>> I have never received any comparable emails regarding Ed Porter.
I have posted such in the past on the list and had seriously been considering
doing so again (and your e-mail inspired me to do so). Ed is abusive, plain
and simple. There was no reason for this last thread that he started except to
shout down Richard's criticisms. Personally, I have given up on posting
content to this list. Some moderation is strongly suggested. If it includes
banning me -- so be it.
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: Ben Goertzel
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, August 02, 2008 10:29 PM
Subject: **SPAM** Re: [agi] EVIDENCE RICHARD DOES NOT UNDERSTAND COMPLEX
SYSTEM ISSUES THAT WELL
Richard,
FYI, I find that I agree in essence with nearly all of Ed Porter's assertions
on scientific and technical issues, although I sometimes think he overstates
things or words things in an inexact way.
Also, I note that over the last couple years I have received a number (maybe
5-10) of emails from various individuals suggesting that you be banned from
this email list for general unproductive "trolling" behavior. I have never
received any comparable emails regarding Ed Porter.
Anyway I don't personally have much patience for these overheated email
battles, though I accept that they're part of the culture of email lists.
I think your views are largely plausible and respectable, though I find you
also tend to overstate things, and you sometimes implicitly redefine common
terms in uncommon ways which I find frustrating. However, I find it irritating
that you diss other people (like me!) so severely for guiding their research
based on their own scientific intuition, yet display such a dramatic level of
confidence (IMO overconfidence) in your own scientific intuition. AGI is a
frontier area where as yet little is solidly known, so knowledgeable and
intelligent experts can be expected to have different intuitions. You seem
distressingly unwilling to "agree to disagree", instead recurrently expressing
negative emotion toward those whose not-fully-substantiated intuitions differ
too much from your own not-fully-substantiated intuitions. It's boring, even
more than it's frustrating. And I'm feeling like a butthead for wasting my
time writing this email ;-p
ben
On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 10:15 PM, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ed, do you not remember making this accusation once before, and asking for
people to step forward to support you? On that occasion you had a sum total
of ZERO people come forward with evidence or support for your accusations, and
on the other hand you did get some people who said that I had been honest,
technically accurate, willing to admit mistakes, never gratuitously insulting
and always ready to take the time to address any questions in a prompt and
thorough manner.
Does it not matter to you that you failed on that previous occasion? How
many times will you repeat this before giving up?
Now, under other circumstances I would ask you to provide some evidence for
these allegations, and then I'd take some time to examine that evidence with
you. However, my previous experience of examining your accusations is that
your comprehension of the subject is so poor that you quickly tangle yourself
up in a confusing web of red herrings, non sequiteurs and outright falsehoods,
and then you jump out of the wreckage of the discussion holding a piece of
abject nonsense in your fist, screaming "Victory! I have proved him wrong!".
When you have done that in the past, there has been nothing left for I and
the other sensible people on this list to do except shake our heads and give up
trying to explain anything to you.
Consult an outside expert, if you dare. You will get an unpleasant
surprise.
Richard Loosemore
Ed Porter wrote:
Richard,
I don't think any person on this list has been as insulting of the ideas
of
others as much you. You routinely describe other people's ideas as
"rubbish" or in similarly contemptuous terms, often with no clear
justification, and often when those you insult have not been previously
insulting you.
So you have no right to be self righteous.
And if you are at all concerned with honesty and truth --- rather than
personal pomposity --- you would listen to what I and many others on this
list have said about how often you have been clearly wrong, and how often
your arguments have been dishonest.
Richard, I think you are an intelligent guy. It is a shame your
intelligence is not freed from the childishness, and neediness, and
dishonesty of your ego.
Ed Porter
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Loosemore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August
02, 2008 6:23 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [agi] EVIDENCE RICHARD DOES NOT UNDERSTAND COMPLEX SYSTEM
ISSUES THAT WELL
Priceless! :-)
Just how far does someone have to go on this list - in the way of sending
gratuitous torrents of personal abuse - before the list moderators at least
rebuke them, if not ban them outright?
Richard Loosemore
Ed Porter wrote:
Richard Loosemore is at it again, acting as if he knows so much more
about complex system issues than most everybody else on this list, by dumping
on Novamente and OpenCog because they do have his "RL" view complex system
issues.
But what is the evidence that Richard, in fact, know more than the rest
of us on these issues?
In fact, it is very scant. His writings on the subject that I have
read either (a) describe things most of us know about, such as the "game of
life" or Wolfram's concept of computational irreducibility, or (b) make
statements that are totally unsupported, or, in some cases, obviously
wrong.
