Perhaps thinking is overrated. It sometimes seems the way progress is made, and lessons learned, is predominately by trial and error. Thomas Edison's light bulb is good example, especially since it is the very symbol of "idea." From what I know, Edison's contribution was his desire to make the light bulb, previously invented by other's, into a commercially successful product. His approach was to try this and try that until he finally succeeded.
Benjamin Franklin invented the rocking chair. Why had no one invented it before? Surely ancient Chinese, Egyptian, and Sumerian civilizations would have loved this bit of easy low-tech entertainment. Perhaps we think a little too highly of our intellectual ability. Native Americans did not discover the three-finger (index, middle, ring) method of archery, even though they spent dozens of generations developing their archery skills. The more natural thumb and index finger method reduces the effective range by a factor of three. Lucky thing for the Pilgrims I guess. Random evolution resulted in our fantastic technology-using brains. No planned design using calculus or any other type of logic seems to have been needed. Nervous systems developed for one purpose randomly morphed to perform others. Some of the more complex organisms had evolutionary advantages that allowed them to propagate. But evolution largely failed to take advantage of basic technologies like fire, wheels, and metallurgy. It is ironic that we have succeeded doing a lot of technology the evolutionary computer failed to develop, but we are struggling to duplicate much of the technology it did. "Thinking" in humans, much like genetic evolution, seems to involve predominately trial and error. Even the "logic" we like to use is more often than not faulty, but can lead us to try something different. And example of popular logic that is invariably faulty is reasoning by analogy. It is attractive, but always breaks down on close examination. But this type of reasoning will lead to a trial that may succeed, possibly because of the attractive similarities, but more likely in spite of them. When the Wright brothers made the first airplane, they used a lot of different technologies. There was no single silver bullet, except for a determination to accomplish their goal. Like any technological advancement, the road to AGI will be paved with a variety techniques, technologies, trials, and errors. This seems doubly true since thinking as we know it is apparently a hodgepodge of methods. Catch you all later . . . Kevin C. ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED]
