On Mar 23, 1:08 am, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 3/22/2012 9:49 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > On Mar 22, 8:28 pm, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > >> On 3/22/2012 4:24 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > >>> On Mar 22, 6:09 pm, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > >>>> On 3/22/2012 2:53 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > >>>>> On Mar 22, 4:58 pm, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > >>>>>>> Then you agree with me: AI cannot make sense out of its world without > >>>>>>> converting or sampling it digitally. That which it fails to digitize > >>>>>>> is lost. > >>>>>> Sure. What you don't see you don't see - which is almost all of the > >>>>>> EM spectrum. Of > >>>>>> course Bruno's theory is that it's all digital, but we're within the > >>>>>> digits and cannot > >>>>>> capture more than a measure zero. > >>>>> Yes, human beings can't detect everything either, but my point was > >>>>> that we know for certain that everything in an AI's world has to be > >>>>> modeled digitally, therefore a digital brain creates a digital world > >>>>> within it. > >>>> I'm not sure that's so. All of our physical models of the world are > >>>> based on continua. > >>>> Continua can be described and reasoned about by a digital system and > >>>> continuous models can > >>>> be computed to arbitrarily high precision (which is what we actually do > >>>> in science and > >>>> engineering). > >>> That's because the world that they are modeling is actually not > >>> digital, > >> Unsupported assertion. > > If the world is digital already, then why would you need to model it? > > Does a digital computer need a continua to open a digital file? > > >>> but the model itself still is. > >> No. So far as I know, no one has come up with a digital model of physics > >> that isn't > >> empirically falsified - and it isn't for want of trying. All the models > >> are continuous > >> and based on real numbers. It is just that all the calculations and > >> measurements are > >> digital, i.e. based on integers. > > That's what I'm saying. A model = calculations and measurements. > > That's what I mean by the modelling itself. If I write a book about > > physics, the book can be written in English but not speculating that > > physics itself is an English phenomenon. > > >>> If there is a machine > >>> intelligence in there, we know that it must live in the world that we > >>> give it to sample digitally, whether or not it can produce output > >>> which we interpret non-digitally. It's back to symbol grounding again. > >> What difference does it make to symbolic grounding whether the symbol > >> refers to a > >> continuum or an integer field? > > I never said that those were the two choices, you are the one who > > introduced continuity. Both analog and digital are methods of > > abstracting. I'm not talking about one kind of model versus another, > > I'm talking about concrete presentation versus abstract > > representation. My position is that our experience in the world is no > > model at all (although modeling is certainly part of it). Our > > experience is not a total experience of THE universe, but it is a > > total experience of OUR world (perceptual inertial framework), which > > includes the understanding that there is a difference and the tools to > > actually extend our world further into rest of the universe. > > > The machine's world is not similarly open to expansion. It does not > > have the tools to extend its sense. You could connect a camera to Deep > > Blue through a printer port in it would never in a trillion years > > figure out how to use it. > > >>> I have a digital CD playing on a digital receiver. The acoustic > >>> drivers are digital too. The music is not digital. > >> Another unsupported assertion. How would you know? > > If music were digital you wouldn't need to hear it. You could look at > > a picture of the data and get the same experience. > > >> Some people claimed that digital audio > >> sounded different - but double blind tests showed they were mistaken. > > That may be true, and that's not what I was talking about, but also I > > don't think that any kind of objective test like that prove that > > anyone is 'mistaken' about how something feels. It may be that doing a > > double blind test creates a placebo effect when subjectivity is being > > tested. > > And it might be you're blowing smoke because you don't like the facts.
