Vladimir,
This is logic and not evidence. Logic, remember, tells you that a hare can
never overtake a tortoise pace Zeno. Logic by itself is blind.
It's complete illusion. You think - like so many - that symbols [abstract
signs like words, numbers, algebraic letters, morse code etc] are
*alternatives* to images [ the sights of our eyes, photos, realistic
drawings, etc] and graphics [maps, icons, geometric figures]. "A picture is
worth a thousand words," it is said - ergo, words are worth a thousandth of
a picture - are equivalents or alternatives to pictures/images even if only
very fractional .That's the "essential illusion" about the nature of words
and other symbols. (And your post is logically derived from it - and not
from any evidence).
Sorry this is semiotic/visual illiteracy - except that, I must stress, there
are of course no standards here, as there are with the 3 R's literacy, &
it's shared by great philosophers and vast numbers of AI/AGI people, so it's
no shame. But it is nevertheless a severe form of illiteracy.
And it is a gross illusion. Words and other symbols are NOT equivalents to
pictures. Words are not worth any picture or fraction of a picture at all.
NOTHING. (And multiplying the number of words used will not, as you & Edward
seem to think, magically increase their pictorial value. They will still not
be worth any picture at all. A million times nothing is still nothing).
The differences between the 3 kinds of signs are these:
The word "ITALY" is a totally abstract sign. It tells you nothing about the
object. Nothing.
The same is true of all symbols. They are just names or labels - squiggles
arbitrarily applied to objects - that do not in any way resemble the object.
"V-l-a-d-i-m-i-r N-e-s-o-v" is not the real person and body, bears no
relation whatsoever to him. If your name were changed to "Vladimir Putin" or
"Italy" you would still be the same person and body, and the new name would
still bear no relation to you.
Slogan: The symbol is not the object. The name is not the object. Your
"essential illusion" is that the symbol IS the object. Wrong. Totally wrong.
Although it can be a v. hard illusion to shake - children often think that
the word IS God, that the name of an object is an actual part of that
object, and even adults while able to reject that illusion philosophically,
are not able to reject it in practice.
A map of Italy, [graphic/ image schemata] or a photograph or set of
photographs, or a personal sighting from the sky of Italy, [images] tell you
a great deal about the object.
Why? Now this actually has not been properly expressed before. It's obvious,
in front of your eyes, and yet it has never been put into philosophy. Here
is the "essential difference."
Slogan: The picture IS the object. The graphic or image IS the object.
IOW a graphic or an image is an "isomorph" of an object - a form that
partakes of the same form as the object itself. The map of Italy has some of
the same form - i.e. outline - as the real country. A realistic drawing or
photo or sighting of Vlad have some of the same form as you - e.g. drawn
eyes with some of the same form as your real eyes, as well as your body
outline..
Strictly, of course, images and graphics are only SLICES of the object -
"slices of life" . Nevertheless those slices are of the same form - often,of
course, somewhat distorted - as the object.
THE SOURCE OF THE ILLUSION: Where does your illusion that symbols are
equivalent to pictures come from? It comes from the picture tree nature of
your brain - the truth, I'm asserting, that your brain continually 'makes
sense' of the symbols or words that you read - continually converts them
into graphics and images but does so, most of the time, UNCONSCIOUSLY.
"Where did you put the key, Vlad?"
"Oh, I left it in the hall."
All you are actually conscious of in that interchange is symbols/words. But
the real action is taking place unconsciously in graphics and images in your
brain, of where you left the key. The real action is almost always taking
place on that level - though of course, symbols are an essential level of
the tree.
So when you read about any object - "Italy"/ "Vlad Putin" - your brain
continually, unconsciously and sometimes consciously, puts images and
graphics to the object. That's why you think words and symbols are
equivalent to images and graphics - because of your brain's automatic
conversion of symbols into graphics and images - because, we could say, of
your "pictorial unconscious."
But if your brain doesn't have the relevant images - if there are no
pictures in your unconscious - whoops - those symbols are useless - cease to
make sense. "I can't SEE what you are talking about."
"Get me an imrie from the cellar"
"What's an imrie?"
"It's a garden implement - get one now."
"What ..??!"
A picture of an imrie will put you right in an instant.
Words or symbols WITHOUT pictures don't make sense. They may have
"meaning", because words can be defined in terms of other words - "an imrie
is a garden implement" - but they don't make sense.
PRODUCTIVE THINKING IS OVERWHELMINGLY IMAGINATIVE.
If you want to have new ideas - new approaches to a problem - images and
graphics are the prime medium.
Why? Because if you want to have new ideas about - new approaches - to an
object or set of objects, you have to look at the actual object(s).
Only a likeness of the form of an object can really tell you about its
actual form. If you want to attack/ invade Italy, you have to look at
images/graphics of Italy and surrounding countries - which show their actual
forms.
Looking at symbols - "Italy" - "country"- "boot shape" - "Europe" - "x,000
square miles" - "GDP $X billion" - etc - and performing logical operations
on them is not likely to be v., helpful. Some, but not much.
And again, most of your productive, adaptive thinking WILL be imaginative -
but, as with the key example, usually UNCONSCIOUS.
Slogan: If you want to think productively about an object, look at the
object (i.e. sensorily or with images/ graphics)
That's essential, practical thinking advice, as well as an essential
principle for an AGI.
(And bear in mind that the vast majority of functional AGI-type systems -
problemsolving systems that really work as opposed to mechanical AGI's that
definitely don't - function WITHOUT words or logic or maths and with v. few
symbols, and certainly no networks of symbols at all. I am talking of course
about animals).
FINAL SLOGAN; If the temptation to persist with pure networks of symbols
persists, and it will, remember Bertrand Russell: [& this is as much of
course about logic]
"Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we
are talking about, nor whether what we say is true."
"Vladimir Nesov" :, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Let me be brutally challenging here : the reason you guys are attached to
purely symbolic models of the world is not because you have any real
evidence of their being productive (for AGI), but because they're what
you
know how to do. Hence Vlad's "why can't 3D world model be just described
abstractly.." He doesn't know - he just hopes - that it can. Logically.
What you need here is not logic but - ahem - evidence {sensory stuff].
As Edward eloquently explained, sensory input can as well be regarded
as symbolic. The only difference for anthropomorphic sensory input is
in that it seems to be close to actual details that need to be
perceived. Vision supplies too much data, so visual perception is
mostly about filtering out unnecessary details, and all useful data
also seems being present there. So it creates an illusion that you
actually need all those useful details supplied directly as part of
experience.
But when trained human understands textual description, this
description doesn't contain all those details - he uses his knowledge
about them. And if he needs additional details in order to understand
the scene, to build a consistent model of it, he can ask for
additional details. These details parameterize relatively simple model
of spacial scenes which enables description of relative positions,
movement and simple physics. Now, this model can be described
abstractly, and all you need after that is to specify models of
various objects in it, plus animations of common actions. All these
things can be gradually refined through high-level description,
although admittedly it would be a tedious process and we'll likely be
better off with some kind of fovea-limited dynamic vision.
Generation of such abstract-description-based scenes can be a tedious
process at start, involving calculations 'by hand' on part of AGI, but
gradually through introduction of intermediate concepts this process
will become more intuitive and finally world model will be as flexible
as one directly obtained from vision. So, abstraction-based model can
be used as surrogate vision supply, results of which can be more
optimally reperceived.
--
Vladimir Nesov mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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