Dear Joseph I am sorry not to have had time this semester to participate in the discussion this semester, but I want to support your approach of taking a phenomenological aspect seriously. I cannot see how we can avoid taken the human experience serious as an important part of reality, which is radically different from both the material and the informational aspect of reality.
This is a major point in my Cybersemiotics and why the other half of the title says "Why information is not enough". Take a look in Google book version. See address in signature. For those interested I add ULRs for summarizing articles on the subject: from the book : INFORMATION AND COMPUTATION http://www.idt.mdh.se/ECAP-2005/INFOCOMPBOOK/CHAPTERS/1-Brier.pdf and my article from the special issue of Entropy on Cybersemiotics http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/8/1902/pdf (whole issue of Entropy with other relevant article: http://www.mdpi.com/search/?s_journal=entropy&s_special_issue=317 ). It is true that a phenomenological approach destroys a pure physicalistic vision of science, which - even in its information theoretical versions - is identified with "the scientific approach". This is the idea that we can explain our own experience and behavior from a deep analytical investigation of the part of reality that is outside our personal consciousness. Often it is expressed in the belief that physical or informational deep laws of nature can explain our consciousness and its content without taking qualia of sense experiences, subjectivity, will and desires into considerations. This is often called eliminative materialism. But are matter and information more real than experiences? All our knowledge is based on experience. This is why computers and robots do not know anything but only can react adequately to situations. Venlig hilsen/best wishes Søren Brier Professor in the Semiotics of Information, Cognition and Communication Science Department of International Culture and Communication Studies, Copenhagen Business School Cybersemiotics: Why Information is not enough, Toronto University Press, 2008: http://books.google.com/books?id=Ueiv9cRR9OQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cybersemiotics&hl=da&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false . Fra: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] På vegne af Joseph Brenner Sendt: 11. december 2010 18:59 Til: fis Emne: [Fis] Fw: INTELLIGENCE & INFORMATION (by Y.X.Zhong) Dear All, I return to the original definition of this project because I am not satisfied with its evolution. There are points in Professor Zhong's perspective on (natural) intelligence that I still would like to call attention to, apart from the connection between intelligence and information. 1. "intelligence as wealth" implies something acquired, a posteriori, from experience, as well as some innate capacity for processing that experience. There are thus two aspects and their interaction to be taken into account. 2. "the secrets of intelligence, human thinking in particular" could be sought in the above. 3. "how intelligence is produced by brains". Neurology and cognitive science have provided fantastic new insights, and even possible semi-quantitative measures of intelligence as capacity for processing some simple stimuli, but something is still being missed. I therefore make this plea for a phenomenological approach, recognizing that since Petitot and Varela, responsible phenomenology, like responsible dualism, can be naturalized, that is, made part of science. A coherent phenomenological approach might for example distinguish between the operation of intelligence leading to a variety of options vs. a simple cognitive process ending in a more or less clear-cut thought. In any case, I have taken to heart comments that suggest that I am trying somehow to overturn the results, and subvert the use, of the scientific method. As a physical scientist, I can only conclude that I have badly expressed my intention, which is to support physical science by pointing out aspects and implications that may have been missed, due to a reliance on classical logic. Thus I have a positive reaction to Pedro's concept of "trialism", since my logical approach is "ternary", but the connection should be explored in another thread. Thanks and best wishes, Joseph ----- Original Message ----- From: Pedro C. Marijuan<mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> To: fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 1:55 PM Subject: [Fis] INTELLIGENCE & INFORMATION (by Y.X.Zhong) Intelligence and Information Yi-Xin-Zhong Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing100876, China yxzh...@ieee.org<mailto:yxzh...@ieee.org> 1. The Study of Intelligence Science Intelligence has been very well regarded as the most valuable wealth for mankind, compared with other attributions like constitution and strength, and the study of intelligence science should therefore be the greatest issue in modern science and most urgent demand from human society, particularly for the 21st century. The study of intelligence is consisted of two branches, i.e., natural intelligence study and artificial intelligence study. The aim for the former is to explore the secrets of intelligence, human thinking in particular. Neurological science and cognitive science are typical disciplines in this field. The aim for the latter is to create intelligent machines based on the understanding of the secrets of intelligence. The two branches are closely related to, and mutually interacted to, each other. The crucial problem that is still widely open to the study of intelligence is the great mystery on how it is produced by brains. The major problem that the study of artificial intelligence confronts is how to effectively reproduce intelligence on computing machineries. During the past decades, the studies of both branches have made good progresses but at the same time faced difficulties and challenges too. For the information about the progress made in neurology and cognitive science, please see the reference [1] and for the detailed progress in artificial intelligence, please refer to the references [2-3]. 