Mike T, About programs to generate geometrical shapes
Let me turn your question around a bit... It's trivial to write a single, short computer program that can generate *every possible picture* that can be displayed on a computer screen, one after the other -- including all the curves you like to draw.... This program would indeed use simple math equations. It would create a digital image of every beautiful painting ever made, and every one that ever will be made.. for example... The question is then how to filter down the program's output, so that it generates only the shapes you want it to. If you have, say, 10 or 20 example shapes, then current machine learning tech can learn a model of these 10-20 shapes, and try to create new shapes in their same spirit... For simple classes like circles or lines, this would work fine... For more complex classes of shapes like, seashells or dog faces, a simple machine learning approach won't work unless you give it insanely many training examples. To deal with systematically generating these more complex classes of shapes you need a more complex and subtle AI system than anyone has created to far. However, one could prove a theorem that: For any category of shapes that can be shown on a computer screen, there is some computer program that will generate all and only the shapes in that category... The fact that we don't currently know the exact program for generating, say, the set of all images of dog faces -- doesn't mean that there is no such program. In fact we can prove via mathematics that such a program exists. Even if I knew that exact program (for generating the set of all images of dog faces), it would be large and complex and too much to paste into an email. And if I did so, you wouldn't know enough to read the program anyway... As far as creativity goes -- I think you misunderstand it. A mind is a complex thing, with explicitly, acutely conscious aspects plus less acutely conscious (commonly called "unconscious") aspects. Some new creative idea may seem to the conscious mind to have popped miraculously out of the blue. But actually it was created by the unconscious mind via combining and abstracting from and mutating various previously existing ideas and percepts and actions -- which then delivered it to the conscious mind. By looking only at the conscious image of an act of creation, you see it as more miraculous/mysterious than it is. -- Ben G On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 1:26 PM, Mike Tintner <[email protected]> wrote: > Mike A: > Surely you'd have to concede that there are some rules which persist > over time and are static? > > Absolutely. All mathematical and logical and algorithmic systems (in > themselves) are completely, eternally non-creative, non-generative. They are > all dead recipes with rigid rules that have never and could never produce a > single new ingredient or element - because quite obviously they are not > designed to be creative. They are recipes with set, exclusive mixtures of > ingredients. > > (This is the crux of creativity - the capacity to add new hitherto unknown > elements to a course of action or its product). > > If you add new unknown elements to a recipe, the recipe collapses and could > get v. nasty. If you allow a building algorithm that produces lego block > structures, to introduce any new building blocks - rocks, say, or chunks of > mud, - its buildings could literally collapse. And no one tries this. These > systems are designed to produce precisely predetermined results with > precisely predetermined mixes of known elements. > > These systems are wonderful if you want to be a narrow AI cook who can cook > one specialist dish or set of dishes. They're useless if you want to be a > creative cook, who can endlessly generate new dishes, as humans can. > > Now surely you can concede that no one anywhere in the entire history of the > world has produced a single exception to this general rule of the > non-generativity of formulaic, rulebound, set-ingredients systems? There are > no algorithms, formulae or logics that are creative. No one has ever > produced an example here. No one ever will.... And there are zillions of > possible examples. > > What we do have is the most amazing amount of logical gobbledygook that > argues how these systems might be creative - but neither a) explains how > they can introduce new elements or b) provides a single instance of a > program etc that ever has. > > Nada. But an awful lot of shameful assertions that of course there are such > systems - and of course people have produced millions of examples of them in > the past - and how could you, Mike, be so stupid as to think there are not - > and ROFL at you - oh absolutely ridiculous - but now, right now, the speaker > is just too busy, you understand, to produce a single example. Oh of course > he could produce *so many* examples, and he will, he will, but now right > now, he can't. (Basically all people who argue thus are lying gits). > > If you or Ben can grasp this simple obvious truth of the non-generativity, > non-new-element-ality of formulaic, rulebound systems with set mixtures of > ingredients, I will indeed be your saviour. > > What you et al are trying to maintain is a scientific, material absurdity - > and something of which you will come to be v. v. ashamed. Produce ONE > FUCKING EXAMPLE. Or admit you can't. > > P.S. And I've heard all the shit about sophisticated, evolving systems and > GA's etc - they cannot and never have introduced a single new hitherto > unknown element They have no novelty. Demonstrably. They are mindblowingly > narrow in their products except to AGI suckers who actually half believe > their own hype - and AGI is nothing but failed hype. > > > > ------------------------------------------- > AGI > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/212726-11ac2389 > Modify Your Subscription: > https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com -- Ben Goertzel, PhD http://goertzel.org "My humanity is a constant self-overcoming" -- Friedrich Nietzsche ------------------------------------------- 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
