Robert, Look, the basic reality is that computers have NOT yet been creative in any significant way, and have NOT yet achieved AGI - general intelligence, - or indeed any significant rulebreaking adaptivity; (If you disagree, please provide examples. Ben keeps claiming/implying he's solved them or made significant advances, but when pressed never provides any indication of how).
These are completely unsolved problems. Major creative problems. And I would suggest you have to be prepared for the solutions to be revolutionary and groundshaking. If you are truly serious about solving these problems, I suggest, you should prepared to be "hurt" - you should be ready to consider truly radical ideas - for the ground on which you stand to be questioned - and be seriously shaken up. You should WELCOME any and all of your assumptions being questioned. Even if, let's say, what I or someone else suggests is in the end nutty, drastic ideas are good for you to contemplate at least for a while. Having said all this, I accept that what I have been saying offends this community - I wasn't trying originally to push it, I got dragged into some of that last discussion.by Ben. And I also accept that most of you are not interested in going for the revolutionary, from whatever source. And I shall try to restrict my comments unless someone wishes to engage with me - although BTW I am ever more confident of my broad philosophical/ psychological position - the mind really doesn't work that way. I may possibly make one last related post in the not too distant future about the nature of problems, and which are/aren't suitable for programs - but just ignore it. Mike Tinter, If you really do not think that digital computers can be creative by definition, I do not understand why you would like to join a mailing list with AGI researchers? Computers operate by using software, thus, they need to be programmed. It just seems to me that you do not understand what the word "program" means. Even if you use use a computer that do not need to be loaded with a program, guess what, such a computer could be considered to have an initial program. The very determinism of the universe implicates that everything runs according to a program, including your ramblings here about creativity. I have to ask you a question, do you think the universe and everything in it runs according to deterministic laws of nature? Do you accept that you are a part of this deterministic reality? Well, in that case Ive got news for you, you are a program also! As evidence I would present your DNA, a program encoded and stored in molecular structures. Have you ever heard of computational equivalence? Do you know what it means? Also, I feel annoyed that you compare the Novamente architecture with something that just takes instructions, like "do this, do that, then do this" etc. It seems you need to spend greater effort in studying this architecture, for example by reading The Hidden Pattern. I feel you are in great need of widening your mind to understand chaotic or fractal processes. Take a forest for example, even in all its complexity and diversity, it is still governed by very simple and basic laws namely the laws of nature. By mimicking some of these laws at an appropriate level, such as shape level, programmers can create forests that to a very large extent looks like real forests: http://www.speedtree.com/. A generator such as speedtree could generate entire forests of miles and miles of trees, with no single two trees looking the same. Even though the lines of code producing the trees are pretty simple, the outcome in creativity and originality is vast. The same thing applies to a human mind. Even though the output of a human mind is amazingly diverse and creative, its program is still goverened by the basic laws of nature, and the DNA program. What AGI designers tries to do is to is to mimic this process. The concepts of program and determinism are pretty well established within the scientific community, please do not try to redefine them like you do. It just creates a lot of confusion. I think what you really want to use is the concept of adaptability, or maybe you could say you want an AGI system that is programmed in an indirect way (meaning that the program instructions are very far away from what the system actually does). But please do not say things like "we should write AGI systems that are not programmed". It hurts my ears/eyes. /Robert Wensman 2008/1/7, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: Well we (Penrose & co) are all headed in roughly the same direction, but we're taking different routes. If you really want the discussion to continue, I think you have to put out something of your own approach here to "spontaneous creativity" (your terms) as requested. Yes, I still see the mind as following "instructions" a la "briefing", but only odd ones, not a whole rigid set of them., a la programs. And the instructions are "open-ended" and non-deterministically open to interpretation, just as my briefing/instruction to you - "Ben go and get me something nice for supper" - is. Oh, and the instructions that drive us, i.e. emotions, are always conflicting, e.g [Ben:] "I might like to.. but do I really want to get that bastard anything for supper? Or have the time to, when I am on the very verge of creating my stupendous AGI?" Listen, I can go on and on - the big initial deal is the claim that the mind isn't - & no successful AGI can be - driven by a program, or thoroughgoing SERIES/SET of instructions - if it is to solve even minimal general adaptive, let alone hard creative problems. No structured approach will work for an ill-structured problem. You must give some indication of how you think a program CAN be generally adaptive/ creative - or, I would argue, squares (programs are so square, man) can be circled :). > Mike, > >> The short answer is that I don't believe that computer *programs* can be >> creative in the hard sense, because they presuppose a line of enquiry, a >> predetermined approach to a problem - > ... >> But I see no reason why computers couldn't be "briefed" rather than >> programmed, and freely associate across domains rather than working along >> predetermined lines. > > But the computer that is being "briefed" is still running some software > program, > hence is still "programmed" -- and its responses are still determined by > that program (in conjunction w/ the environment, which however it > perceives > only thru a digital bit stream) > >> I don't however believe that purely *digital* computers are capable of >> all >> the literally imaginative powers (as already discussed elsewhere) that >> are >> also necessary for true creativity and general intelligence. > > I don't know how you define a "literally imaginative power". > > So, it seems like you are saying > > -- digital computer software can never truly be creative or possess > general > intelligence > > Is this your assertion? > > It is not an original one of course: Penrose, Dreyfus and many others have > argued the same point. The latter paragraph of yours I've quoted could > be straight out of "The Emeperor's New Mind" by Penrose. > > Penrose then notes that quantum computers can compute only the same > stuff that digital computers can; so he posits that general intelligence > is > possible only for "quantum gravity computers", which is what he posits > the brain is. > > I think Penrose is most probably wrong, but at least I understand what > he is saying... > > I'm just trying to understand what your perspective actually is... >> - Release Date: 1/5/2008 11:46 AM > > ----- 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/?&; ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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/?&; ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. 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