I think I've found a simple test of cog. sci.
I take the basic premise of cog. sci. to be that the human mind - and
therefore its every activity, or sequence of action - is programmed. Eric
Baum epitomises cog. sci."Baum proposes [in What Is Thought] that
underlying mind is a complex but compact program that corresponds to the
underlying structure of the world.."
As you know, I contend that that is absurd - that, yes, every human
activity - having a conversation, writing a post, making love, doing a
drawing etc - is massively "subprogrammed", containing often v. large
numbers of routines - but as a whole, each activity is a "free composition".
Those routines, along with isolated actions, are more or less freely thrown
together - "freely associated" . As a whole, our activities are more or less
"crazy" walks - I use "crazy" to mean both structured and chaotic - and
effectively self-contradictory.
(This has huge implications for AGI - you guys believe that an AGI must be
programmed for its activities, I contend that free composition instead is
essential for truly adaptive, general intelligence and is the basis of all
animal and human activities).
So how to test cog sci? I contend that the proper, *ideal* test is to record
humans' actual streams of thought about any problem - like, say, writing an
essay - and even just a minute's worth will show that, actually, humans have
major difficulties following anything like a joined-up, rational train of
thought - or any stream that looks remotely like it could be programmed
overall. (That includes more esoteric forms of programming like random
kinds). Actually, humans follow more or less roving, crazy streams of
thought - not chaotic by any means, but not perfectly "joined up" either -
more or less free-form, a bit like free verse - somewhat structured but only
loosely).
I still think that this is the proper, essential approach to studying the
connectedness, programmed or otherwise, of human thought. But it is
obviously a complicated affair - even if one could record those streams of
thought absolutely faithfully.
And science likes simple tests/ experiments - the more mathematical and
measurable the better.
So here's a simple mathematical test, which everyone can try.
"Do an abstract line drawing." (for let's say 30 secs. - on this particular
site)
Here are a few of my spontaneous masterpieces:
http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=&_nolivecache&sessionID=&message=&room_email=&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&from_name=mike
tintner&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&to_name=&aDrawingID=20080105_194101926_970043768_gbr&transcript=&_lscid=
.
http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=&_nolivecache&sessionID=&message=&room_email=&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&from_name=mike
tintner&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&to_name=&aDrawingID=20080105_194033348_926554557_gbr&transcript=&_lscid=
.
http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=&_nolivecache&sessionID=&message=&room_email=&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&from_name=mike
tintner&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&to_name=&aDrawingID=20080105_193922629_715992016_gbr&transcript=&_lscid=
.
http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=&_nolivecache&sessionID=&message=&room_email=&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&from_name=mike
tintner&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&to_name=&aDrawingID=20080105_193734879_1708083161_gbr&transcript=&_lscid=
.
The beauty of this site is that it does indeed record the actual stream of
thought/ drawing - and not just the end result. (It would be v. interesting
to see many other people's tests).
Now you guys are mathematicians - I contend that those drawings are indeed
crazy, spontaneous, free compositions - they have themes and patterns in
parts and are by no means entirely random, but they are certainly not
patterned or programmed overall either. Can you find an overall pattern or
program to any of them - let alone a program that underlies ALL of them?
Or, if you prefer, can you find a suite of programs?
(I guess a more formal way of expressing the test is that on any given page,
it is possible to draw an infinite number of line drawings which are a)
structured b) chaotic c) crazy (mixtures of both) - and, in principle,
programmed or non-programmed. And to assert that human activities are
programmed is, in the final analysis, to assert that there is no such thing
as a crazy set of lines. But please comment).
What this test shows, I believe, is the bleeding obvious - humans can and do
produce truly spontaneous,crazy, nonprogrammed,ad hoc, unplanned sequences
of action. Well, it should be obvious but many of you guys will fight to the
death to defy the obvious. So one needs a simple test.
It's a considerable historical irony that "painting by numbers" was born
very roughly at the same time as AI/ cog sci , c. 1950.
Cog sci. is the view that we live - paint, eat, copulate, talk, etc. - by
numbers. That view is wrong. We live, paint etc. by free composition. (And
we find both our own and nature's created forms "beautiful" or "ugly"
precisely because only a relative few are highly structured/ effectively
programmed while the majority are much wilder and a little too freely
composed).
P.S. I welcome any proper mathematical formulations of the idea behind the
test and also any suggested variations on the test.
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