Mike Tintner wrote:
Well, I'm not sure if "not doing logic" necessarily means a system is
irrational, i.e if rationality equates to logic. Any system
consistently followed can classify as rational. If for example, a
program consistently does Freudian free association and produces nothing
but a chain of associations with some connection:
"bird - - feathers - four..tops "
or on the contrary, a 'nonsense' chain where there is NO connection..
logic.. sex... ralph .. essence... pi... Loosemore...
then it is rational - it consistently follows a system with a set of
rules. And the rules could, for argument's sake, specify that every step
is illogical - as in breaking established rules of logic - or that steps
are alternately logical and illogical. That too would be rational.
Neural nets from the little I know are also rational inasmuch as they
follow rules. Ditto Hofstadter & Johnson-Laird from again the little I
know also seem rational - Johnson-Laird's jazz improvisation program
from my cursory reading seemed rational and not truly creative.
Sorry to be brief, but:
This raises all sorts of deep issues about what exactly you would mean
by "rational". If a bunch of "things" (computational processes) come
together and each contribute "something" to a decision that results in
an output, and the exact output choice depends on so many factors coming
together that it would not necessarily be the same output if roughly the
same situation occurred another time, and if none of these things looked
like a "rule" of any kind, then would you still call it "rational"?
If the answer is yes then whatever would count as "not rational"?
Richard Loosemore
I do not know enough to pass judgment on your system, but you do strike
me as a rational kind of guy (although probably philosophically much
closer to me than most here as you seem to indicate). Your attitude to
emotions seems to me rational, and your belief that you can produce an
AGI that will almost definitely be cooperative , also bespeaks rationality.
In the final analysis, irrationality = creativity (although I'm using
the word with a small "c", rather than the social kind, where someone
produces a new idea that no one in society has had or published before).
If a system can change its approach and rules of reasoning at literally
any step of problem-solving, then it is truly "crazy"/ irrational (think
of a crazy path). And it will be capable of producing all the human
irrationalities that I listed previously - like not even defining or
answering the problem. It will by the same token have the capacity to be
truly creative, because it will ipso facto be capable of lateral
thinking at any step of problem-solving. Is your system capable of that?
Or anything close? Somehow I doubt it, or you'd already be claiming the
solution to both AGI and computational creativity.
But yes, please do send me your paper.
P.S. I hope you won't - & I actually don't think - that you will get all
pedantic on me like so many AI-ers & say "ah but we already have
programs that can modify their rules." Yes, but they do that according
to metarules - they are still basically rulebound. A crazy/ creative
program is rulebreaking (and rulecreating) - can break ALL the rules,
incl. metarules. Rulebound/rulebreaking is one of the most crucial
differences between narrow AI/AGI.
Richard: In the same way computer programs are completely
neutral and can be used to build systems that are either rational or
irrational. My system is not "rational" in that sense at all.
Richard,
Out of interest, rather than pursuing the original argument:
1) Who are these programmers/ systembuilders who try to create
programs (and what are the programs/ systems) that are either
"irrational" or "non-rational" (and described as such)?
I'm a little partied out right now, so all I have time for is to
suggest: Hofstadter's group builds all kinds of programs that do
things without logic. Phil Johnson-Laird (and students) used to try
to model reasoning ability using systems that did not do logic. All
kinds of language processing people use various kinds of neural nets:
see my earlier research papers with Gordon Brown et al, as well as
folks like Mark Seidenberg, Kim Plunkett etc. Marslen-Wilson and
Tyler used something called a "Cohort Model" to describe some aspects
of language.
I am just dragging up the name of anyone who has ever done any kind of
computer modelling of some aspect of cognition: all of these people
do not use systems that do any kind of "logical" processing. I could
go on indefinitely. There are probably hundreds of them. They do not
try to build complete systems, of course, just local models.
When I have proposed (in different threads) that the mind is not
rationally, algorithmically programmed I have been met with uniform
and often fierce resistance both on this and another AI forum.
Hey, join the club! You have read my little brouhaha with Yudkowsky
last year I presume? A lot of AI people have their heads up their
asses, so yes, they believe that rationality is God.
It does depend how you put it though: sometimes you use rationality
to not mean what they mean, so that might explain the ferocity.
My argument
re the philosophy of mind of cog sci & other sciences is of course
not based on such reactions, but they do confirm my argument. And the
position you at first appear to be adopting is unique both in my
experience and my reading.
2) How is your system "not rational"? Does it not use algorithms?
It uses "dynamic relaxation" in a "generalized neural net". Too much
to explain in a hurry.
And could you give a specific example or two of the kind of problem
that it deals with - non-rationally? (BTW I don't think I've seen
any problem examples for your system anywhere, period - for all I
know, it could be designed to read children' stories, bomb Iraq, do
syllogisms, work out your domestic budget, or work out the meaning of
life - or play and develop in virtual worlds).
I am playing this close, for the time being, but I have released a
small amount of it in a forthcoming neuroscience paper. I'll send it
to you tomorrow if you like, but it does not go into a lot of detail.
Richard Loosemore
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