Arets: First of all, the burden remains on you to show us that there is, ahem ONE FUCKING EXAMPLE of creativity that is not the result of recombination of the already existing elements. This is awesome ignorance. If we are talking about major cultural creativity in any sphere within society, EVERY SINGLE creative product is the result of incorporating new, surprising elements. E.g. Gutenberg incorporating the action of the wine-press into printing. E.g. Picasso incorporating the geometric faces of primitive art into modern figurative painting – Demoiselles d’Avignon E.g. the introduction of neural networks into computing E.g. plot twists in millions of thrillers Hence theories of bisociation, conceptual blending for creativity. Which universe are you living in? Major creativity always incorporates new, never-before-associated-in-this-sphere elements.That’s what makes creativity creative – new surprising elements. Jeez. That’s why we go “wow!” at creativity. And minor everyday creativity also incorporates new, never before associated elements – even if “wow-less”. Every patchwork in a series of patchworks incorporates new, non-formulaic shapes... as I have demonstrated here at length. Now you have to PRODUCE ONE FUCKING EXAMPLE of a creative algorithm... we’re waiting. Not excuses and crazy logic. Scientific evidence – one example. The history of science is one of people believing one crazy paradigm after another that got smashed. The “universally applicable algorithm” is one of those crazy paradigms. P.S. Arets’ responses are in one way fascinating – he simply takes it for granted, religiously unquestioningly for granted that algorithms are creative. It is a religious, not a scientific belief. From: Arets Paeglis Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 12:10 PM To: AGI Subject: Re: [agi] Behold your saviour, Ben
First of all, the burden remains on you to show us that there is, ahem ONE FUCKING EXAMPLE of creativity that is not the result of recombination of the already existing elements in ways that are both compressible (= understandable) by the agent and yet previously unknown to it. Second, I see no rational reason to assume that there even can be such 'exemption from existence of rules' in the first place. -- http://about.me/mindbound On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 1:54 PM, Mike Tintner <[email protected]> wrote: PRODUCE ONE EXAMPLE of a creative algorithm. Or a creative recipe. One single algorithm that has produced one new element. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22there+IS+no+recipe+for+creativity%22&oq=%22there+IS+no+recipe+for+creativity%22&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Edison was a crackpot? hhttp://www.google.co.uk/search?q=edison+%22there+are+no+rules+here%22&aq=f&oq=edison+%22there+are+no+rules+here%22&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 The above view is pretty universal in all the creative arts, incl. the arts of maths and logic, science and technology. “There are no rules.” “There is no formula”.. etc ONE FUCKING EXAMPLE. From: Arets Paeglis Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 11:32 AM To: AGI Subject: Re: [agi] Behold your saviour, Ben If you posit that creativity is "non-algorithmic" (regardless of whatever that would even mean), you are also implying that it is uncomputable, since it supposedly cannot be the result of a finite number of steps of a program running on a UTM. Are you really going to crank the crackpot dial up to the point of claims about creativity disobeying Church-Turing thesis and requiring something more "exotic" than mere computation to get it done? This group is well-known for stuff that explores the land of unfounded, fringe claims in every direction but this is already becoming ridiculous. -- http://about.me/mindbound On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Mike Tintner <[email protected]> wrote: Ben, You seem to have gone off in flights of fancy. BEN:"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..." No it's not "trivial" and it's never been done, and never will be done. What on earth gives you the basis for anything you've just written? Once you unquestioningly posit such a magical entity - an "all-shape assuming" program - you can get totally lost in the "logical" but totally "fanciful" consequences. Put what I wrote below into more visual program terms - the reality is that there are no visual programs whatsoever (autonomously form-changing programs vs aids-to-human-artists programs) that do not have an EXTREMELY NARROW REPERTOIRE OF VISUAL FORMS. There are Mondrian programs that can produce endless variations on pseudo-Mondrians - with lines and rectangles - but THAT'S ALL THEY CAN DO. They can't suddenly mutate into producing new kinds of forms - Rothko rectangularish forms, or Miro "blotty" forms, or Jackson Pollock "blotting pad" forms - or any such diverse forms whether similar to an artist or not. They can just do their lines and rectangles. They can't mutate into curves. Whereas a human playing around with doodles can endlessly generate new species of forms. And if you think they can - PRODUCE ONE FUCKING EXAMPLE. Why is this? Because there are no formulae/algorithms that can cover diverse "species" of forms. I've often made this point before but there seems no way it can penetrate you guys - geometry's formulae are EXTREMELY LIMITED - they can only produce v. limited species of geometrical forms - and thus there are and have to be thousands or millions of them - there isn't just one geometrical formula/algorithm that can produce every geometrical form whatsoever - triangles AND squares AND circles AND Mandelbrot curves... No wonder you're lost if you can even entertain such a notion as you started with here. It's worth taking time to understand the NON-GENERATIVITY message, because it applies to every kind of algorithmic program whatsoever - artistic, musical, building, cooking, circuit-building.... And once you get it - and it's not hard - I will be your saviour. ************ As for the "How is creativity produced?" again you've boxed yourself into an absurd corner. You've started with: "well of course creative programs are algorithmic - if he doesn't believe that he must believe in magical creativity". To repeat: there are no creative algorithms - that's as absurd as your quote above. But that doesn't mean for a second that creativity is nonmechanical/"magical" How do you actually create your own home-made stew, or improvise your own tune on a piano? Think visually of what you actually do, and you'll realise those are mechanical, physically instantiable affairs. You reach out for some foods that might be suitable, toss them into the pot, and see what you've got. You reach out, press some keys down and see what noises emerge. A machine can do that. Hey that's"improvisation." Real improvisation - which you really have not understood. Those musical programs you quoted before are merely "permutation" programs - ditto GA's - there's no improvisation. They permutate a given set of elements, possibly then further permutating the resulting permutations. That's not improvisation. With true improvisation you physically or mentally reach out and discover "objets trouves". Found objects. Newly found objects. New elements. You physically explore the world and bring in new elements to the mix of whatever you're trying to produce. And there's no "prediction" involved, just creative, adventurous trial and error - you won't know whether anything works until you've tried it. Your GA's are not creative because there are NO NEW ELEMENTS. They merely play around with a GIVEN, FIXED SET OF ELEMENTS. Life, every which way, is creative - continually incorporating new elements. Sexual unions involve new mixtures of genes. Everyday, Turing-test, conversations are creative - continually incorporating new elements - which is one reason why they will always defeat algorithmic approaches. Today you're talking about Romney-Obama, Armstrong doping, Spain going to the ECB - and there's never been anything formulaically like these events. That's what it is to be a conversing human being - continually creatively improvising and incorporating new elements into your conversation.... Algorithms are CLOSED SETS. AGI is about endlessly mixing in new elements from the world (and your own infinite range of movement and thought) into your courses of action. -----Original Message----- From: Ben Goertzel Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 8:31 AM To: AGI Subject: Re: [agi] Behold your saviour, Ben 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/303/6952829-59a2eca5 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/20912103-eed2d0e1 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com AGI | Archives | Modify Your Subscription AGI | Archives | Modify Your Subscription 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
