Richard: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"?
I'm not sure what you mean - but this seems consistent with other
impressions I've been getting of your thinking.
Let me try and cut through this: if science were to change from its
prevailing conception of the human mind as a rational, computational machine
to what I am suggesting - i.e. a creative, compositional, irrational
machine - we would be talking of a major revolution that would impact right
through the sciences - and radically extend the scope of scientific
investigation into human thought. It would be the end of the deterministic
conception of humans and animals and ultimately be a revolution of Darwinian
proportions.
Hofstadter & co are absolutely not revolutionaries. Johnson-Laird conceives
of the human mind as an automaton. None of them are fundamentally changing
the prevailing conceptions of cognitive science. No one has reacted to them
with shock or horror or delight.
I suspect that what you are talking about is loosely akin to the ideas of
some that quantum mechanics has changed scientific determinism. It hasn't -
the fact that we can't measure certain quantum phenomena with precision does
not mean that they are not fundamentally deterministic. And science remains
deterministic.
Similarly, if you make a computer system very complex, keep changing the
factors involved in computations, add random factors & whatever, you are not
necessarily making it non-rational. You make it v. difficult to understand
the computer's rationality, (and possibly extend our conception of
rationality), but the system may still be basically rational, just as
quantum particles are still in all probability basically deterministic.
As a side-issue, I don't believe that human reasoning, conscious and
unconscious, is remotely, even infinitesimally as complex as that of the AI
systems you guys all seem to be building. The human brain surely never
seizes up with the kind of complex, runaway calculations that y'all have
been conjuring up in your arguments. That only happens when you have a
rational system that obeys basically rigid (even if complex) rules. The
human brain is cleverer than that - it doesn't have any definite rules for
any activities. In fact, you should be so lucky as to have a nice,
convenient set of rules, even complex ones, to guide you when you sit down
to write your computer programs.
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