Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: > >>George and List: >>a very naive question (even more than my other posts) since I miss lots > > of > >>posts that have been exuded on this list (since a decade or so of my > > incompletely reading it): > >>Has it been ever formulated (and accepted on this list!) what we mean by > > the verb "to observe"? What does an 'observer' do in its (not his!!!) > 'observer minute'? WHAT (and not 'who') is an observer? > > > Many hours spent on this one. > > My definition sounds odd but only because I have to literally 'build' > observation that I have had to sort it out. As an engineer I know that > building an X is a sure route to an intimate understanding of X....so...My > design goal: construction of an artificial scientist (artificial general > intelligence - AGI). Thus logically I must build an observer. So.. the > design aim of the project has observation as follows...(off the top of my > head!): > > Observation involves (necessitates) the AGI having experiences, some of > which are an experiential representation of the external world. The > process of generation of the experiential field(s) involves the insertion > of the AGI in the chain of causality from that which is observed 'out > there' through the external world to the sensing surface, impact (causal > interaction) measured by sensing, transport (causality again) of the > measurement through the AGI to the brain where the measurement > participates in the causality that is the creation of the experiential > field.
So that is what is *involved* in creating the experiential field. But what is the field? I understand it is a representation of the external world, but what about it makes it a representation? I hope you're not going to say because "the observer" recognizes or uses it as such. >It is by virtue of the existence/reality of the _entire_ causal > chain that the experiential field can be created and be called observation > of the external world. (Clearly experiential fields can also be created as > hallucinations/dreams, without the full causality chain - but that is not > the 'observation' we are talking about). In making use of the complete > causal chain the oberver has access (inherits some of the properties of) > to that which is observed. This sound like your experiential field is a play performed in the Cartesian theater fof the edification of the observer. >This is not 'creating reality' in the > Berkeleyian sense. This is participation in it. This is construction of a > representation of it from within the reality. > > This process I have described is observation and all of observation - > nothin else counts as observation. So anything happening in my brain that has a causal connection to the world is an observation. I can buy that, but it seems so broad as to include things, like recalling memories, not usually called "observation". Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
