Terren,
If you think it's all been said, please point me to the philosophy of AI
that includes it.
A programmed machine is an organized structure. A keyboard (and indeed a
computer with keyboard) are something very different - there is no
organization to those 26 letters etc. They can be freely combined and
sequenced to create an infinity of texts. That is the very essence and
manifestly, the whole point, of a keyboard.
Yes, the keyboard is only an instrument. But your body - and your brain -
which use it, are themselves keyboards. They consist of parts which also
have no fundamental behavioural organization - that can be freely combined
and sequenced to create an infinity of sequences of movements and thought -
dances, texts, speeches, daydreams, postures etc.
In abstract logical principle, it could all be preprogrammed. But I doubt
that it's possible mathematically - a program for selecting from an infinity
of possibilities? And it would be engineering madness - like trying to
preprogram a particular way of playing music, when an infinite repertoire is
possible and the environment, (in this case musical culture), is changing
and evolving with bewildering and unpredictable speed.
To look at computers as what they are (are you disputing this?) - machines
for creating programs first, and following them second, is a radically
different way of looking at computers. It also fits with radically different
approaches to DNA - moving away from the idea of DNA as coded program, to
something that can be, as it obviously can be, played like a keyboard - see
Dennis Noble, The Music of Life. It fits with the fact (otherwise
inexplicable) that all intelligences have both deliberate (creative) and
automatic (routine) levels - and are not just automatic, like purely
programmed computers. And it fits with the way computers are actually used
and programmed, rather than the essentially fictional notion of them as pure
turing machines.
And how to produce creativity is the central problem of AGI - completely
unsolved. So maybe a new approach/paradigm is worth at least considering
rather than more of the same? I'm not aware of a single idea from any AGI-er
past or present that directly addresses that problem - are you?
Mike,
There's nothing particularly creative about keyboards. The creativity
comes from what uses the keyboard. Maybe that was your point, but if so
the digression about a keyboard is just confusing.
In terms of a metaphor, I'm not sure I understand your point about
"organizers". It seems to me to refer simply to that which we humans do,
which in essence says "general intelligence is what we humans do."
Unfortunately, I found this last email to be quite muddled. Actually, I am
sympathetic to a lot of your ideas, Mike, but I also have to say that your
tone is quite condescending. There are a lot of smart people on this list,
as one would expect, and a little humility and respect on your part would
go a long way. Saying things like "You see, AI-ers simply don't understand
computers, or understand only half of them." More often than not you
position yourself as the sole source of enlightened wisdom on AI and other
subjects, and that does not make me want to get to know your ideas any
better. Sorry to veer off topic here, but I say these things because I
think some of your ideas are valid and could really benefit from an
adjustment in your
presentation of them, and yourself. If I didn't think you had anything
worthwhile to say, I wouldn't bother.
Terren
--- On Wed, 9/3/08, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [agi] A NewMetaphor for Intelligence - the Computer/Organiser
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Date: Wednesday, September 3, 2008, 9:42 PM
Terren's request for new metaphors/paradigms for
intelligence threw me
temporarily off course.Why a new one - why not the old one?
The computer.
But the whole computer.
You see, AI-ers simply don't understand computers, or
understand only half
of them
What I'm doing here is what I said philosophers do -
outline existing
paradigms and point out how they lack certain essential
dimensions.
When AI-ers look at a computer, the paradigm that they
impose on it is that
of a Turing machine - a programmed machine, a device for
following programs.
But that is obviously only the half of it.Computers are
obviously much more
than that - and Turing machines. You just have to look at
them. It's
staring you in the face. There's something they have
that Turing machines
don't. See it? Terren?
They have - a keyboard.
And as a matter of scientific, historical fact, computers
are first and
foremost keyboards - i.e.devices for CREATING programs on
keyboards, - and
only then following them. [Remember how AI gets almost
everything about
intelligence back to front?] There is not and never has
been a program that
wasn't first created on a keyboard. Indisputable fact.
Almost everything
that happens in computers happens via the keyboard.
So what exactly is a keyboard? Well, like all keyboards
whether of
computers, musical instruments or typewriters, it is a
creative instrument.
And what makes it creative is that it is - you could say -
an "organiser."
A device with certain "organs" (in this case
keys) that are designed to be
creatively organised - arranged in creative, improvised
(rather than
programmed) sequences of action/ association./"organ
play.
And an extension of the body. Of the organism. All
organisms are
"organisers" - devices for creatively sequencing
actions/
associations./organs/ nervous systems first and developing
fixed, orderly
sequences/ routines/ "programs" second.
All organisers are manifestly capable of an infinity of
creative, novel
sequences, both rational and organized, and crazy and
disorganized. The
idea that organisers (including computers) are only meant
to follow
programs - to be straitjacketed in movement and thought -
is obviously
untrue. Touch the keyboard. Which key comes first?
What's the program for
creating any program? And there lies the secret of AGI.
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