Richard,
> > Thus: if someone wanted volunteers to fly in their brand-new aircraft > design, but all they could do to reassure people that it was going to > work were the intuitions of suitably trained individuals, then most > rational people would refuse to fly - they would want more than > intuitions. > Yeah, sure. I wouldn't trust the Novamente design's AGI potential, at this stage, nearly enough to allow the life of one of my kids to depend on it. But I trust cars and airplanes in this manner every day. Novamente is a promising-looking R&D project, not a proven technology; that's obvious. > > In this light, my summary would not be a distortion of your position at > all, but only a statement about whether an appeal to intuition counts as > a good reason to believe. Just to be clear: the whole design doesn't have to be taken in one big gulp of mysterious intuition. There are plenty of well-substantiated aspects, substantiated by math or by prototype experiments or functionalities of various system components. But there are some aspects whose ability to deliver the desired functionality is not yet well substantiated, also. > And, of course, there are some suitably trained individuals who do not > share your intuitions, even given the limited access they have to your > detailed design. > So far, no one who has taken the time to carefully study the detailed design has come forward and told me "I think that ain't gonna work." Varying levels of confidence have been expressed; and most of all, the opinion has been expressed that the design is complicated and even though the whole thing seems to make a lot of sense, there are a heck of a lot of details to be resolved. > > I respect your optimism, and applaud your single-minded commitment to > the project: if it is going to work, that is the way to get it done. I > certainly wish you luck with it. Thanks! Ben ----- 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=64085576-1e462a
