PM: The internal representation is an implementation detail, if you think of the larger functional processes as black boxes with specific inputs and outputs and well defined behavior. ...Call me naive.
“Naive.” You’re assuming language/thought consists of *propositions* that can be manipulated in the form of logical tags. Actually language consists of actions that have to be physically simulated in order both to understand and enact them. Logic can’t simulate or enact. What you think is a logical “black box” is actually the greatest **simulator** yet invented. [Check out dreams as one illustration]. There’s a beautiful visual demonstration in the movie “Premium Rush”, which also constitutes a movie first. In a chase, a cyclist approaches an extremely crowded traffic intersection. The movie then imaginatively shows his thoughts. His mind literally maps out three different possible paths through the intersection – all ending in terrible accidents, - before he settles on a fourth and cycles on. That is fundamental to thought – physically simulating the possibie courses of action, rather than formulating them logically. Even to understand the apparently rarefied intellectual processing you are outlining above for a computer, the reader/writer must simulate the actions of thinking involved, (as Searle does metaphorically with the chinese room translator). I’m simulating them – and I know it will all lead logically to yet another terrible fatality. From: Piaget Modeler Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2012 5:21 PM To: AGI Subject: [agi] Internal Representation Jim: "If you are curious about my opinions on this I would try to explain it," Sure Jim, I'd like to know your thoughts on the subject. Perhaps I'm missing something. My point is that we don't really need to know what's under the hood from an architectural perspective. The internal representation is an implementation detail, if you think of the larger functional processes as black boxes with specific inputs and outputs and well defined behavior. I have a straw man representation which I am experimenting with. If it's adequate, then that's all that is required. Basic experimentation will prove it out. If it fails, then we ascribe causes to the failure, modify the representation to avoid the failure, and try again. Simple iterative process. Call me naive. The internal representation has to support certain requirements, assumptions, dependencies, and constraints. For me my main criteria are as follows: 1. The representation needs to support activation. 2. The representation needs to support relationships (patterns among elements). 3. The representation needs to support reification. As long as the representation does that, I'm satisfied. ~PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2012 09:51:11 -0500 Subject: Re: [agi] Deb Roy: The Birth of a Word From: [email protected] To: [email protected] PM: "For me knowing the brain's internal representation would be helpful, but is not necessary, as long as a program can mimic the output using its own internal representation. I can use my own straw man representation and see if that works. Any representation would do for me actually, as long as it gets results." ----------------------------------------------------------- I have no idea why you would make a remark like this, but as I was trying to explain why it was wrong I realized that argument was a side issue, at least partly based on semantics, which is not very important. If you are curious about my opinions on this I would try to explain it, but since you probably aren't I am just going to get back on track as quickly as I can. We certainly could write programs that could learn individual words using an observe-interact-and-compare strategy. The problem is that as knowledge grows, the possibilities of finding meaning and relevant actions for a particular IO event increase to the point that it becomes impossible to search through them all. In other words, all evidence (or my intuition about the evidence that I have seen) points to the necessity of using an extensive (not exhaustive but extensive) comparative method to look at possibilities for meaning and finding good reactions to an IO event. An AGI program cannot note every detail of an ongoing event and use that information to perfectly denote the meaning of the event, so it must rely on an exhaustive search of possibilities. When you have extensive knowledge about uncountable combinations of possibilities that might be relevant to a situation, then the program just cannot search through them all in a reasonable amount of time. And remember, the program has to be using some creativity as it searches through the possibilities, so some of the possibilities that it has to consider would be functionally imaginative. Your (would-be) AGI program can learn first words much faster than a baby. The problem is that we don't have any good strategies of producing more complex levels of recognition and reaction that can be used effectively. Perhaps I am wrong about this and perhaps I do have a good strategy in mind that might actually work to some degree. It is just that I don't feel that is too likely. But maybe I should try some of my ideas out just to see what happens. Jim On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 2:50 AM, Piaget Modeler <[email protected]> wrote: The way I view it these days is that a particular set of schemes (or solutions as I call them) are activated and differentiated over this time period: the period it takes for "gaa" to transform into "water" during sessions of primary circular reactions (the infant hearing his own voice and deciding to have it match his caregiver's pronunciation) or secondary circular reactions (the infant getting the caregiver to say "water"). For me knowing the brain's internal representation would be helpful, but is not necessary, as long as a program can mimic the output using its own internal representation. I can use my own straw man representation and see if that works. Any representation would do for me actually, as long as it gets results. ~PM 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-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
