I believe the human brain, in addition to including the controller for a
physical robot, includes the controller of a thought robot which includes
pushing much of the brain through learned or instinctual mental behaviors.
My understanding is that much of higher level function of this thought
controller is largely in the prefrontal cortex, basil ganglia, thalamic
loop.
I am guessing that answering a query such as " What does word_X (in this
case "fomlepung") mean?" is a type of learned behavior. The thought robot
is consciously aware of the query task and the idea that as a query, its
task is to search for recollection of the word "fomlepung" and its
associations. I think the search is generated by a consciously broadcasting
a pattern looking for a match for "fomlepung" to the appropriate areas of
the brain. Although much of the spreading activation done in response to
this conscious activation is, itself, in the subconscious, the thought robot
task of answering a query is focusing attention on the query and any
feedback from it indicating a possible answer. This could be done by looking
for feedback from cortical activations to the thalamus that are in synchrony
with the query pattern, tuning into them, and testing them so see if any of
them are a desired match.
When the conscious task of query answering does not get feedback indicating
an answer, the conscious pre-frontal process engaged in query is aware of
that lack of desired feedback and, thus, the human in whose mind the process
is taking place is conscious that he/she doesn't know (or at least can
recall) the meaning of the word.
Conscious feelings of not knowing can arise in other contexts besides
answering a "what does word_X mean" query. In some of them, subconscious
processes might, for various reasons, promote a failure to match a
subconscious query or task up to the consciousness.
For example, a sub-subconscious pattern completion process, in say high
level perception or in cognition, might draws activation to itself, pushing
its activation into semi-conscious or conscious attention, both because its
activation pattern is beginning to better match an emotionally weighted
patterns that direct more activation energy back to it, and because there is
a missing a piece of information necessary for that valuable match to be
made. The brain may have learned by evolution or individual experience that
such information would be more likely found if the much greater spreading
activation resources of semi-conscious or conscious attention could be
utilized for conducting the search for such missing information. This
causes a greater search to be made for such information, and if the
information is not found quickly, could cause even more attention to be
allocated to the search, pushing the search and its failure into clear
conscious awareness.
Ed Porter
-----Original Message-----
From: Abram Demski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 4:25 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [agi] How do we know we don't know?
It seems like you have some valid points, but I cannot help but point
out a problem with your question. It seems like any system for pattern
recognition and/or prediction will have a sensible "I Don't Know"
state. An algorithm in a published paper might suppress this in an
attempt to give as reasonable an output as is possible in all
situations, but it seems like in most such cases it would be easy to
add. Therefore, where is the problem?
Yet, I follow your comments and to an extent agree... the feeling when
I don't know something could possibly be related to animal fear
(though I am not sure), and the second time I encounter the same thing
is certainly different (because I remember the previous not-knowing,
so I at least have that info for context this time).
But I think the issue might nonetheless be non-fundamental, because
algorithms typically can easily report their not knowing.
--Abram
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Brad Paulsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
All,
Here's a question for you:
What does fomlepung mean?
If your immediate (mental) response was "I don't know." it means you're
not
a slang-slinging Norwegian. But, how did your brain produce that "feeling
of not knowing"? And, how did it produce that feeling so fast?
Your brain may have been able to do a massively-parallel search of your
entire memory and come up "empty." But, if it does this, it's
subconscious.
No one to whom I've presented the above question has reported a conscious
"feeling of searching" before having the conscious feeling of not knowing.
It could be that your brain keeps a "list of things I don't know." I tend
to think this is the case, but it doesn't explain why your brain can react
so quickly with the feeling of not knowing when it doesn't know it doesn't
know (e.g., the very first time it encounters the word "fomlepung").
My intuition tells me the feeling of not knowing when presented with a
completely novel concept or event is a product of the "Danger, Will
Robinson!", reptilian part of our brain. When we don't know we don't know
something we react with a feeling of not knowing as a survival response.
Then, having survived, we put the thing not known at the head of our list
of "things I don't know." As long as that thing is in this list it
explains
how we can come to the feeling of not knowing it so quickly.
Of course, keeping a large list of "things I don't know" around is
probably
not a good idea. I suspect such a list will naturally get smaller through
atrophy. You will probably never encounter the fomlepung question again,
so
the fact that you don't know what it means will become less and less
important and eventually it will drop off the end of the list. And...
Another intuition tells me that the list of "things I don't know", might
generate a certain amount of cognitive dissonance the resolution of which
can only be accomplished by seeking out new information (i.e.,
"learning")?
If so, does this mean that such a list in an AGI could be an important
element of that AGI's "desire" to learn? From a functional point of view,
this could be something as simple as a scheduled background task that
checks
the "things I don't know" list occasionally and, under the right
circumstances, "pings" the AGI with a pang of cognitive dissonance from
time
to time.
So, what say ye?
Cheers,
Brad
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