John, Congratulations, as your response was the only one that was on topic!!!
On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:09 AM, John G. Rose <johnr...@polyplexic.com>wrote: > "statements of stupidity" - some of these are examples of cramming > sophisticated thoughts into simplistic compressed text. > Definitely, as even the thoughts of stupid people transcends our (present) ability to state what is happening behind their eyeballs. Most stupidity is probably beyond simple recognition. For the initial moment, I was just looking at the linguistic low hanging fruit. Language is both intelligence enhancing and limiting. Human language is a > protocol between agents. So there is minimalist data transfer, "I had no > choice but to ..." is a compressed summary of potentially vastly complex > issues. > My point is that they could have left the country, killed their adversaries, taken on a new ID, or done any number of radical things that they probably never considered, other than taking whatever action they chose to take. A more accurate statement might be "I had no apparent rational choice but to ...". The mind gets hung-up sometimes on this language of ours. Better off at > times to think less using English language and express oneself with a wider > spectrum communiqué. Doing a dance and throwing paint in the air for > example, as some **primitive** cultures actually do, conveys information > also and is medium of expression rather than using a restrictive human chat > protocol. > You are saying that the problem is that our present communication permits statements of stupidity, so we shouldn't have our present system of communication? Scrap English?!!! I consider statements of stupidity as a sort of communications checksum, to see if real interchange of ideas is even possible. Often, it is quite impossible to communicate new ideas to inflexible-minded people. > > > BTW the rules of etiquette of the human language "protocol" are even more > potentially restricting though necessary for efficient and standardized data > transfer to occur. Like, TCP/IP for example. The "Etiquette" in TCP/IP is > like an OSI layer, akin to human language etiquette. > I'm not sure how this relates, other than possibly identifying people who don't honor linguistic etiquette as being (potentially) stupid. Was that your point? Steve ============== > > *From:* Steve Richfield [mailto:steve.richfi...@gmail.com] > > To All, > > I have posted plenty about "statements of ignorance", our probable > inability to comprehend what an advanced intelligence might be "thinking", > heidenbugs, etc. I am now wrestling with a new (to me) concept that > hopefully others here can shed some light on. > > People often say things that indicate their limited mental capacity, or at > least their inability to comprehend specific situations. > > 1) One of my favorites are people who say "I had no choice but to ...", > which of course indicates that they are clearly intellectually challenged > because there are ALWAYS other choices, though it may be difficult to find > one that is in all respects superior. While theoretically this statement > could possibly be correct, in practice I have never found this to be the > case. > > 2) Another one recently from this very forum was "If it sounds too good to > be true, it probably is". This may be theoretically true, but in fact was, > as usual, made as a statement as to why the author was summarily dismissing > an apparent opportunity of GREAT value. This dismissal of something BECAUSE > of its great value would seem to severely limit the authors prospects for > success in life, which probably explains why he spends so much time here > challenging others who ARE doing something with their lives. > > 3) I used to evaluate inventions for some venture capitalists. Sometimes I > would find that some basic law of physics, e.g. conservation of energy, > would have to be violated for the thing to work. When I explained this to > the inventors, their inevitable reply was "Yea, and they also said that the > Wright Brothers' plane would never fly". To this, I explained that the > Wright Brothers had invested ~200 hours of effort working with their crude > homemade wind tunnel, and ask what the inventors have done to prove that > their own invention would work. > > 4) One old stupid standby, spoken when you have make a clear point that > shows that their argument is full of holes "That is just your opinion". No, > it is a proven fact for you to accept or refute. > > 5) Perhaps you have your own pet "statements of stupidity"? I suspect that > there may be enough of these to dismiss some significant fraction of > prospective users of beyond-human-capability (I just hate the word > "intelligence") programs. > > In short, semantic analysis of these statements typically would NOT find > them to be conspicuously false, and hence even an AGI would be tempted to > accept them. However, their use almost universally indicates some > short-circuit in thinking. The present Dr. Eliza program could easily > recognize such statements. > > OK, so what? What should an AI program do when it encounters a stupid user? > Should some attempt be made to explain stupidity to someone who is almost > certainly incapable of comprehending their own stupidity? "Stupidity is > forever" is probably true, especially when expressed by an adult. > > Note my own dismissal of a some past posters for insufficient mental > ability to understand certain subjects, whereupon they invariably come back > repeating the SAME flawed logic, after I carefully explained the breaks in > their logic. Clearly, I was just wasting my effort by continuing to interact > with these people. > > Note that providing a stupid user with ANY output is probably a mistake, > because they will almost certainly misconstrue it in some way. Perhaps it > might be possible to "dumb down" the output to preschool-level, at least > that (small) part of the output that can be accurately stated in preschool > terms. > > Eventually as computers continue to self-evolve, we will ALL be categorized > as some sort of stupid, and receive stupid-adapted output. > > I wonder whether, ultimately, computers will have ANYTHING to say to us, > like any more than we now say to our dogs. > > Perhaps the final winner of the Reverse Turing Test will remain completely > silent?! > > "You don't explain to your dog why you can't pay the rent" from *The Fall > of Colossus*. > > Any thoughts? > > Steve > *agi* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/> | > Modify<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>Your Subscription > <http://www.listbox.com> > ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
