Brad Paulsen wrote:
Mike Tintner wrote:
That illusion is partly the price of using language, which fragments
into pieces what is actually a continuous common sense, integrated
response to the world.
Mike,
Excellent observation. I've said it many times before: language is
analog human experience digitized. And every time I do, people look
at me funny.
There is an analogy to musical synthesizers that may be instructive.
Early synthesizers attempted to recreate analog instruments using
mathematics. The result sounded "sort of like" the real thing, but
any human could tell it was a synthesized sound fairly easily. Then,
people started recording instruments and sampling their sounds
digitally. Bingo. I've been a musician all my life, classically
trained and am both a published songwriter and professional
guitarist. With the latest digital synthesizers I have in my nome
studio, it's very difficult for me to answer the question, "Is it real
or is it digitized." Even plucked string instruments, like the guitar,
really sound like the analog original using the newer synths.
Language is how we "record analog human experience in digitized
format." We need to concentrate on discovering how that works so we
can use it as input to produce intelligence that "sounds" just like
the "real thing" on output. I believe Matt Mahoney has been working
on developing insights in this area with his work in information
theory and compression. Once we "crack the code," we will be able to
build symbolized AGIs that will, in many cases, exceed the
capabilities of the original because the underlying representation
will be so much easier to observe and manipulate.
Cheers,
Brad
However language is not standardized in the same manner that musical
synthesizers are standardized. So while what you are saying may well be
true within any one mind, when these same thoughts are shared via
language, the message immediately becomes much fuzzier (to be
resharpened when received, but with slightly different centroids of
meaning). As a result of this being repeated multiple times language,
though essentially digital, has much of the fuzziness of an analog
signal. Books and other mass media tend to diminish this effect, however.
-------------------------------------------
agi
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