Linas, I wrote a paper once speculating about quantum minds -- minds with sensors directly at the quantum level ... I am sure they would develop radically different cognitive structures than ours, perhaps including doing reasoning using quantum logic and quantum probability theory ... which would lead to extremely different inference control heuristics, etc.
Anyway, yeah, I'm acutely aware there are more ways to sense the world than humans are capable of unaided -- and I'm very enthused about transhumanist tech for extending the human sensorium. However, I do think human cognition is adapted in various deep and shallow ways to the particular sensors and actuators we have ... and unravelling these adaptations in detail would involve better knowledge of both "the math of general cognition" and neuroscience than we have... ben On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Linas Vepstas <linasveps...@gmail.com> wrote: > 2009/1/10 Nathan Cook <nathan.c...@gmail.com>: >> What about vibration? We have specialized mechanoreceptors to detect >> vibration (actually vibration and pressure - presumably there's processing >> to separate the two). It's vibration that lets us feel fine texture, via the >> stick-slip friction between fingertip and object. > > There are many different senses that can come into play. > For humans, the primary ones are sight, sound and gross > physical locations (bumping into something). > > Ben makes a point of saying "human-like AGI". > > If we were shooting for fish-like, we'd need to include > the lateral line, which is a sensory organ that humans > simply don't have (its used to detect movement and > vibration) > > Of course, I'm interested in "science-like" AGI -- so, > for example, in atomic-force microscopes (AFM), its been > noticed that stiction (the stick/slip friction that you > talk about) is a very good way of sensing atomic-scale > properties. There's been some effort to attach an AFM > to a spring-and-lever-mounted, motorized ball/handle-grip, > "haptic interface" so that humans could directly sense, > via arm and wrist muscles, atomic-scale Casimir forces > & etc. > > My point is that the world of sensory input can be much > richer than a small number of basic senses. We can > already augument human vision with infrared googles, > but it would be even cooler to see in four primary colors > (appearently 1 on 50 women (but no men) have more > than three color receptors in their retina) Now that would > be something. > > --linas > > > ------------------------------------------- > 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 > -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI b...@goertzel.org "This is no place to stop -- half way between ape and angel" -- Benjamin Disraeli ------------------------------------------- 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=126863270-d7b0b0 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
