On 12/4/06, Mark Waser wrote:
Explaining our actions is the reflective part of our minds evaluating the reflexive part of our mind. The reflexive part of our minds, though, operates analogously to a machine running on compiled code with the compilation of code being largely *not* under the control of our conscious mind (though some degree of this *can* be changed by our conscious minds). The more we can correctly interpret and affect/program the reflexive part of our mind with the reflective part, the more intelligent we are. And, translating this back to the machine realm circles back to my initial point, the better the machine can explain it's reasoning and use it's explanation to improve it's future actions, the more intelligent the machine is (or, in reverse, no explanation = no intelligence).
Your reasoning is getting surreal. As Ben tried to explain to you, 'explaining our actions' is our consciousness dreaming up excuses for what we want to do anyway. Are you saying that the more excuses we can think up, the more intelligent we are? (Actually there might be something in that!). You seem to have a real difficulty in admitting that humans behave irrationally for a lot (most?) of the time. Don't you read newspapers? You can redefine rationality if you like to say that all the crazy people are behaving rationally within their limited scope, but what's the point? Just admit their behaviour is not rational. Every time someone (subconsciously) decides to do something, their brain presents a list of reasons to go ahead. The reasons against are ignored, or weighted down to be less preferred. This applies to everything from deciding to get a new job to deciding to sleep with your best friend's wife. Sometimes a case arises when you really, really want to do something that you *know* is going to end in disaster, ruined lives, ruined career, etc. and it is impossible to think of good reasons to proceed. But you still go ahead anyway, saying that maybe it won't be so bad, maybe nobody will find out, it's not all my fault anyway, and so on..... Human decisions and activities are mostly emotional and irrational. That's the way life is. Because life is uncertain and unpredictable, human decisions are based on best guesses, gambles and basic subconscious desires. An AGI will have to cope with this mess. Basing an AGI on iron logic and 'rationality' alone will lead to what we call 'inhuman' ruthlessness. BillK ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