The biggest piece of evidence of just how wrong Richard can be on the
subject related to "RICHARD'S FOUR FEATURES OF DESIGN DOOM" (my nomenclature),
a combination of features which Richard wrote in April of this year in his blog
www.susaro.com <http://www.susaro.com/> made it impossible to design any sort
of system, AGI or otherwise.
Richard wrote:
"- Memory. Does the mechanism use stored information about what it was
doing fifteen minutes ago, when it is making a decision about what to do now?
An hour ago? A million years ago? Whatever: if it remembers, then it has
memory.
"- Development. Does the mechanism change its character in some way
over time? Does it adapt?
"- Identity. Do individuals of a certain type have their own unique
identities, so that the result of an interaction depends on more than the type
of the object, but also the particular individuals involved?
"- Nonlinearity. Are the functions describing the behavior deeply
nonlinear?
These four characteristics are enough. Go take a look at a natural
system in physics, or an engineering system, and find one in which the
components of the system interact with memory, development, identity and
nonlinearity. You will not find any that are understood.
".
"Notice, above all, that no engineer has ever tried to persuade one of
these artificial systems to conform to a pre-chosen overall behavior.."
In response to my email copied below I received multiple emails that
showed systems having these four features have, in fact, been designed and
built for years, and have, in fact, worked generally as designed, Finally
Richard substantially retracted his statement by restating it to say, in
effect, the above FOUR FEATURES OF DESIGN DOOM would make it impossible to
design a powerful AGI --- without any clear standard for determining at what
scale design doom would set in.
But even Richard's modified statement concerning the FOUR FEATURES OF
DESIGN DOOM, appears to be based on little more than Richard's hunch. In fact,
partial evidence of its falsehood is presented by the Googleplex. The
Googleplex very arguably has each of the above features, as defined in the
article, in vast quantity, and it functions generally as designed, and it is a
type of intelligence. So the issue of what types of systems having these four
features can be largely designed --- and which cannot --- is much more complex
than Richard's statements have indicated --- at least, in the relatively small
percent of his posts I have read since.
Obviously in a Novamente or OpenCog AGI system the FOUR FEATURES OF
DESIGN DOOM and, more importantly, the much large role self organization would
play --- not only for representation, but also for behavior, including
behaviors that control operation of the system itself --- is likely to increase
the gnarliness of the system. But it is far from clear, as Richard contends,
that such gnarliness cannot be controlled sufficiently to get an AGI that works
generally as planned (at least to the extent that most human babies work
generally as planned). Such self organized gnarliness is reasonably controlled
in the human brain. We understand many of the mechanisms the brain uses to
accomplish such control, and, if you read Ben's work, you will note that a lot
of attention has been paid how to deal with some of these control issues.
SO THE GRAND PUBA WAS WRONG, on one of the few instances (that I have
read) when he has ever tried to clarify his grand puba thoughts on RL
complexity.
I do not think Richard lacks intelligence. Some of his posts have been
very insightful and well reasoned. And the problem of getting complex systems
that rely heavily on self organization to function as desired could prove very
significant, as Ben has agreed.
But since Richard so insanely over stated the problems of complexly
issues in his FOUR FEATURES OF DESIGN DOOM blog article quoted above, and since
he was relatively slow to retract such overstatement when first questioned, and
since he retracted version of the statement had no proof or solid reasoning
behind it, we have strong reason to believe he is still grossly overestimating
the problem.
I don't know why Richard is so irrational on this subject. I think it
has to do with the fact RL complexity issues are where his ego flag is planted.
And since his sense of self importance is so invested in it, emotions prevent
him from thinking about it objectively.
If Richard were motivated more by trying to understand the truth, and
less by wanting to feel smarter than everyone else, I think he could contribute
much more to this list.
Ed Porter
P.S.
To be fair I have read much less of Richard's posts since the FOUR
FEATURES OF DESIGN DOOM flap, because I came to the conclusion that Richard,
although occasionally insightful, is often full of hot air. It is possible that
he has made much more intelligent and well justified statements on the subject
of RL complexity since then. But from my quick skimming of roughly a 1/3 of
his posts since then ---- I have no reason to think so.
