Re: The following statement in Linas Vepstass 10/3/2007 5:51 PM post: P.S. THE INDIAN MATHEMATICIAN RAMANUJAN SEEMS TO HAVE MANAGED TO TRAIN A SET OF NEURONS IN HIS HEAD TO BE A VERY FAST SYMBOLIC MULTIPLIER/DIVIDER. WITH THIS, HE WAS ABLE TO SEE VAST AMOUNTS (SIX VOLUMES WORTH BEFORE DYING AT AGE 26) OF STRANGE AND INTERESTING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CERTAIN EQUATIONS THAT WERE OTHERWISE QUITE OPAQUE TO OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. SO, "RUNNING AN EMULATOR IN YOUR HEAD" IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE, EVEN FOR HUMANS; ALTHOUGH, ADMITEDLY, ITS EXTREMELY RARE.
As a young patent attorney I worked in a firm in NYC that did a lot of work for a major Japanese Electronics company. Each year they sent a different Japanese employee to our firm to, among other things, improve their English and learn more about U.S. patent law. I made a practice of having lunch with these people because I was fascinated with Japan. One of them once told me that in Japan it was common for high school boys who were interested in math, science, or business to go to abacus classes after school or on weekends. He said once they fully mastered using physical abacuses, they were taught to create a visually imagined abacus in their mind that they could operate faster than a physical one. I asked if his still worked. He said it did, and that he expected it to continue to do so for the rest of his life. To prove it he asked me to pick any two three digit numbers and he would see if he could get the answer faster than I could on a digital calculator. He won, he had the answer before I had finished typing in the numbers on the calculator. He said his talent was not that unusual among bright Japanese, that many thousands of Japan businessmen carry such mental abacuses with them at all times. So you see how powerful representational and behavioral learning can be in the human mind. Edward W. Porter Porter & Associates 24 String Bridge S12 Exeter, NH 03833 (617) 494-1722 Fax (617) 494-1822 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Linas Vepstas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 5:51 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content On Wed, Oct 03, 2007 at 02:00:03PM -0400, Edward W. Porter wrote: > From what you say below it would appear human-level AGI would not > require recursive self improvement, [...] > A lot of people on this list seem to hang a lot on RSI, as they use > it, implying it is necessary for human-level AGI. Nah. A few people have suggested that an extremely-low IQ "internet worm" that is capable of modifying its own code might be able to ratchet itself up to human intelligence levels. In-so-far as it "modifies its own code", its RSI. First, I don't tink such a thing is likely. Secondly, even if its likely, one can implement an entirely equivalent thing that doesn't actually "self modify" in this way, by using e.g. scheme or lisp, or even with the proper stuructures, in C. I think that, at this level, talking about "code that can modify itself" is smoke-n-mirrors. Self-modifying code is just one of many things in a programmer's kit bag, and there are plenty of equivalenet formulations that don't actually require changing source code and recompiling. Put it this way: if I were an AGI, and I was prohibited from recompiling my own program, I could still emulate a computer with pencil and paper, and write programs for my pencil-n-paper computer. (I wouldn't use pencil-n-paper, of course, I'd "do it in my head"). I might be able to do this pencil-paper emulatation pretty danged fast (being AGI and all), and then re-incorporate those results back into my own thinking. In fact, I might choose to do all of my thinking on my pen-n-paper emulator, and, since I was doing it all in my head anyway, I might not bother to tell my creator that I was doing this. (which is not to say it would be undetectable .. creator might notice that an inordinate amount of cpu time is being used in one area, while other previously active areas have gone dormant). So a prohibition from modifying one's own code is not really much of a prohibition at all. --linas p.s. The Indian mathematician Ramanujan seems to have managed to train a set of neurons in his head to be a very fast symbolic multiplier/divider. With this, he was able to see vast amounts (six volumes worth before dying at age 26) of strange and interesting relationships between certain equations that were otherwise quite opaque to other human beings. So, "running an emulator in your head" is not impossible, even for humans; although, admitedly, its extremely rare. ----- 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/?&; ----- 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/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=49534399-4aa5a4
