Ben, First, note that I do NOT fall into the group that says that you can't engineer digital AGI. However, I DO believe that present puny computers are not up to the task, and some additional specific research (that I have previously written about here) needs to be done before programming can be done with a reasonable expectation of success.
After consulting my assortment of reference dictionaries,,, On 10/16/08, Ben Goertzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> I completely agree that puzzles can be ever so much more interesting when >> you can successfully ignore that they cannot possibly lead to anything >> useful. Further, people who point out the reasons that they cannot succeed >> are really boors and should be censored. This entire thread should be >> entitled something like "Psychiatric Censorship". >> > > I don't know why you are talking about **censorship**. The Internet is > large. > Censorship (according to all of my dictionaries) only applies to acts in a particular venue, and does NOT indicate any sort of all-inclusive act to expunge anything from the mind of man (or machine). For example, an editor in a particular newspaper may censor something, but of course there are LOTS of other newspapers, radio and TV stations, etc. Hence, I stand by my correct use of "censorship" here. > This email list is not intended for discussions of spiritual philosophy > or biochemistry -- for example -- yet that does not constitute > **censorship** in the usual sense, as there are many other forums in which > to discuss those things. > I suspect that the authors and some readers of those same discussions would categorize them systems analysis or feasibility. > And the anti-digital-computer-AGI arguments presented on this list have, > not in one instance, been significantly original. > Agreed. This is because you have FLATLY REFUSED to address the old and obvious objections to approaches presented here. When I arrived, I simply (and erroneously) presumed ignorance of existing arguments and repeated them. Now, I still presume ignorance, but of a very different sort. You somehow believe (please correct me if I am wrong here) that it possible to successfully build something (anything, a building, a machine, or an AGI) where there continue to be unaddressed feasibility objections. This is quite obviously (to me and a couple of other readers here) a management (of your own efforts) failure of major proportions. > I and anyone else who has been around the AI community awhile, has heard > them all before. > However, they still remain unanswered, and as your prior posting clearly stated, they will (at least in your case) remain unanswered. > There is nothing to be gained by hearing them over and over again. > Ya know, I think that I FINALLY agree with you, at least in your particular case, on this point. You will obviously blindly keep going until you fall in to any one of a long list of holes that others see way ahead of time, but which you are too busy to look at. No, I do NOT (as your signature line suggests) expect you to "overcome all objections", but at least you should look at them enough to say words sufficient to communicate that you have overcome them in your own mind, and just to show that you are indeed serious about AGI, you might let is mere mortals in on how you have overcome SOME of the more major objections. > If someone has a substantially new argument against the possibility of > engineering AGI digital-computers, I would be personally interested to hear > it. > Who needs new arguments, when you show little/no indication that you have really heard and considered the old arguments? > Just as I was intrigued by Penrose's anti-digital-AGI argument in terms > of quantum gravity .. at first ... until I dug in more deeply and decided > the evidence currently does not support it... > > > >> >> "Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first >> overcome " - Dr Samuel Johnson >> Add to that: "Nothing will ever succeed if all objections are not first >> considered" - Steve Richfield >> > > But this latter aphorism has the immediate logical conclusion that nothing > will ever succeed. > > Because, there is an infinite number of possible objections to any > statement, > Note the absence of the word "possible" which you apparently presumed. You only need answer the ACTUAL objections, which are quite countable, and in environments populated by competent managers, always ARE all considered, at least by those managers who want to keep their jobs. Have you heard of the process of "Objection Elimination"? > so long as one counts as different any two objections that differ > slightly in wording, even if their meaning is essentially the same. > Obviously, one answer can easily address an entire class of objections. What you don't seem to understand is that I, and most of the other AGI > engineers on this list, have **already heard all these objections** --- we > have read them in the primary research literature, when they were first > proposed decades ago, and we don't really need to hear them repeated over > and over again, usually in rougher and less precise form than the initial > presentations in the literature. > What mystifies me is that apparently NO ONE has ever answered those many objections, so mere mortals like me presume them to be correct, yet some people persist in charging onward in spite of the apparent abyss that lies ahead. Myself, I believe that there IS a path through the minefield, but you can't expect to get through a minefield by simply walking through and ignoring those bumps and depressions in the dirt, disturbed foliage, etc. > Our lack of agreement with these arguments is NOT because we have not > heard them repeated often enough!! > Are you then claiming insanity?! Do you have wonderful answers that have eluded everyone else, yet are too busy to post them? Do you think that you can simply ignore these issues and still somehow succeed (which seems to be your present position from what I have read)? Our "lack of agreement" has nothing about uniqueness of arguments, or even accuracy of arguments, but instead is about process - the process of managing and executing the fabrication of intelligent machines. This is NOT just about programming, for if you are going to recruit others, get funding, coordinate a substantial effort, etc., then feasibility issues absolutely MUST be answered SOMEWHERE, lest everyone associated be considered to be (world) village idiots, regardless of the correctness (or lack thereof) of their path. The forum you envision is MUCH narrower than the advertised nature of this AGI forum. May I suggest that a new forum for "programming techniques that may be useful in a future century when present real-world impediments have been removed" be formed and YOU move THERE instead of moving the still-rational AGI-interested population from here to somewhere else. Steve Richfield ------------------------------------------- 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=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
