience are both
special
cases of experience, and the latter is not more "real" than the former. In
the previous
discussions, many people implicitly suppose that linguistic experience is
nothing but
"Dictionary-Go-Round" [Harnad, 1990], and only non-linguistic experience can
give
symbols meaning. This is a misconception coming from traditional semantics,
which
determines meaning by referred object, so that an image of the object seems
to be closer
to the "real thing" than a verbal description [Wang, 2007]."
1. Of course the image is more real than the symbol or word.
Simple test of what should be obvious: a) use any amount of symbols you
like, incl. Narsese, to describe "Pei Wang." Give your description to any
intelligence, human or AI, and see if it can pick out Pei in a lineup of
similar men.
b) give the same intelligence a photo of Pei - & apply the same test.
Guess which method will win.
Only images can represent *INDIVIDUAL objects* - incl Pei/Ben or this
keyboard on my desk. And in the final analysis, only indvidual objects *are*
real. There are no "chairs" or "oranges" for example - those general
concepts are, in the final analysis, useful fictions. There is only this
chair here and that chair over there. And if you want to refer to them,
individually, - so that you communicate successfully with another
person/intelligence - you have no choice but to use images, (flat or solid).
2. Symbols are abstract - they can't refer to anything unless you already
know, via images, what they refer to. If you think not, please draw a
"cheggnut"....Again, if I give you an image of a cheggnut, you will have no
problem.
3. You talk of a misconception of semantics, but give no reason why it is
such, merely state it is.
4. You leave out the most important thing of all - you argue that experience
is composed of symbols and images. And...? Hey, there's also the real
thing(s). The real objects that they refer to. You certainly can't do
science without looking at the real objects. And science is only a
systematic version of all intelligence. That's how every functioning
general intelligence is able to be intelligent about the world - by being
"grounded" in the real world, composed of real objects. which it can go out
and touch, walk round, look at and interact with. A box like Nars can't do
that, can it?
"Do you realise what you're saying, Pei?" To understand statements is to
*realise* what they mean - what they refer to - to know that they refer to
real objects, which you can really go and interact with and test - and to
try (or have your brain try automatically) to connect those statements to
real objects.
When you or I are given words or images, "find this man [Pei]", or "cook a
Chinese meal tonight", we know that those signs must be tested in the real
world and are only valid if so tested. We know that it's possible that that
man over there who looks v. like the photo may not actually be Pei, or that
Pei may have left the country and be impossible to find. We know that it may
be impossible to cook such a meal, because there's no such food around. -
And all such tests can only be conducted in the real world (and not say by
going and looking at other texts or photos - living in a Web world).
Your concept of AI is not so much "un-grounded" as "unreal."
5. Why on earth do you think that evolution shows us general intelligences
very successfully dealing with the problems of the world for over a billion
years *without* any formal symbols? Why do infants take time to acquire
l;anguage and are therefore able to survive without it?
The conception of AI that you are advancing is the equivalent of
Creationism - it both lacks and denies an evolutionary perspective on
intelligence - a (correctly) cardinal sin in modern science..
-------------------------------------------
agi
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