Sure, I know Pylyshyn's work ... and I know very few contemporary AI
scientists who adopt a strong symbol-manipulation-focused view of cognition
like Fodor, Pylyshyn and so forth. That perspective is rather dated by
now...
But when you say
"
Where computation is meant in the sense of abstract symbol manipulation
according to rules. 'Rules' means any logic or calculii you'd care to cite,
including any formally specified probablistic/stochastic language. This is
exactly what I mean by COMP.
"
then things get very very confusing to me. Do you include a formal neural
net model as computation? How about a cellular automaton simulation of
QED? Why is this cellular automaton model not "abstract symbol
manipulation"?
If you interpret COMP to mean "A human-level intelligence can be implemented
on a digital computer" or as "A human level intelligence can be implemented
on a digital computer connected to a robot body" or even as "A human level
intelligence, conscious in the same sense that humans are, can be
implemented on a digital computer connected to a robot body" ... then I'll
understand you.
But when you start defining COMP in a fuzzy, nebulous way, dismissing some
dynamical systems as "too symbolic" for your taste (say, probabilistic
logic) and accepting others as "subsymbolic enough" (say, CA simulations of
QED) ... then I start to feel very confused...
I agree that Fodor and Pylyshyn's approaches, for instance, were too focused
on abstract reasoning and not enough on experiential learning and
grounding. But I don't think this makes their approaches **more
computational** than a CA model of QED ... it just makes them **bad
computational models of cognition** ...
-- Ben G
On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 11:01 PM, Colin Hales
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> Ben Goertzel wrote:
>
>>
>> Again, when you say that these neuroscience theories have "squashed the
>> computational theories of mind", it is not clear to me what you mean by "the
>> computational theories of mind." Do you have a more precise definition of
>> what you mean?
>>
>> I suppose it's a bit ambiguous. There's computer modelling of mind, and
> then there's the implementation of an actual mind using actual computation,
> then there's the implementation of a brain using computation, in which a
> mind may be said to be operating. All sorts of misdirection.
>
> I mean it in the sense given in:
> Pylyshyn, Z. W., Computation and cognition : toward a foundation for
> cognitive science, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1984, pp. xxiii, 292 p.
> That is, that a mind is a result of a brain-as-computation. Where
> computation is meant in the sense of abstract symbol manipulation according
> to rules. 'Rules' means any logic or calculii you'd care to cite, including
> any formally specified probablistic/stochastic language. This is exactly
> what I mean by COMP.
>
> Another slant on it:
> Poznanski, R. R., Biophysical neural networks : foundations of integrative
> neuroscience, Mary Ann Liebert, Larchmont, NY, 2001, pp. viii, 503 p.
> "The literature has highlighted the conceptual ineptness of the computer
> metaphor of the brain. Computational neuroscience, which serves as a beacon
> for for the transfer of concepts regarding brain function to artificial nets
> for the design of neural computers, ignores the developmental theory of
> neuronal group selection and therefore seriously overestimates the
> computational nature of neuroscience. It attempts to explain brain function
> in terms of the abstract computational and information processing functions
> thought to be carried out in the brain" {citations omitted}.
>
> I don't know whether this answers your question,....I hope so... it means
> that leaping to a 'brain = computation" in the digital computer sense, is
> not what is going on. It also means that a computer model of the full
> structure is also out. You have to do what the brain does, not run a model
> of it. The brain is a electrodynamic entity, so your AGI has to be an
> electrodynamic entity manipulating natural electromagnetic symbols in a
> similar fashion. The 'symbols' are aggregate in the cohorts mentioned by
> Poznanski. The electrodynamics itself IS the 'computation' which occurs
> naturally in the trajectory through in the multidimensional vector space of
> the matter as a whole. Some symbols are experienced (qualia) and some are
> not.
>
> cheers
> colin
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------
> agi
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--
Ben Goertzel, PhD
CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC
Director of Research, SIAI
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first
overcome " - Dr Samuel Johnson
-------------------------------------------
agi
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