I'm not sure there is any point in critiquing steel-man Colin. If you don't agree, it's not steel-man. The idea is to stop talking about yourself, and try to understand other points of view.
I might just comment my last message originally ended with the following words, which I edited off as overly negative (though true!): "In my experience no-one ever accepts any restatement of their position. So steel-man never applies! But that doesn't mean that attempting it is not a good exercise for yourself." As far as my position, I think the answer is a chaos, or a complex system element to meaningful patterns. And that's why they elude us. Chaos is also embodied. Your EM interactions might be embodied. That's what I hear you saying at root: they can't be copied. But if they are, it would be because they are chaotic. Probably all embodiment is chaotic at root. That would be common ground. But for me it applies at every level. I don't pick out EM interactions and say, "That's where the chaos is, we need only that bit." I think Lego bricks might generate the required patterns, if we gave them enough energy. Even if I didn't see the same essential process of chaos happening in all kinds of different mediums, I wouldn't think a multi-million dollar effort to test the hypothesis a particular level of electromagnetic interactions in the brain is special and essential, would be the first place I would spend my money. It's something to test though, if nothing else works. Maybe all intelligence does depend on one specific type of electromagnetic interaction only, in one kind of jelly brain. But I see chaos in all kinds of mediums. I'm guessing the medium is not special. We had some email a while back where I attempted some common ground in aspects of embodiment. That's why I know this. You might want to wonder why you remember nothing of my argument yourself. -Rob On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 10:51 AM Colin Hales <[email protected]> wrote: > 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/Tafcd787c73d24a40-M3e3ea19d78bb41526b5d8ead> > ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/Tafcd787c73d24a40-M8859e18055db088fa1da6216 Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
