But of course, all I have so far is a written formalism that purports to
show how these many aspects of cognition can be explained within a
unified system (and fragmentary implementations that show that some of
the aspects do work),
That's a lot. Would you be willing to share any of it on a "here's where I
am now basis . . . . "? Many (if not most) of us are very willing not to
hammer people who realize that they are still in the throes (but think that
they are getting somewhere) -- although we may be a bit eager to over-kibitz
at times when we think that we have something helpful to say (even if we
don't have a clue in reality :-).
Or I can stretch out my research program and build the tools I need to
test the system as a whole, and get hammered in the mean time for not
actually doing anything that counts.
I think that this is the approach that the first person to reach AGI is
going to take. That they are going to quietly build their tools until there
are enough pieces lying around that they can just slap them into their
framework, tune them a bit, and go. Or rather, what I REALLY believe is
that they will do this and realize that they are STILL missing a whole layer
of abstraction (or two or three), but still be way far ahead of the people
who are trying to essentially program an AGI in assembly language AND have a
rational foundation to continue experimenting on and building from.
Personally, though, if you're not willing to share your work on your tools
(or, at least, the lessons you've learned), I am willing to be obnoxious and
hammer you for that . . . . :-)
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Loosemore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 2:57 PM
Subject: **SPAM** [agi] Not having trouble with parameters! WAS [Re: How the
Brain Represents Abstract Knowledge]
Mark Waser wrote:
From: "Ben Goertzel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 12:17 AM
Subject: Re: [agi] How the Brain Represents Abstract Knowledge
You seem to be confusing Novamente with Richard Loosemore's system...
No, I don't think so . . . . I know that I know nothing about Richard's
system :-)
The way this dialogue evolved was:
* Loosemore was saying that he was having trouble tuning the many
parameters of his system
* I said that I had had this problem in Webmind, but not in Novamente
due to having a simpler design with fewer tunable parameters
* You complained that Novamente is not sufficiently modular
Funny, my recollection (backed by direct quotes) was that it went like
* Richard was saying that he was having trouble tuning the many
parameters of his system
* I said "I'm confused . . . . Why not have multiple independent
instances of the same mechanisms with different local parameters for
different processes? Once you uncouple the local parameters from
instance to instance, making all the processes happen at once should be
no more complicated than making them happen individually in isolation."
(Which, by the way, I now think that he IS doing to the extent
possible.)
* You said "These processes all have to play together nicely as they are
acting on the same data at the same time, and need to benefit from each
others' intelligence in order to make cognition happen. Therefore, the
parameters of all the cognitive processes need to be "tuned together" --
a tuning that will work for one process in isolation will not
necessarily work for that process when it acts in the context of other
processes..."
Okay, since I started this debate, can I interject that I an NOT HAVING
TROUBLE tuning the many parameters in my model ;-)!
It would be more accurate to say that I am relishing the trouble with the
parameters, that having trouble with them is what my entire research
paradigm is all about! Just wanted to clear that up.
Ben has put my case himself in the above quote: this is all about making
cognition happen by admitting that cognition is the cooperative effect of
a cluster of processes that simply cannot be disentangled. What I claim is
that AI research (and cognitive science, for that matter) has boxed itself
into a corner by bending over backwards to try to force intelligent
systems to have decomposable, independent modules. Everyone does this to
some extent, although some do it much less than others.
Now, Ben would probably not go as far as I am going, and would not want to
imply that all his modules are completely entangled with one another, but
I do want it understood that close-quarters entanglement is what my
approach is all about.
Why do it this way? (1) I think that all the cognitive science literature
points in that direction (even though the cog sci folks might not like to
admit that), and (2) I can see how to utterly simplify the things that the
cog sci folks are trying to describe IF I build a model of cognition that
embraces this kind of rich interconnectedness. I can see, in principle,
how to explain an enormously wide variety of cognitive phenomena without
having to resort to (what I see as) the baroque complexities of many AI
and AGI models.
Many of these models, indeed, seem to grow in complexity as a function of
the number of aspects of cognition that they try to embrace: it looks as
if each new aspect doesn't quite fit, and as a result provokes an
adjustment of the existing mechanism to make it fit. An optimist would
say that the AGI architect is just learning about the many subtle things
needed for intelligence, and is making sensible, motivated additions to
the model...... but a pessimist would say that these are Epicycles!
But of course, all I have so far is a written formalism that purports to
show how these many aspects of cognition can be explained within a unified
system (and fragmentary implementations that show that some of the aspects
do work), but I cannot test such an approach without systematically
building and testing a very wide variety of systems. I am caught between
a rock and hard place: I can take the mechanisms in isolation and try to
shop them to the world (in which case, as I said, I am open to the charge
that when I fixed them up to substitute for the missing "rest of the
system", I was just kludging them. Or I can stretch out my research
program and build the tools I need to test the system as a whole, and get
hammered in the mean time for not actually doing anything that counts.
Very tricky.
Richard Loosemore.
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