Abram,
Really, check out the Grounded Cognition paper and check some of the
references. There is, and has been for a long time, a v. extensive, heavily
West Coast scientific movement developing ideas and engaging in massive
scientific research about what kinds of imaginative/sensorimotor/mirror
neuron simulations are going on in the brain, both to process language,
pictures, texts, and the world around you, as you move through it, and
constantly have to predict it. (cf Hawkins too here).
No disrespect at all - you are exemplifying my point/question to Ben, which
is that while most people here have heard something about what is going on
in embodied cog. sci, cog linguistics, cog semantics, psychosemiotics, etc.
they only know a little.
Yes, your brain is continuously running imaginative simulations of the
world, interpretive, reflective, predictive. That's the first and last thing
it does - run a never-ending "real simulation" of the world around you as
you move through it, i.e. consciousness, and it doesn't stop when you sleep.
Your language stops sometimes, your logic and maths certainly stop, but the
business of simulating the world never does, because it has to, (and the
rest of the brain is founded on it).
Interestingly, if AGI developers are serious on all levels, even their AGI
would have to run a real simulation, i.e. be conscious, and have a
continuous movie of the world, even if only the room, around it, (composed
of whatever electromagnetic waves). Why? Because the first thing an
independent AGI would have to do, like all living creatures, is secure its
energy supply and protect itself from the continuous possibility of damage
from the world. All those Bin Ladens out to take our Novamente's down
before they take-off. And even the most nurturing AGI parent like Ben can
still inadvertently cause damage with a misplaced cup of coffee or
key-press. At any time. AGI developers - correct me - don't seem to think
about this, & coddle their babies from real world pressures.
Abram:Ok, so all meanings must be grounded by images (or memories in the
relevant type of sensory data). Sure. Representing the data is easy,
so the hard part is the manipulations that allow "simulations" to
occur. A working theory of how the simulations are pulled off in the
first place is needed. In addition, we need control mechanisms that
decide when to simulate what, learning mechanisms to find the best
model in the space of models we can represent, and so on.
But at this point I think we're essentially back to symbolic AI with
the standard problems and methods, except we're holding back where we
might claim to "understand" text w/o sensory experience of its subject
matter. So my question is: what's the difference? (Unless it really is
just holding back those claims of text understanding w/o real-world
sensory data-- which is a fine point.)
On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 9:07 PM, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Abram,
Just to illustrate further, here's the opening lines of today's Times
sports report on a football match.[Liverpool v Chelsea] How on earth
could
this be understood without massive imaginative simulation? [Stephen?] And
without mainly imaginative memories of football matches?
"John Arne Riise stood doubled over in his tiny corner of football hell.
Agony engulfed him. One by one, teammates offered a pat on the back, a
handshake, or just a touch, some form of human contact to show they
cared.
None of it did much good. He walked, step by aching step, to the
sanctuary
of the dressing-room, discarding bits of the apparatus of the
professional
footballer as he went. A tie-up here, a shin pad there.
He clamped down on his water bottle and held it between his teeth, like
a
bit to stop him gnawing through his bottom lip. A camera zoomed in to
show
muscles around his eyes and mouth tensing as his mind worked overtime. He
looked like Harold Shand being driven to his execution in the final
scenes
of The Long Good Friday. A replay of every mistake he had made to get
there
was showing on his face."
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