Once again, I'm not saying that modeling an economy is all that's necessary to explain intelligence. I'm not even saying it's a necessary condition of it. What I am saying is that it looks very likely that the brain/mind is self-organized, and for those of us looking to biological intelligence for inspiration, this may be important.
There are a class of highly complex, unstable (in the thermodynamic sense) systems that self-organize in such a way as to most efficiently dissipate the imbalances inherent in the environment (hurricanes, tornadoes, watersheds, life itself, the economy). And, perhaps, the brain/mind is such a system. If so, that description is obviously not enough to "guess the password to the safe". But that doesn't mean that self-organization has no value at all. The value of it is to show that efficient design can emerge spontaneously, and perhaps we can take advantage of that. By your argumentation, it would seem you won't find any argument about intelligence of worth unless it explains everything. I've never understood the strong resistance of many in the AI community to the concepts involved with complexity theory, particularly as applied to intelligence. It would seem to me to be a promising frontier for exploration and gathering insight. Terren --- On Mon, 9/15/08, Vladimir Nesov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Vladimir Nesov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [agi] self organization > To: [email protected] > Date: Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:06 PM > I guess that intuitively, argument goes like this: > 1) economy is more powerful than individual agents, it > allows to > increase the power of intelligence in individual agents; > 2) therefore, economy has an intelligence-increasing > potency; > 3) so, we can take stupid agents, apply the economy potion > to them and > get powerful intelligence as a result. > > But it's easy to see how this kind of argument may be > invalid. Adding > gasoline to the fire makes the fire stronger, more > "firey", therefore > it contains fire-potency, therefore applying sufficient > amount of > gasoline to water, which is originally much less firey, > will create as > strong fire as necessary. Doesn't work? You didn't > add enough > gasoline, is all. > > When you consider a system as complex as a human economy, > you can't > just take one aspect apart from all other aspects, and > declare it the > essence of the process. There are too many alternatives, > you can't win > this lottery blindfolded. Some small number of aspects may > in fact be > the essence, but you can't find these elements before > you factored out > other functional parts of the process and showed that your > model works > without them. You can't ignore the spark, this > *obviously* > insignificant tiny fluke in the blazing river of fire, and > accept only > the gasoline into your model. Why are you *obviously* > allowed to > ignore human intelligence, the most powerful force in the > known > universe, in your model of what makes human economy > intelligent? This > argument is void, it must not move you, you must not > rationalize your > thinking by it. If you are to know the conclusion to be > valid, there > needs to be a valid force to convince you. > > Now, consider evolution. Evolution is understood, and > technically so. > It has *no* mind. It has no agents, no goals, no desires. > It doesn't > think its designs, it is a regularity in the way designs > develop, a > property of physics that explains why complicated > functional systems > such as eye are *likely* to develop. Its efficiency comes > from > incremental improvement and massively parallel exploration. > It is a > society of simple mechanisms, with no purposeful design. > The > evolutionary process is woven from the threads of > individual > replicators, an algorithm steadily converting these threads > into the > new forms. This process is blind to the structure of the > threads, it > sees not beauty or suffering, speed or strength, it remains > the same > irrespective of the vehicles weaving the evolutionary > regularity, > unless the rules of the game fundamentally change. It > doesn't matter > for evolution whether a rat is smarter than the butterfly. > Intelligence is irrelevant for evolution, you can safely > take it out > of the picture as just another aspect of phenotype > contributing to the > rates of propagation of the genes. > > What about economy? Is it able to ignore intelligence like > evolution > does? Can you invent a dinosaur in a billion years with it, > or is it > faster? Why? Does it invent a dinosaur or a pencil? If the > theory of > economics doesn't give you a technical answer to it, > not a description > that fits the human society, but a separate, self-contained > algorithm > that has the required property, who is to say that theory > found the > target? You know that the password to the safe is more than > zero but > less than a million, and you have an experimentally > confirmed theory > that it's also less than 500 thousand. This theory > doesn't allow you > to find the key, even if it correctly describes the > properties of the > key. You can't throw the key away, you merely made a > first step and 19 > more are to endure. You made impressive progress, you were > able to > show that 500 thousands keys are incorrect! This is a big > discovery, > therefore this first bit of information must be really > important. > Nope. > > -- > 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/?&; > 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=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