EWP
-----Original Message-----
*From:* Ed Porter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
*Sent:* Thursday, April 24, 2008 10:48 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* DO RICHARD'S FOUR FEATURES OF DESIGN DOOM ACTUALLY PREVENT
DESIGNABILITY
As I have quoted below, in his susaro.com blog, Richard Loosemore
states any system with MEMORY, ADAPTATION, IDENTITY (individuals within a
type), and NON-LINEARITY cannot be understood, nor can it be designed to have a
desired overall behavior
I WOULD APPRECIATE IF OTHERS ON THIS LIST WOULD CHIP IN WITH THEIR
EVIDENCE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER ON THIS IMPORTANT TOPIC --- because it is a key
issue in determining whether or not we should believe much of the FUD (Fear,
Uncertainty, and Doubt -- an old IBM sales term for denigration of competitive
products) Richard has been spreading to say traditional approaches to AGI
design, including those used by Ben et al. for Novamente, are dead meat because
of unsolvable problems with the type of complexity he defines (i.e.,
RL-complexity)..
It is my strong hunch Richard's statement about these four features of
design doom is provably false. It is my hunch that many AI systems with these
four features have been built and have worked roughly as designed --- but in my
below copied post I said off the top of my head I could not think of any, and
by that I meant any I knew have been built and have worked roughly as planned
and knew for sure had all the four features of doom.
I believe that Novamente, if it would built, would have all the four
features of design doom, as apparently does Richard from his many
anti-Novamente statements. So, I am guessing, would Joscha Bach's MicroPSI,
Stan Franklin's LIDA, and Laird et al.'s SOAR - all of which have been built
and, as I understand it, work --- presumably with a fair amount of
experimentation thrown in --- somewhat as designed.
I would not be even be surprised if the fluid grammar Stephen Reed is
working on has all four of these features of doom. (Stephen, please tell me if
this is true or not.)
It appears from Stephen's Apr 21 2008 - 5:16pm post about fluid grammar
that it has (1) MEMORY, because it records individual new words and phrases it
sees occurring in text before --- (2) DEVELOPMENT because its ability to
properly parse adapts over time, through learning from the text --- (3)
IDENTITY because I assume it classifies its individual word forms, words,
and/or phrases within classes (Here I am guessing, Stephen, please correct me
if I am wrong), --- and (4) ---NON-LINEARITY, because presumably performs many
of the types of non-linear functions, such as thresholding and yes/no decision
making, that would be used in almost any AGI such as Novamente.
Richard has been using notions of RL-complexity to spread "FUD" against
many other people's approach to AGI. After much asking, he has now tried to
justify his denigration of others work on his susaro.com blog. So far a
significant part of his objection to such work is based on the above four
features of design doom.
SO PLEASE SPEAK UP THOSE OF YOU ON THIS LIST WITH ANY EVIDENCE OR SOUND
ARGUMENTS --- PRO OR CON --- ABOUT WHETHER RICHARD'S "FOUR FEATURES OF DESIGN
DOOM" ACTUALLY DO DOOM ENGINEERING OF AGI SYSTEMS, SUCH AS
NOVAMENTE.
-----Original Message-----
*From:* Ed Porter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
*Sent:* Wednesday, April 23, 2008 9:06 PM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* RE: [agi] Adding to the extended essay on the complex
systems problem
Richard,
In your blog you said:
"- Memory. Does the mechanism use stored information about what it was
doing fifteen minutes ago, when it is making a decision about what to do now?
An hour ago? A million years ago? Whatever: if it remembers, then it has
memory.
"- Development. Does the mechanism change its character in some way
over time? Does it adapt?
"- Identity. Do individuals of a certain type have their own unique
identities, so that the result of an interaction depends on more than the type
of the object, but also the particular individuals involved?
"- Nonlinearity. Are the functions describing the behavior deeply
nonlinear?
These four characteristics are enough. Go take a look at a natural
system in physics, or an engineering system, and find one in which the
components of the system interact with memory, development, identity and
nonlinearity. You will not find any that are understood.
".
"Notice, above all, that no engineer has ever tried to persuade one of
these artificial systems to conform to a pre-chosen overall behavior.."
I am quite sure there have been many AI system that have had all four
of these features and that have worked pretty much as planned and whose
behavior is reasonably well understood (although not totally understood, as is
nothing that is truly complex in the non-Richard sense), and whose overall
behavior has been as chosen by design (with a little experimentation thrown in)
. To be fair I can't remember any off the top of my head, because I have read
about many AI systems over the years. But recording episodes is very common in
many prior AI systems. So is adaptation. Nonlinearity is almost universal,
and Identity as you define it would be pretty common.
So, please --- other people on this list help me out --- but I am quite
sure system have been built that prove the above quoted statement to be false.
Ed Porter
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Loosemore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 4:11 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [agi] Adding to the extended essay on the complex systems
problem
Yesterday and today I have added more posts (susaro.com) relating to the
definition of complex systems and why this should be a problem for AGI
research.
Richard Loosemore
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Ben Goertzel, PhD
CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC
Director of Research, SIAI
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first
overcome " - Dr Samuel Johnson
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