That email had really nice images, but I don't know why gmail viewed them automatically!
On 1/8/09, Mike Tintner <[email protected]> wrote: > Matt:Free association is the basic way of recalling memories. If you > experience A followed by B, then the next time you experience A you will > think of (or predict) B. Pavlov demonstrated this type of learning in > animals in 1927. > > Matt, > > You're not thinking your argument through. Look carefully at my spontaneous > > "COW" - DOG - TAIL - CURRENT CRISIS - LOCAL VS GLOBAL > THINKING - WHAT A NICE DAY - MUST GET ON- CANT SPEND MUCH MORE TIME ON > THIS...." etc. etc" > > that's not A-B association. > > That's 1. A-B-C then 2. Gamma-Delta then 3. Languages then 4. Number of > Lines in Letters. > > IOW the brain is typically not only freely associating *ideas* but switching > freely across, and connecting, radically different *domains* in any given > chain of association. [e.g above from Animals to Economics/Politics to > Weather to Personal Timetable] > > It can do this partly because > > a) single ideas have multiple, often massively mutiple, idea/domain > connections in the human brain, and allow one to go off in any of multiple > tangents/directions > b) humans have many things - and therefore multiple domains - on their mind > at the same time concurrently - and can switch as above from the immediate > subject to some other pressing subject domain (e.g. from > economics/politics (local vs global) to the weather (what a nice day). > > If your "A-B, everything-is-memory-recall" thesis were true, our > chains-of-thought-association would be largely repetitive, and the domain > switches inevitable.. > > In fact, our chains (or networks) of free association and domain-switching > are highly creative, and each one is typically, from a purely technical POV, > novel and surprising. (I have never connected TAIL and CURRENT CRISIS > before - though Animals and Politics yes. Nor have I connected LOCAL VS > GLOBAL THINKING before with WHAT A NICE DAY and the weather). > > IOW I'm suggesting, the natural mode of human thought - and our continuous > streams of association - are creative. And achieving such creativity is the > principal problem/goal of AGI. > > So maybe it's worth taking 20 secs. of time - producing your own > chain-of-free-association starting say with "MAHONEY" and going on for > another 10 or so items - and trying to figure out how the result > could.possibly be the narrow kind of memory-recall you're arguing for. It's > an awful lot to ask for, but could you possibly try it, analyse it and > report back? > > [Ben claims to have heard every type of argument I make before, (somewhat > like your A-B memory claim), so perhaps he can tell me where he's read > before about the Freely Associative, Freely Domain Switching nature of human > thought - I'd be interested to follow up on it]. > > > > > ------------------------------------------- > 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=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
