Pei,
Thanks for stating your position (which I simply didn't know about before -
NARS just looked at a glance as if it MIGHT be nondeterministic).
Basically, and very briefly, my position is that any AGI that is to deal
with problematic decisions, where there is no right answer, will have to be
freely, nondeterministically programmed to proceed on a trial and error
basis - and that is just how human beings are programmed.
(Nondeterministically programmed should not be simply equated with current
kinds of programming - there are an infinity of possible ways of programming
deterministically, ditto for nondeterministically).
Some of what you say below IS confusing -
"The system does have a choice among options from time to time, though
given the
design and the experience of the system, these choices are not
arbitrary at all."
That sounds like a complete contradiction in terms. Either you have a real
choice or not. Let's say the system is investing in the stockmarket - if
it's free, in my terms, it will indeed have a choice, and be able to Buy,
OR Sell OR Hold. If it's determined, or "not arbitrary at all", it will at a
given point, have only ONE option open to it. Can you clarify your position?
I'm somewhat confused too by:
"What is your evidence for "The unconscious mind thinks
more or less algorithmically"? To me, it is just the opposite --- to
follow an algorithm needs conscious effort. "
My position is this: most of our behaviour is unconsciously controlled. When
you walk across a room, most steps will be automatic. When I wrote that last
sentence most if not all of the words and letters and keypresses were
automatic. And I assume there are unconscious algorithms/ routines
controlling those behaviours But while most of our steps on any given
journey are automatic and fixed, we also more or less continuously
consciously and deliberately and freely attend to the occasional next step
and turn - and how, and how long we think about and take that next step is
not fixed. [So if you are going to argue that it's not algorithms but some
other kind of deterministic programming that does the unconscious
controlling, I wouldn't try and argue about that}
What I find weird is your statement - "an algorithm needs conscious effort".
Then it's not an algorithm, or any kind of deterministic programming.
Nothing that requires conscious exertion can be algorithmic or deterministic
or automatic. Effort/exertion - i.e. whether to make it or not - is
fundamentally problematic and nondeterministic.When you are doing your
fiftieth or maximal press-up, there is no algorithm or any oither kind of
deterministic programming that determines whether you will push beyond your
limit to the fifty-fifth. You face a problematic decision as to whether you
are or are not prepared to make the exertion and bear the pain of higher
achievement or stop now and settle for less achievement with less pain.
When you are straining sexually, and agonizing over whether to keep going,
there is no algorithm that determines whether you will keep bearing the
tension for another thirty seconds, or one minute or whatever. You have a
problematic decision as whether you are prepared to aim for still more
pleasure AND still more pain, or come now and settle for less pleasure and
less pain - and there is no right answer..
Daniel knows that Allison needs at least another five minutes of intercourse
before she can climax. Here's the problem: Daniel doesn't think he has five
minutes left in him. If Daniel continues having intercourse the way he has
for the past ten minutes, it may be only a matter of seconds before he has
an orgasm. He thinks about slowing down or stopping. Besides, if he tried to
stop or to change the rhythm, Daniel could lose strength in his erection,
which would complicate matters even further. This dilemma is making the
whole experience a lot less pleasurable for Daniel.
Barbra Keesling, How To Make Love All Night (And Drive A Woman Wild). 1994
Daniel here is not controlled by any deterministic algorithm or programming.
Do you really - hand on heart and hope to die - believe he is?
You will note that the concepts of struggle, exertion, nerve, grit etc are
more or less entirely missing from scientific psychology. They are simply
incompatible with a deterministic approach to the human mind, so science
does what it always does in such situations - ignores them. Science doesn't
deal with Daniel's problem, but in one form or other, AGI, I believe, will
have to.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pei Wang" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [agi] The Advantages of a Conscious Mind
Mike,
Since you mentioned me and NARS, I feel the need to clarify my
position on the related issues.
*. I agree with you that in many situations, the decision-making
procedure doesn't follow predetermined algorithm, which give people
the feeling of "free will". On the other hand, at a deeper level, each
basic operations in the process does roughly follow a fixed routine,
and how these operations form the decision-making procedure are
determined by many factors at the moment. This mechanism is already
implemented in NARS, and is discussed in detail in
http://nars.wang.googlepages.com/wang.computation.pdf . Whether such a
process is "free" or "determined" to a large extent depends on the
context of the discussion: determined by whom? given what? The system
does have a choice among options from time to time, though given the
design and the experience of the system, these choices are not
arbitrary at all.
*. I disagree with you on the "two-tier structure", though it is
indeed intuitively "obvious". As Ben said "On some topics, naive
intuition can be misleading", which has been shown in many times in
the history of AI and CogSci. The conscious/unconscious distinction
does exist, but to me, it shows that our self-perception has its
limits, just like our perception of the outside environment. I don't
see your evidence for the two to be "separate", rather than just
"different". What is your evidence for "The unconscious mind thinks
more or less algorithmically"? To me, it is just the opposite --- to
follow an algorithm needs conscious effort. If you are talking about
automated behaviors or acquired skills, then that is a different issue
from unconscious thinking.
*. I also feel that you mixed several different issues all together in
the discussion: free-will/determinism, conscious/unconscious,
centralize/decentralize, which may be taken as "confused philosophical
understanding" on your side. ;-)
Pei
On 5/6/07, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Well, there obviously IS a conscious, executive mind, separate from the
unconscious mind, whatever the enormous difficulties cognitive sicentists
had in first admitting its existence and now in identifying its
correlates!
And you still seem to be sharing some of those old difficulties in
talking
about it. Science generally still has some of those difficulties too.
They
shouldn't be there. Social organizations have chief executives and appear
more or less incapable of functioning without them. The individual
organization that is a human being appears to need an executive mind for
much the same reasons - though those reasons need defining.
Note that Fodor acknowledges the embarrassing truth that sicence can
currently offer no explanation of why the conscious mind exists -
rational,
deterministic computers and machines clearly do not have or need one,
functioning perfectly as entirely unconscious affairs.
One immediate reason, applicable to AGI - although it will take the next
Cognitive Revolution to recognize this - is that the two minds, almost
certainly, think very differently. The unconscious mind thinks more or
less
algorithmically, (at least most of the time), rapidly in set ways - like
a
rational computer - it has to. Its function is to get things done.
The conscious mind thinks literally, freely. How long it will spend on
any
given decision, and what course of thought it will pursue in reaching
that
decision are definitely NOT set, but free. (How does Pei's NARS fit in
here?) Should I buy the marshmallow or the creme caramel ice cream? Hmm
that's a tough one. I want to get this right... And I could and will
resolve
that decision in a few more seconds OR at other times, I could still be
here
thinking about it several minutes later OR at other times I could wander
off
in mid-thought to another subject entirely. No computer currently thinks
like this - thinks freely and "crazily" as opposed to rationally and
deterministically. Anyone who produces one - that has a similar
practicality
to the animal/human executive mind - will literally usher in the next
Cognitive Revolution.
You guys are clearly moving that way - but still appear to have a
somewhat
confused philosophical understanding of why all this is really necessary.
(One interesting, but tangential issue is that the unconscious mind does
appear to have a certain freedom too - it's hard to see dreams, for
example,
as deterministic affairs, Well, your dreams maybe, but not mine, you
understand...).
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