On Tuesday 29 July 2008 04:12:27 pm Brad Paulsen wrote: > Richard Loosemore wrote: > > Brad Paulsen 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? > > > > Isn't this a bit of a no-brainer? Why would the human brain need to > > keep lists of things it did not know, when it can simply break the word > > down into components, then have mechanisms that watch for the rate at > > which candidate lexical items become activated .... when this mechanism > > notices that the rate of activation is well below the usual threshold, > > it is a fairly simple thing for it to announce that the item is not > > known. > > > > Keeping lists of "things not known" is wildly, outrageously impossible, > > for any system! Would we really expect that the word > > "ikrwfheuigjsjboweonwjebgowinwkjbcewijcniwecwoicmuwbpiwjdncwjkdncowk- > > owejwenowuycgxnjwiiweudnpwieudnwheudxiweidhuxehwuixwefgyjsdhxeiowudx- > > hwieuhyxweipudxhnweduiweodiuweydnxiweudhcnhweduweiducyenwhuwiepixuwe- > > dpiuwezpiweudnzpwieumzweuipweiuzmwepoidumw" is represented somewhere as > > a "word that I do not know"? :-) > > > > I note that even in the simplest word-recognition neural nets that I > > built and studied in the 1990s, activation of a nonword proceeded in a > > very different way than activation of a word: it would have been easy > > to build something to trigger a "this is a nonword" neuron. > > > > Is there some type of AI formalism where nonword recognition would be > > problematic? > > > > > > > > Richard Loosemore > > Richard, > > You seem to have decided my request for comment was about word > (mis)recognition. It wasn't. Unfortunately, I included a misleading > example in my initial post. A couple of list members called me on it > immediately (I'd expect nothing less from this group -- and this was a > valid criticism duly noted). So far, three people have pointed out that a > query containing an un-common (foreign, slang or both) word is one way to > quickly generate the "feeling of not knowing." But, it is just that: only > one way. Not all "feelings of not knowing" are produced by linguistic > analysis of surface features. In fact, I would guess that the vast > majority of them are not so generated. Still, some are and pointing this > out was a valid contribution (perhaps that example was fortunately bad). > > I don't think my query is a no-brainer to answer (unless you want to make > it one) and your response, since it contained only another "flavor" of the > previous two responses, gives me no reason whatsoever to change my opinion. > > Please take a look at the revised example in this thread. I don't think it > has the same problems (as an example) as did the initial example. In > particular, all of the words are common (American English) and the syntax > is valid. > > Cheers, > > Brad > One example of the kind that you are asking for is the square root of 144...or 1024. (I get different responses to those two examples.) Note that if I were asked if I knew how to find the square root of 1024 I'd have an immediate yes, but I don't know it without calculation. OTOH, I immediately know the square root of 144, but I don't know how to calculate it except by successive approximation. (I once did, but I haven't used that info in so long that I've forgotten. And logs are cheating!)
It wouldn't surprise me if some time tonight the sqrt of 1024 just pops up in my memory. This post is the kind of thing that might start an extended low priority search, and I HAVE known the answer. (OTOH, I'm having a hard time resisting calculating it in my head, so that might be the sleeper thread.) ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=108809214-a0d121 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