Possible, but it's also because in my understanding, subjectivity works in exactly that way. > > > > > > > > > > > Just as the double slit test does unexpected things to light, > > we cannot assume that our subtle awareness can be manipulated on > > demand. That assumption itself is a cognitive bias which may very well > > contaminate the data. > > > It seems to me that digital audio is colder, clearer, with more > > brittle and shallow percussion and more sibilance than analog. It's > > hard to say because I'm not comparing apples to apples, but I'm not > > sure that the experiment you are talking about did either. I don't > > know what assumptions they made. Also why does everyone seem to make > > the same exact mistake about how digital sounds to them? Why no people > > who insist that digital is more expressive and poetic? > > >>> The CD, the > >>> receiver, and the speakers cannot hear the music. We can safely reason > >>> that they probably do not hear the music, yes? We can assume though > >>> that they must sample the CD digitally though. That we know for a > >>> fact. That's all we know for a fact. If the same were true of us, we > >>> would have no real reason to listen to a sequence of digital codes, > >>> but if we did there would be no reason for it to sound like anything > >>> other than a sequence of digital codes. It should sound just like it > >>> tastes. > >>>>> Just because our ability to sense the world is not > >>>>> unlimited doesn't mean that our sense is digital or a model. Our > >>>>> experience of the world may not be a model at all, but a direct > >>>>> presentation at the anthropomorphic level (which includes, but is not > >>>>> limited to a mixture of lower level analog and digital > >>>>> representations). > >>>>> Even if our own world were nothing but a digital simulation, the > >>>>> experience of it is not digital, > >>>> You don't know that. How would continua experience differ from digital > >>>> experience? > >>> It's not about being able to tell the difference, it's the fact that > >>> there is any sensory experience at all. Any kind of sensory experience > >>> is redundant if you have a digital information transfer. It would be > >>> functionally useless and physically implausible to the extreme. > >> LOL!! That's pretty funny coming from a guy reading pixels off a screen > >> that looks > >> continuous to him. > > If I were digital I wouldn't need a screen. > > But you might have one anyway. Why? > Not everything is arranged per your needs. Then I might have a clown on a leash in the sky too. > > > I would receive the > > information directly from the digital source with no intermediary > > display at all. If I had a display, there would be no point in seeing > > the pixels as continuous, > > You keep talking about aspects of the world having no point, not being > needed. You seem to > implicitly assume the world was made to satisfy your ideas of purpose. Not my ideas of purpose - any possible idea of purpose. If you can explain to me why a computer needs nothing but 1s and 0s to play a symphony, but we need harmony, melody, rhythm, acoustics, culture, feeling, etc, then all I would say you have a point, but I know you have no more idea of how it could possibly make sense than I do. I'm just being honest that it obviously makes no sense and not holding on to fantasies of promissory functionalism. > > > > > > > > > > > I would see them exactly as they are. > > >>>>> which wouldn't make sense in a > >>>>> digital world. Why create > >>>> Are you asking why God did something? > >>> God, Chief Engineer, evolution, logic, whatever. Why does it make > >>> sense that sense exists if you don't functionally need it? > >> That would be a good question IF I had created it for me. > > don't understand > > >>>>> a floridly rich abstraction layer of sense > >>>>> experience if you already have the data you need to function > >>>>> optimally, or, if you have the sense experience already, why would you > >>>>> need any digital data to function? > >>>>> Your comment brings up another related point. As you say, we only see > >>>>> a small sliver of the EM spectrum. What that means is that we > >>>>> (figuratively) 'see' that we don't literally 'see' all that there is. > >>>>> We can make inferences that extend beyond the literal capacities of > >>>>> our direct sensation. Can machines do that? > >>>> Sure. Machines have extended sensory ability so, for example, they can > >>>> navigate by GPS > >>>> signals which we can't even detect. > >>> Ugh. Not extended beyond *our* sensory abiility... extended beyond > >>> *their own* sensory ability. We can't see gamma rays, but we figured > >>> out that they (sort of) exist. Do Geiger counters ever figure out that > >>> they are missing the visible spectrum? > >>>> Similarly, migratory birds can navigate by sensing > >>>> the Earth's magnetic field - something we do via prosthetics like > >>>> compasses. > >>> Yes. I know. > >>>>> Can machines figure out > >>>>> that they lack emotion on their own? > >>>> If they were sufficiently intelligent. > >>> That is the assumption I'm challenging. > >> Your "challenges" consist of nothing but assertions occasionally supported > >> by off-the-wall > >> metaphors. > > If that were true, would it make them any less of a challenge? > > Sometimes "The Emperor wears no clothes." is sufficient. > > And they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. Seems like you are getting the hang of the assertions+off the wall metaphors game. 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