Rob! Ported to a new thread for this. The ARGHH! thread has a long way to go and best not clutter it up with steel man.
Can I take the trouble to critique your depiction of my position? Alas, I'm unable to say anything well-informed on your position, so I am open to you educating me. regards Colin On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 12:20 PM Rob Freeman <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 7:57 AM Colin Hales <[email protected]> wrote: > >> ...I'd like to do something different this time. We're part of the 'old >> guard' and it's up to us to demonstrate how an intellectual discussion can >> be fruitfully conducted to advance the topic in question. So I'd like to >> run an experiment. I'd like us to 'steel-man' each other. This is where: >> >> 1) I do my best to express your perspective to you. >> 2) You do your best to express my perspective back to me. >> >> This is the way for differences to be understood in a manner that can be >> fruitfully discussed. For what this means, see this video at exactly >> 1:57:15 to 1:58:30. It is an answer to a query from the audience at the end >> of sam harris's first 'book club'. >> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_5N0N-61Tg >> >> I think it would be very instructive. Would like like to try? >> > > I think that's a great idea Colin. > > I think I could do that for most everyone regularly corresponding here: > > Colin Hales: Cognition is analogue, not digital. The answer is in the > physical electromagenetic field effects between elements in the brain. > Steve Richfield: The answer is in the detail of neuron behaviour. > Peter Voss: "Integrated" symbolism. Symbolism is OK. The answer is we need > to build a representation for the meaning of an entire situation. > Matt Mahoney: Problem solved. Current neural nets work. We just need to > build them bigger. > Ben Goertzel: Graphs will do anything. > > Anyone else wants one, let me know. Mostly variations on the "symbolism > was OK, I too am 50% of the way there already", position. > > I hope that may be "steel-manned" in the sense of "restate the other > person's position in a way they would accept". > > Though perhaps those are not fully "steel-manned". To fully steel-man you > might need to leave out too much middle ground. A full steel-man might look > more like this: > > Colin Hales: Obviously there are enormous differences between the brain > and a von Neumann computer. We need to explore this > NN people: Neural nets find meaningful patterns. > Symbolic people: There is a symbolic element to cognition. > > But that's no good because everyone agrees and goes home! You need a > little friction to gain traction and make progress. The idea might be > somewhere between straw-man and steel-man. > > -Rob > *Artificial General Intelligence List <https://agi.topicbox.com/latest>* > / AGI / see discussions <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi> + > participants <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/members> + delivery > options <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription> Permalink > <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T87761d322a3126b1-M69c11b96522f9ae7878c725f> > ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/Tafcd787c73d24a40-M3e3ea19d78bb41526b5d8ead Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
