JOSH,

I KNEW SERRE’S SYSTEM WAS ONLY FEED FORWARD, AND ONLY DEALS WITH CERTAIN
ASPECTS OF VISION, BUT I THINK IT HAS AMAZINGLY IMPRESSIVE PERFORMANCE FOR
SUCH A RELATIVELY SIMPLE SYSTEM, AND A LOT OF IT IS AUTOMATICALLY LEARNED.

IS IT “HOLONIC?”

IT DEFINITELY DOESN’T JUST DIVIDE VISUAL STATE SPACE UP INTO THE
EQUIVALENT OF THE BLINDLY SELECTED SUBSPACES.  IT LEARNS PATTERNS, AND
PATTERNS OF PATTERNS, AND GENERALIZATIONS OF PATTERNS.  AND WHAT IT
LEARNS, ARE, AS I REMEMBER IT, PATTERNS THAT SOMEHOW USEFULLY DIVIDE
VISUAL EXPERIENCE AT THE LEVEL OF COMPLEXITY REPRESENTED BY THAT LEVEL OF
PATTERN.  SO THE PATTERNS BEGIN TO REPRESENT USEFUL SHAPES, AND PATTERNS
OF SUCH SHAPES.

SO I THINK IT IS SOMEWHAT ANALOGOUS TO DIVIDING UP A BODY INTO UNITS BASED
ON THE COHERENT ROLES THEY PLAY IN A HIERARCHY OF SUCH PATTERNS, RATHER
THAN JUST SOME ARBITRARY PATTERN THAT IS INDEPENDENT OF WHAT IS HAPPENING
ABOVE OR BELOW IT.

WITH REGARD TO HAWKINGS, FROM WHAT I READ HE DOESN’T EXPLAIN HOW THE
PATTERNS ARE SELECTED AT EACH LEVEL, BUT THERE ARE MULTIPLE KNOW METHODS
FOR CREATING AND SELECTING THE GENERAL TYPE OF PATTERNS HE IS TALKING
ABOUT, SUCH AS GNG, DISCRIBED IN MY RECENT LONG POST TO LOOSEMORE.


Edward W. Porter
Porter & Associates
24 String Bridge S12
Exeter, NH 03833
(617) 494-1722
Fax (617) 494-1822
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



-----Original Message-----
From: J Storrs Hall, PhD [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 11:09 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [agi] "symbol grounding" Q&A


"Holonic" as used by Koestler implies at least a little something more
than
hierarchical. I think he meant something I would call "coherent levels of
abstraction", e.g. describing a body as a system of organs or an organ as
a
system of cells, such that you can usefully do a data-hiding
encapsulation. I
can do this if I partition the body into organs, for example, but not if I

divide it up into a hierarchy of cubical volumes as if using an oct-tree.

I don't see Serre's hierarchy as being particularly holonic. His levels
correspond to levels of complexity and region size, but not to
constituents
that partition the image into a coherent set of parts that are
wholes-in-themselves.

I don't see anything at all addressing this level of architectural concern
in
Hawkins' stuff, holonic or otherwise. There may be new stuff since OI, but

what he said there seemed to assume a hierarchical structure in the units
that would follow some ontology of the datastream they were interpreting,
without saying anything about where the ontology came from.

Eliezer appears to be using the phrase "holonic conflict resolution" to
mean
more or less the same thing I use "active interpretation" for (Beyond AI
p.
229-232). The basic idea is that in a hierarchical stack of pattern
matchers,
information flows down (and in my model, across) as well as up, allowing
the
environment of a part to affect its interpretation in combination with its

constituents. I find this use of the term to be congenial with the
original
meaning, and I'm happy to follow Eliezer's usage.

(Note BTW that the Poggio/Serre model is strictly and explicitly
feedforward.)

Thanks for bringing it up -- this has been fun and enlightening.

Josh


On Tuesday 16 October 2007 11:19:42 pm, Edward W. Porter wrote:
> In response to below post from Josh Hall:
>
> I am using "Holonic" as Eliezer S. Yudkowsky used in in his LEVELS OF
> ORGANIZATION IN GENERAL INTELLIGENCE in which he said
>
> ""Holonic" is a useful word to describe the simultaneous application
> of reductionism and holism, in which a single quality is
> simultaneously a combination of parts and a part of a greater whole
> [Koestler67].  Note that "holonic" does not imply strict hierarchy,
> only a general flow from high-level to low-level and vice versa.  For
> example, a single feature detector may make use of the output of
> lower-level feature detectors, and act in turn as an input to
> higher-level feature detectors.  The information contained in a
> mid-level feature is then the holistic sum of many lower-level
> features, and also an element in the sums produced by higher-level
> features.  If you pick one vantage point in a holonic structure and
> "look down" (reductionism) you find parts composing the local whole,
> with simpler behaviors that contribute to local complexity; if you
> "look up" (holism) you find a greater whole to which local parts
> contribute, and more complex processes which local behaviors support.
> "
>
> I basically use it to be representation in roughly hierarchical
> network, such as that defined by Jeff Hawkings, or in the Serre PhD
> thesis I have cited so often.  Representations using such nets have
> many advantages, such as functional invariance, ability to inherit
> information from more general nodes, etc.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: J Storrs Hall, PhD [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 11:01 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [agi] "symbol grounding" Q&A
>
>
> On Tuesday 16 October 2007 08:43:23 pm, Edward W. Porter wrote:
> > ... holonic pattern matching, ...
>
> Now there's a word you don't hear every day :-)  I've always thought
> of it as a feature of Arthur Koestler's somewhat poetic ontology of
> hierarchy. And it
> appears to enjoy a minor vogue as a subspecies of agent-based systems.
But
>
> you'll have to explain what holonic pattern matching is, please?
>
> Josh
>
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