That made more sense to me. Responses follow. On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 10:57 AM, Jim Bromer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 5:05 PM, Abram Demski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> But, I am looking for a system that "is" me. > > You, like everyone else's me, has it's limitations. So there is a > difference between the potential of the system and the actual system. > This point of stressing potentiality rather than casually idealizing > all-inclusiveness, which I originally mentioned only out of technical > feasibility, is significant because you are applying the idea to > yourself. You would not be able to achieve what you have achieved if > you were busy trying to achieve what all humanity has achieved. So, > even the potential of the system is dependent on what has already been > achieved. That is, the true potential of the system (of one's > existence or otherwise) is readjusted as the system evolves. So a > baby's potential is not greater than ours, the potential of his or her > potential is. (This even makes greater sense when you consider the > fact that individual potential must be within a common range.) > >> My only conclusion is that we are talking past eachother because we >> are applying totally different models to the problem. >> >> When I say "logic", I mean something quite general-- an ideal system >> of mental operation. "Ideal" means that I am ignoring computational >> resources. > > That is an example of how your ideal has gone beyond the feasible > potential of an individual.
The idea is exactly like saying "computer" in the mathematical sense. The theory of computation pretends that unbounded memory and time is available. So, I feel a bit like I am talking about some issue in lambda calculus and you are trying to tell me that the answer depends on whether the processor is 32 bit or 64 bit. You do not think we can abstract away from a particular person? > >> I think what you are saying is that we can apply different >> logics to different situations, and so we can at one moment operate >> within a logic but at the next moment transcend that logic. This is >> all well and good, but that system of operation in and of itself can >> be seen to be a larger logical system, one that manipulates smaller >> systems. This larger system, we cannot transcend; we *are* that >> system. >> >> So, if no such logic exists, if there is no one "big" logic that >> transcends all the "little" logics that we apply to individual >> situations, then it makes sense to conclude that we cannot exist. >> Right? >> --Abram > > Whaaa? > > You keep talking about things like fantastic resources but then end up > claiming that your ideal somehow proves that we cannot exist. (Please > leave me out of your whole non-existence thing by the way. I like > existing and hope to continue at it for some time. I recommend that > you take a similar approach to the problem too.) OK, to continue the metaphor: I am saying that a sufficient theory of computation must exist, because actual computers exist. At the very least, for my mathematical ideal, I could simply take the best computer around. This would not lead to a particularly satisfying theory of computation, but it shows that if such an ideal were totally impossible, we would have to be in a universe in which no computers existed to serve as minimal examples. > > If it weren't for your conclusion I would be thinking that I > understand what you are saying. > The boundary issues of logic or of other bounded systems are not > absolute laws that we have to abide by all of the time, they are > designed for special kinds of thinking. I believe they are useful > because they can be used to illuminate certain kinds of situations so > spectacularly. What you are saying corresponds to what I called "little" logics, absolutely. > > As far as the logic of some kind of system of thinking, or potential > of thought, I do not feel that the boundaries are absolutely fixed for > all problems. We can transcend the boundaries because they are only > boundaries of thought. We can for example create connections between > separated groups of concepts (or whatever) and if these new systems > can be used to effectively illuminate the workings of some problem and > they require some additional boundaries in order to avoid certain > errors, then new boundaries can be constructed for them over or with > the previous boundaries. I see what you are thinking now. The "big" logic that we use changes over time as we learn, so as humans we escape Tarski's proof by being an ever-moving target rather than one fixed logical system. However, if this is the solution, there is a challenge that must be met: how, exactly, do we change over time? Or, ideally speaking, how *should* we change over time to optimally adapt? The problem is, *if* this question is answered, then the answer provides another "big" logic for Tarski's proof to aim at-- we are no longer a moving target. This provides a target, but the existence of a target does not mean that Tarski's proof will hit the mark-- that depends on the logic that emerges from answering the challenge. > > As far as I can tell, the kind of thing that you are talking about > would be best explained by saying that there is only one kind of > 'logical' system at work, but it can examine problems using > abstraction by creating theoretical boundaries around the problem. > Why does it have to be good at that? Because we need to be able to > take information about a single object like a building without getting > entangled into all the real world interrelations. We can abstract > because we have to. > > I see that you weren't originally talking about whether "you" could > exist, you were originally talking about whether an AI program could > exist. I hope what I have said above has made the connection clear enough. I am claiming that since I exist, an AI program can exist. I'm making that claim in the context of my assumption #0, which says that there is some proper logic that an AGI would ideally use. So, I'm saying that I exist, therefore an AGI can exist, therefore a proper logic exists. > > I don't see how my idea of multiple dynamic bounded systems does not > provide an answer to your question to be honest. The problem with > multiple dynamic bounded systems is that it can accept illusory > conclusions. But these can be controlled, to some extent, by > examining a concept from numerous presumptions and interrelations and > by examining the results of these pov's as they can be interrelated > with other concepts including some of which are grounded on the most > reliable aspects of the IO data environment. It is possible that your logic, fleshed out, could circumnavigate the issue. Perhaps you can provide some intuition about how such a logic should deal with the following line of argument (most will have seen it, but I repeat it for concreteness): "Consider the sentence "This sentence is false". It is either true or false. If it is true, then it is false. If it is false, then it is true. In either case, it is both true and false. Therefore, it is both true and false." Perhaps it seems silly to be seriously discussing how to prevent that old trick for stopping a killer robot on an AGI list... --Abram > > Jim Bromer > > > ------------------------------------------- > 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/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.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=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
