Your not really giving any new information here yet.
>We're talking about dealing with problematic decisions, where the options are
>>more or less balanced, and there is risk and uncertainty. Like investing on
>the >stockmarket, what to do next about Iraq, how to deal with a difficult
>person, how >to compose your next post, what restaurant to pick tonight, what
>TV program to >watch ...
If your choices are roughly the same, it doesnt matter what you do, flip a coin
and choose one.
Given any of the problems you listed above, and a situation where the choices
are all equally good, I, an AGI, and anyone would just pick a random answer
(Nars would pick the first one)
For a person picking a restaurant, it wouldnt matter which of three you pick,
cause you dont have any preferences, or you want chinese, and all three are
chinese, no other information is known about quality price etc.
>Well, to be determined is by definition, (and in truth), to be
>closed-minded. To >be free is, by definition, (and in truth), to be
>open-minded.
No, you'll have to do better than that. An option may be taken in the future
and that option is known, based on an algorithm, that doesnt mean all options
are not considerred first, before that one is chosen.
>Which would you rather be, personally, and which would you rather your AGI
>>be? Which kind of system (deterministic or free) do you think has a better
>>chance of success and survival in a world that is dynamic, always somewhat
>>unfamiliar, and continually challenging and contradicting your assumptions
>and >world model?
Well you are almost stepping into another area here, that of learning.
If given equal choices, I choose a random one I am NEVER making a bad decision.
Do you see that? Because based on the information known, all are equally
valuable. If after going to restaurant #1 I notice that the food and service
was terrible, I can devalue that choice in the future, having learned extra
information, and next time it will be an option between #2 and #3 instead only.
I think this happens only when there is very very little information known
about a decision, or when the decision is very close and more information is
known.
So this determinism doesn't preclude any good behavior or learning by any
means, would it?
Pei,
The only problem I see with choosing the first one Pei, is that given the 3
choices, and taking #1, if the system does not learn anything extra that would
help it make a decision, it would be forever stuck in that loop, and never able
to break free.
If given the choice again, it would always choose path one though path 2 o r3
may be a better choice instead. Random would be a better choice there.
James Ratcliff
Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: James: is non-determinsm USEFUL?
other than as I have stated, choosing randomly when we dont know any better?
Is there any other way to implement non-determinsm, and is their any use for
it?
Check this out - you are, I suggest, working on the assumption that
deterministic is reasonable, and nondeterministic/ free is somehow a little
crazy. My God, can non-determinism be useful at all, you are effectively
asking. And I think that's a perfectly standard, understandable POV/ reaction.
Probably the great majority of people would side with that.
So can I try and change your perspective?
We're talking about dealing with problematic decisions, where the options are
more or less balanced, and there is risk and uncertainty. Like investing on
the stockmarket, what to do next about Iraq, how to deal with a difficult
person, how to compose your next post, what restaurant to pick tonight, what
TV program to watch ...
Well, to be determined is by definition, (and in truth), to be closed-minded.
To be free is, by definition, (and in truth), to be open-minded.
Which would you rather be, personally, and which would you rather your AGI
be? Which kind of system (deterministic or free) do you think has a better
chance of success and survival in a world that is dynamic, always somewhat
unfamiliar, and continually challenging and contradicting your assumptions and
world model?
----- Original Message -----
From: James Ratcliff
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 6:36 PM
Subject: Re: [agi] The Advantages of a Conscious Mind
Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: That would indeed
be free, nondeterministic choice, which, as I understood, Pei ruled out
for his system.
The only qualifications are:
* choosing randomly is only one of an infinity of possible methods
for such choice
rephrase this one?
* the difference between options can be much greater than 5% -
humans and, offhand, I imagine, most AGI's, couldn't begin to measure
and compare options, with that degree of precision
I'm not sure about this... I believe we differentiate to a very fine
degree, but I believe we cant verbalize or explain this easily.
If you show two girls to me, I can choose which one I prefer... but I cant
give reasons for that well, but there are sublte reasons, flick of the
hair, upturned nose, smell, etc.
Back on the AGI front though, is non-determinsm USEFUL? other than as I
have stated, choosing randomly when we dont know any better? Is there any
other way to implement non-determinsm, and is their any use for it?
I picture in my AI, that occasionaly on its way down a path, it will
choose a different road, no real reason, but just an exploration function,
so long as the second path had no real downsides, and it may find some new
information there that shows it should take that path in teh future...
James Ratcliff
----- Original Message -----
From: James Ratcliff
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 5:57 PM
Subject: Re: [agi] The Advantages of a Conscious Mind
More simply even that that, Pei, when it comes across a task and a
choice of options, if it sees no benefit > 5% (arbitrary setting or 0%)
does your system choose randomly between between the choices?
Doesnt this make the system non-deterministic...
Otherwise agree with your description.
James Ratcliff
Pei Wang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Mike,
I believe many of the confusions on this topic is caused by
the
following "self-evident" belief: "A system is fundamentally either
deterministic or non-deterministic. The human mind, with free will, is
fundamentally non-deterministic; a conventional computer, being Turing
Machine, is fundamentally deterministic". Based on such a belief, many
people think AGI can only be realized by something that is
"non-deterministic by nature", whatever that means.
This belief, though works fine in some other context, is an
oversimplification in the AI/CogSci context. Here, as I said before,
whether a system is deterministic may not be taken as an intrinsic
nature of the system, but as depending on the description about it.
For example, NARS is indeed "nondeterministic" in the usual sense,
that is, after the system has obtained a complicated experience, it
will be practically impossible for either an observer or the system
itself to accurately predict how the system will handle a
user-provided task. On the other level of description, NARS is still a
deterministic Turing Machine, in the sense that its state change is
fully determined by its initial state and its experience, step by
step.
Now the important point is: when we say that the mind is
"nondeterministic", in what sense are we using the term? I believe it
is like "it will be practically impossible for either an observer or
the mind itself to accurately predict how the system will handle a
problem", rather than ""it will be theoretically impossible for an
observer to accurately predict how the system will handle a problem,
even if the observer has full information about the system's initial
state, processing mechanism, and detailed experience, as well as has
unlimited information processing power". Therefore, for all practical
considerations, including the ones you mentioned, NARS is
nondeterministic, since it doesn't process input tasks according to a
task-specific algorithm.
[If the above description still sounds confusing or contradictionary,
you'll have to read my relevant publications. I don't have the
intelligence to explain everything by email.]
Pei
On 5/6/07, Mike Tintner wrote:
> 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).
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