Benjamin Johnston wrote:
Very briefly, my focus a while back in attacking programs was not on
the sign/ semiotic - and more particularly, symbolic - form of
programs, although that is v. important too.
My focus was on the *structure* of programs - that's what they are:
structured and usually sequenced sets of instructions.No matter how
sophisticated their structure, and/or their capacity to adapt their
structure, they are still structured.
I'm unclear what you mean by structure.
Interpretaton 1:
---------------------
Every program in a modern computer language is a structured and
sequenced set of instructions. It isn't possible to write an unsequenced
set of instructions, because the language itself imposes that structure.
If structured programs cannot be intelligent, then if I understand you
correctly, it follows that what you are saying is that it is
*impossible* to write intelligent systems in modern computer programming
languages. Given that modern computer languages are Turing complete
(modulo space and time limitations), your claims would therefore be
equivalent to saying that intelligence is not computable.
Interpretation 2:
---------------------
May be you mean something a little stronger by structure? That the way
that human beings engineer software is very structured, and software
that has been engineered by humans with that kind of structure cannot
possibly solve unstructured problems.
Do you think, then, that it is possible for a human to write a
structured program that generates unstructured programs that have
general intelligence?
Ben,
I feel compelled to help out here, because (as I said in my post to
Mike), he is using words in a way that causes confusion ... and since
Mike and I have had the same conversation/debate at least twice before,
it might help if I explain what I have already understood from those
previous conversations. The key thing s that he does not mean
"structured" in any of the senses that most others would use the term.
What Mike is trying to say is that he has great objections to the style
of Artificial Intelligence system in which the intelligence process is
supposed to be very narrowly rule-governed, with simple symbols (no
internal structure to the symbols) and very deterministic processing.
Unfortunately, he often uses the word "program" to describe this,
although he has now also called it "structured". I would tend to call
that approach to AI something like "simple, logical symbol-processing",
or some such term.
Other people would make the same distinction between different types of
AI, but use different language. What Mike is demanding is that people
recognize the limitations of that style of AI, and move to something
that allows for fluidity, creativity, unpredictability
(non-deterministic reasoning?), and perhaps most important of all, some
degree of emergence.
In my previous debates with him I have tried to explain that there are
many, many people who already accept the limitations of simple, logical
symbol-processing, and that approaches such as genetic algorithms,
neural nets, the FARG-type systems of the Hofstadter school, and also my
own "molecular" approach (closely related to Hofstadter's), all have at
least some of teh characteristics that he is asking for.
In particular, I have stresed that there is no black and white
distinction between systems that are rigid (in the way that he complains
of) and systems that are fluid and unpredictable (in the way that he
prefers), but rather there is a continuum of types. And even more
important, "programs" are completely neutral on this score: you can use
"programs" to build systems that are rigid or systems that are labile.
Mike: I know you do not accept this analysis of your position, but I
believe that whenever you try to explain your position, it always come
out as equivalent to this.
Richard Loosemore
-----
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=94169430-374467
