I looked up the word 'platitude' in the dictionary because I wasn't sure about
its precise definition. I realized, that if you had some idea about what I was
talking about, but did not quite get it, then my summaries might seem like a
collection of AGI platitudes.
For example, I have talked about conceptual relativism. If you interpret that
as meaning something like 'conceptualization is complicated' then my remarks
about conceptual relativism might provoke a 'yeah-so-what' kind of response.
Working with concepts becomes complicated. But I believe that conceptual
relativism is something that goes deeper than just being complicated.
Complications can be derived by using systems built up from simplest elements.
My point about concepts is that there is no such thing as a simple-most
concept, so there are not really elemental concepts. We use relatively
elemental concepts but that is not the same thing. Since a concept, like a
word, may refer to different kinds of kinds of things, that means that the
analysis of a concept, even a simple concept, may be broken down into different
systems of relatively sub-concepts depending on the context or on the
sub-context of the analysis. The effort to actually think about this often
reveals that a concept may be made up of groups of seemingly more complicated
concepts, but that is not necessarily the case and it is not necessarily an
issue that would contradict what I am saying.
I realize that most people don't totally get this. How do I know this?
Because no one talks to me about things like relativistic concepts and
conceptual relativism. (I do sometimes hear remarks that have a little
substance and are based on limited perspectives but I don't ever recall anyone
actually being interested I in this.)
I am writing this because a few days ago I started looking through my notes to
find some remarks about an important idea that I had a few weeks ago. My
recollection was that I had a breakthrough insight at the beginning of last
month but I couldn't quite remember what it was. When I found it in my notes I
realized that it made a great deal of sense and it is a good solid piece of
reasoning, but it did not seem like much of a breakthrough. I wondered why I
thought it was so important at the time. After thinking about a few minutes it
fell back into perspective. Although it was a simple idea, it was a key idea -
in my AGI scheme - which made me think that I would be able to get my ideas
working. I am not going to mention it here because to almost all of you it
would just seem like a trivial insight. Some of you might get that it was a
solid insight but you would not get the significance of how it could fit into
other ideas that I had in order to get my AGI program working.
So the only way I could ever have a chance to convince anyone that it was a key
idea would be to get my AGI program working. And even then, most people would
not think that particular idea was that much of a breakthrough. My key idea
had more to do with feasibility than with a grand scheme.
Jim Bromer
-------------------------------------------
AGI
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