2. The Problems of Artificial Intelligence One of the major problems and challenges that the study of artificial intelligence confronts is that there have been three schools carrying on the same study with different approaches, namely the structuralism approach (neural network systems), the functionalism approach (expert systems), and the behaviorism approach (sensor-motor systems), and they never cooperate with each other. There has been no unified theory in the field so far. Moreover, none of the three schools have paid necessary attentions to such issues as consciousness, emotion and cognition that are extremely fundamental to the study of intelligence. In the meantime, there is little cooperation with the study of natural intelligence. Another big problem existing in the fields of intelligence study, also in other scientific fields of course, is the methodological issue. Researchers have been used to the traditional methodology called "divide and conquer". They divided the study of intelligence into different respects (the structural respect, the functional respect, and the behavioral respect), and carried on the research within the limits of each respect of intelligence. As a result, each one of them cannot individually get the global picture of the intelligence study and cannot accept the progress made from other respects. This is the basic cause of why they failed to have a unified theory of intelligence among the three schools [3]. It is worth of mentioning that the methodology of "divide and conquer" has made great contributions to the modern science but it is not quite sufficient for the study of intelligence science and information science. Because of the limitation of the space for this text, we will not discuss this issue in detail here (but we can do it later, during the general discussion). 3. The Study of Information Science It has been realized that intelligence in general should come from knowledge and it is generally impossible to have intelligence without any knowledge. On the other hand, it has also been proved that knowledge in general should come from information and it is also impossible to have knowledge without any information. Hence, the study of information science would be most meaningful and most urgent, as meaningful and urgent as that of intelligence science. One of the crucial achievements in this field is the Information Theory, or "Mathematical Theory of Communication", established by C. E. Shannon in 1948 [4]. But it is only a special case of Information Science and can only be applied in the cases where the statistical axioms are valid, like the ones in communication engineering where only the signal waveform is needed to be considered and the content and value factors of information are ignored. In response to the needs of intelligence science study, the concept of information should be concerned not only with the "form" factor but also with the "content" and "value" factors, which we named Comprehensive Information. In other words, comprehensive information is a trinity of form, content, and value factors of information. A brief outline on the necessary interrelationship between Information Science and Advanced Artificial Intelligence can be seen in the references [5] and [6]. In addition, there are many issues related to the study of information science that are still open. 4. Problems To Be Discussed For effectively pushing forward the study of both intelligence and information science, the followings points are suggested to be discussed in depth: * What is the correct concept of intelligence? * What is the correct concept of information? * What is the precise relation between intelligence and information? * How do you evaluate the current state of the art in the study of intelligence science? * How do you evaluate the current state of the art in the study of information science? * Do you agree with the statement that intelligence comes from knowledge and the latter from information? * What, do you think, is the feasible mechanism of intelligence growth? * Do you think it possible to have information being conversed to knowledge and even to intelligence? Coda It may be necessary to mention once again that the relative completeness of the scope and the systematic structure of the study in Information Science will be of importance. The reason for this consideration is that many deep laws and principles of Information Science may not be discovered if the study has only parts of its scope. It is therefore suggested that the entire process of the Information-Knowledge-Intelligence conversion be regarded as the baseline of Information Science study, containing the theoretical study, general study, as well as applied study as its major branches. References [1] Y. J. LUO, Textbook on Cognitive Neurology, Peking University Press, Beijing, 2006. [2] S. J. Russell et al, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Pearson Education Limited Asia, 2003. [3] The Proceedings of International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Beijing, August 1-3, 2006. [4] C. E. Shannon, Mathematical Theory of Communication, MIP Press. 1949. [5] Y. X. ZHONG, Principles of Information Science. BUPT Press, Beijing, 2002. [6] Y. X. ZHONG, Principles of COGNETICS in Machine, Science Press, 2007. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________ _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
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