You’ve raised a very fascinating point. Again the v "*broad* direction of the answer is obvious – although again putting it into practice is no doubt extremely complicated.
You’ve clearly stated an assumption: the *neurons* must figure out how to align the body etc. – by themselves. WHY?!!!!! You’ve taken a complex global system and decided that a single, local part, or set of parts, is causal – the neurons/brain. WHY? Think globally, systemically. To align your hand with a line, let’s say on a page in front of you – your head, eyes, body and hand have to be in a certain fluid relationship – while simultaneously being fluidly directed by the brain/the neurons. ALL OF THEM have to fit together – be aligned. The neurons can’t do it by themselves. What you’re arguing – v. crudely, off the top of my head – is: how can the engine drive/direct the car? It can’t! – not by itself. It needs a driver. That’s a *mechanical* necessity. Note, of course, that the body is extraordinarily sophisticated and, in order to know whether it can touch a line, can merely *simulate* touching the line *without* actually moving the relevant limbs - but it has to *start* moving the limbs. I’ll leave it there for the moment – but in this as ultimately all perceptual/intellectual areas, it simply isn’t possible to think and solve problems without a body. Standalone-computer-AGI-ers are suffering from the most absurd illusions. From: Steve Richfield Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 7:35 PM To: AGI Subject: Re: [agi] I just bought a GP-6 analog computer... Mike, On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Mike Tintner <[email protected]> wrote: Steve: The BIG question is just how such a "link" might work. The answer is *broadly* clear. Reduce the shapes to outlines and then align your body with those outlines. That’s how you are able to understand what is going on here & here: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/silly_walks_small.jpg You missed the problem. You have observed what seems to be happening (for which there is NO reason to believe because of the issues surrounding understanding nearly perfect systems), but the challenge is to figure out how little individual neurons that can NOT see an entire picture, or even a significant fraction of a picture, could ever function together to figure out what to do, let along actually do such things WITHOUT ANY CENTRAL GUIDANCE other than the miniscule fraction of the "data" (image) that each of them can "see", and the communications between them. Story: I was once on a 76 foot yacht that was performing a delicate U turn after fueling up in the San Diego marina where they only had a 100 foot wide path in which to do it, when the yacht suddenly went out of control, lurched forward, and rammed another yacht. Everyone else ran forward to see what was happening, while I ran to the engine room, put on some hearing protectors because the noise there was deafening, and studied the situation. I saw a control bar thrashing back and forth, probably because of someone topside jerking on the control. I followed it to the transmission, and saw that the linkage was broken, leaving the transmission permanently in forward. Having NO portholes to see what was happening, and having NO communication with anyone else, and no one else even realizing that I was there, I flipped the transmission into neutral, but the bar kept jerking, so with some trepidation I flipped it into reverse. The jerking momentarily stopped, but soon started up again, so I shifted it to neutral, the jerking continued so I shifted it into drive and the jerking stopped. For the next few minutes this continued for several more cycles back and forth between forward and reverse until the engine stopped. I went topside and saw that the boat was already tied to the dock and people were saying that I had missed all of the excitement, when the REAL excitement was shifting a large yacht back and forth between gears in a tight marina, with absolutely NO idea what was happening outside of the engine room. Here, I think I was doing something like what neurons do - seeing a job that really needs doing, and doing it, without ANY knowledge of how my actions fit into a larger picture, like navigating the tight San Diego marina, recognizing things in visual scenes, etc. BTW, due to incredibly quick thinking on the part of the captain, all of the damage was confined to the anchors on the two boats - less than $1,000 total, which is pretty damn good for an out-of-control collision between two big yachts. Steve http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a7/Matissedance.jpg/300px-Matissedance.jpg I say “broad* answer because I appreciate it’s technically more complicated than it looks. But clearly also any real world agent/ higher animal has to be able to do this. And because we are embodied, we can understand that the lines we procss are fluid, not geometrical. For example, if s.o. points in the direction you must walk or handle some object, we understand that their line of pointing does not have to be taken literally/mathematically but fluidly – that “we have [literally] a great deal of latitude in interpreting their direction” line – many degrees either side, and many degrees of fluidity/rigidity. AGI | Archives | Modify Your Subscription ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-c97d2393 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-2484a968 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
