Ben,
The definitions of
intelligence might be derived from the notions of life given by Maturana and
Varela. Autopoietic is the term used there.
But it is the
"social" requirement that a definition be given that is problematic here, as you
know from similar discussions on this issue. The life sciences have long
been caught in a position of not being able to do something that is quite
impossible, and this position is easily misunderstood. There are things
that are easier to define and then use the definitions as if this definition
where the thing that is referenced. Machine translation of text about
these things is quite easy. But the definition is never the thing itself,
except in the special class of mental abstractions. Even here is is not so easy
to know if a = a.
There is a class of
things where the definition of what the thing is is problematic simply because
those "things" are not amiable to definition. Things that have emergence
within the thing's history are generally examples of things that change in
ways that make a definition difficult. So "it" is so and so now, and then
later it is something quite different. One can shift the "definition" to
be about things that change what their precise definition is, but this shift is
rarely informative about the essence of the thing. Like life itself.
We might need to take life as something that cannot be put into a shoe box, or
into a computer processor. These are principled arguments that one can not
dismiss simply by behaving in a social fashion and claiming something else that
has not been demonstrated.
That "I" have not
demonstrated precise definitions to the phenomenon of life or the phenomenon of
intelligence is not a proper argument that you are right about the possibility
of computer life. I have not and likely cannot demonstrate such
definitions because such definitions must be abstractions whose variance, from
the reality we are discussing, is not only large but is not even
measurable. We simply cannot know the essence of some things except as an
experience, and this experience may not be convertible (reduced to) a set of
atomic definitions.
To bad, but perhaps
this is simple the way the natural world is. How we choose to regard
these questions will not change the nature of the world.
Not in the essence, at least.
***
The requirement that
there be "definitions" is a type of reductionism. To say that there are
real things that we either can not talk about very well precisely or can not
understand at all is just to say what one feels is the case. A
"requirement" to give definitions is in these cases an external requirement that
one does not have to accept.
It is in fact an
imposition on me to for this issue to be treated as a religious-type tenant. I
say this hoping that you will see where the argument starts from, in my
opinion. The technical challenges facing this new field of endeavor, that
I have myself recently created, called differential ontology; depends strongly
on the explicit social agreement that things cannot be known precisely and yet
one might create computational processes that produce a sign system that points
(as in later Wittgenstein) at the structure of human discourse. It is
simply a computational process that does these types of things that I am looking
for, not a baby.
I do not accept this
requirement for exact definitions to things like intelligence based on a
principled argument that the nature of the world does not admit to this
requirement. I think you will find this position in later Wittgenstein and
else where. Also, I read Peirce quite differently than you
do.
I actually am making
the point that no machine has achieved any reasonable definition of
intelligence, and pointing out that the claim that this will eventually happen
is a claim that does not have plausible evidence based on the effort over the
past fifty years, PLUS an analysis of the categorical difference between
abstraction and natural things that are not abstractions.
I have defined the
Manhattan Project to establish Knowledge Science is a different fashion that the
one that you give.
This is essentially
the core of the issue between you and now right now.
I want to advance
the science of knowledge sharing and knowledge experience, and I do not think
that a computer is an essential part of either knowledge sharing and knowledge
experience. So far, we use the computer to develop illusions that models
are very close to reality, when in fact there is a lot of false sense making
going on. The IT sector then prostitutes these illusions to gain economic
flow.
The value that the
computer gives to us is paid for in many many ways that have strong similarity
to the exploitation of the environment, and the "third world, that the
industrial age caused. The damage is hidden now in the eyes of most, but
perhaps the inability to share simple information within the intelligence
community is waking folks up to the process. Something has to be done to
change this failure of IT to deliver on knowledge sharing facilitation.
I am not sure that
you see how different my motivation is. It is easy to not see the points
that I am making, although I have become quite practiced at saying things
precisely and crisply.
And as always, I do
not read interspersed text on principle that what I am saying has the context of
the entire message.
