RE: [agi] Do we need massive computational capabilities?ED PORTER #####> "When you say "It only takes a few steps to retrieve something from memory." I hope you realize that depending how you count steps, it actually probably takes hundreds of millions of steps or more. It is just that millions of them are performed in parallel, such that the longest sequence of any one causal path among such steps is no longer than 100 steps. That is a very, repeat very, different thing that suggesting that only 100 separate actions were taken.
Ed, Yes, I understood that (though sure, I'm capable of misunderstanding anything here!) But let's try and make it simple and as concrete as possible - another way of putting Hawkins' point, as I understand, is that at any given level, if the brain is recognising a given feature of the face, it can only compare it with very few comparable features in that half second with its 100 operations - whereas a computer will compare that same feature with vast numbers of others. And actually ditto, for that useful Hofstadter example you quoted, of proceeding from aabc: aabd to jjkl: ??? (although this is a somewhat more complex operation which may take a couple of seconds for the brain), again a typical intelligent brain will almost certainly consider v. few options, compared with the vast numbers of options considered by that computer. Ditto, for godsake, a human chessplayer like Kasparov's brain considers an infinitesimal percentage of the moves considered by Big Blue in any given period - and yet can still win (occasionally) because of course it's working on radically different principles. Hawkins' basic point that the brain "isn't a computer at all" - which I think can be read less controversially as "is a machine that works on very fundamentally different principles to those of currently programmed computers - especially when perceiving objects" - holds. You're not dealing with that basic point, and I find it incredibly difficult to get anyone here squarely to face it. People retreat into numbers and millions. Clearly the brain works VASTLY differently and more efficiently than current computers - are you seriously disputing that? P.S. You also don't answer my question re: how many neurons in total *can* be activated within a half second, or given period, to work on a given problem - given their relative slowness of communication? Is it indeed possible for "hundreds of millions" of messages about that one subject to be passed among millions of neurons in that short space (dunno-just asking)? Or did you pluck that figure out of the air? P.P. S. A recent book by Read Montague on neuroeconomics makes much the same point from a v. different angle - highlighting that computers have a vastly wasteful search heritage which he argues has its roots in Turing and Bletchley Park's attempts to decode Engima. ----- 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=73842990-515452
