On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 11:57 PM, David Clark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > There are many levels of "understanding" but I think it is wrong to believe > that understanding can be only in the form found in human beings. If a > person believed otherwise, then "de facto", no computer program could ever > have any understanding. Given that assumption, the above quote states that > a model of something conveys understanding. The more complex the model, the > better the understanding. He specifically rules out rote memorization as a > type of understanding. I agree. To my mind, this means that rule based > systems (no matter the number of rules) can never be considered to > understand anything and I think the Chinese room experiment talks to this > point. Models aren't just a type of memorizing and are not just a bunch of > symbols that are defined by other symbols even though at the micro level, > computers definitely just manipulate symbols. >
I think [having a general (causal) model] is a good fit for "understanding". When you understand a phenomenon, you can model it in many different contexts (environments), including those never encountered before neither by the phenomenon, nor by you observing the phenomenon. Rote learning doesn't generalize, it just represents isolated data points. Of course, models or algorithms for generalizing experience to models, can be implemented on a computer, whether by "symbols" or not... On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 11:36 PM, Harry Chesley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'm not at all sure that understanding much be active. It may be that a text > book on physics understands physics. But it doesn't do anything with that > understanding, which is how we're used to seeing understanding expressed, so > we don't think of it as understanding. > A book is a "request for understanding", it can be converted into a model if read by someone. I think about meaning as a target of optimization process permitted by a given model of environment. When you have a question, it creates a process of arriving at an answer, and so the meaning of this question is in the shape of your activity about finding the answer, in the target of this process. If it is expected that a book gets read, it is a part of optimization process in the model that anticipates that. If book is currently burning, and is expected to be reduced to ashes, it is not a part of such process and it has no understanding or meaning relevant to what's written in it. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/ ------------------------------------------- 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
