Magnus said:
.., I was discussing A.I. and if the MoQ allowed it. If it didn't, I probably
would have left there and then, but I thought I devised a cunning way around
the obvious obstacles.
dmb says:
If Herbert Dreyfus is right, A.I. is impossible. Or more precisely, the A.I.
researchers are operating on a misconception about the nature of intelligence.
He says they've been trying to create an artificial version of something that
they don't properly understand in the first place. Wiki has an entire page on
his critique of A.I., which is linked to their article on A.I. in general. I've
copied and pasted a section that shows how his critique fits with the MOQ. I
think you can see that Dreyfus's distinction between "knowing-that" and
"knowing-how" are roughly the same thing as "intellectual" and
"pre-intellectual" or "static" and "Dynamic". What computers can't do,
according to Dreyfus, is include the "unconscious sense of the context, of
what's important and interesting given the situation", which is an essential
component in any intelligent decision-making process. Please notice how he
insists that these "unconscious intuitions" are not symbolic and that this
"unconscious knowledge could never be captured symbolically". In other words,
computers will never be able to respond intelligently because they can't
respond dynamically. What they can do is manipulate symbols, but only in
mechanical, mathematical, logical ways. It's based on a mistaken model of human
intelligence as purely rational. But the MOQ says the affective domain is
actually the central part of reality and that's exactly what A.I. can not
include.
The primacy of unconscious skillsIn 1986's "Mind Over Machine", written during
the heyday of expert systems, Dreyfus analyzed the difference between human
expertise and the programs that claimed to capture it. This expanded on ideas
from 1972's "What Computers Can't Do", where he had made a similar argument
criticizing the "cognitive simulation" school of AI research practiced by Alan
Newell and Herbert Simon in the 1960s.Dreyfus argued that human problem solving
and expertise depend on our unconscious sense of the context, of what's
important and interesting given the situation, rather than on the process of
searching through combinations of possibilities to find what we need. Dreyfus
would describe it in 1986 as the difference between "knowing-that" and
"knowing-how", based on Heidegger's distinction of present-at-hand and
ready-to-hand.[14]Knowing-that is our conscious, step-by-step problem solving
abilities. We use these skills when we encounter a difficult problem that
requires us to stop, step back and search through ideas one at time. At moments
like this, the ideas become very precise and simple: they become context free
symbols, which we manipulate using logic and language. These are the skills
that Newell and Simon had demonstrated with both psychological experiments and
computer programs. Dreyfus agreed that their programs adequately imitated the
skills he calls "knowing-that."Knowing-how, on the other hand, is the way we
deal with things normally. We take actions without using conscious symbolic
reasoning at all, as when we recognize a face, drive ourselves to work or find
the right thing to say. We seem to simply jump to the appropriate response,
without considering any alternatives. This is the essence of expertise, Dreyfus
argued: when our intuitions have been trained to the point that we forget the
rules and simply "size up the situation" and react. (Malcolm Gladwell would
later name this "fast" process of expert thinking as a "blink" in a bestseller
of the same name.[15])Our sense of the situation is based, Dreyfus argues, on
our goals, our bodies and our culture—all of our unconscious intuitions,
attitudes and knowledge about the world. This “context” or "background"
(related to Heidegger's Dasein) is a form of knowledge that is not stored in
our brains symbolically, but intuitively in some way. It affects what we notice
and what we don't notice, what we expect and what possibilities we don't
consider: we discriminate between what is essential and inessential. (Gladwell
calls this "thin-slicing"). The things that are inessential are relegated to
our "fringe consciousness" (borrowing a phrase from William James): the
millions of things we're aware of, but we're not really thinking about right
now.Dreyfus claimed that he could see no way that AI programs, as they were
implemented in the 70s and 80s, could capture this background or do the kind of
fast problem solving, or blinking, that it allows. He argued that our
unconscious knowledge could never be captured symbolically. If AI could not
find a way to address these issues, then it was doomed to failure, an exercise
in "tree climbing with one's eyes on the moon."[16]
Pirsig commented:
I don't recall saying you can't skip levels, but in this case none are skipped.
The hand that taps the computer keys is biological. The school that taught
the computer programmer how to program is social. He had to learn programming
from somebody through social interaction unless his name is Von Neumann. But
Von Neumann didn't grow up in the jungle. Social institutions had to educate
him.
Magnus said:
"The hand that taps the computer keys is biological."?? Come on! We're trying
to be serious here but *that's* disrespectful! When looking at what kind of
patterns something is made of, it has nothing to do with who built it, or made
it. It's "metaphysically irrelevant". ... I'm just exploring what the levels
really are and how they relate to each other. But to claim that a computer is
supported by biological patterns just because a hand is tapping the keys is,
well, more like a child's riddle than metaphysics.
dmb says:
No, I think the keyboard of your computer is an intelligible and useful
artifact precisely because of the way it accommodates the human hand. Same
thing with doorknobs, light switches and motorcycles. Our houses are creature
comfort machines, with the key components being bathrooms, bedrooms and
kitchens. This whole architecture is built with our biological functions in
mind. Houses also serve as security devices and status symbols. They're a big
part of the economic system, family structure, the larger community in which
they exist, etc., etc.. And I think this is one the interesting aspects of the
levels. Any given "thing" can be, and usually is, a complex mixture.
Magnus said:
... also, he says that social patterns are subjective.? Isn't the very core of
MoQ's message that "subjective" is *not* something we can just end a discussion
with? In SOM, we can, because in SOM, subjective is that which every one of us
has a unique and personal viewpoint of. So to say that something is subjective
means that everyone is entitled to her own view of it. I can guess that
Pirsig has had to revert to using those terms because he probably get endless
questions about it, and to say that intellectual and social patterns are
subjective, and biological and inorganic objective is probably the easy way
out. But it's WRONG! And I hoped he at least would have talked to us in MoQese,
but I guess not.
dmb says:
Well, I see what you mean but I don't think Pirsig is saying that social
patterns are just somebody's personal viewpoint. He's not reverting back to
those terms, of course, because his concern here is to clarify the MOQ's
classification, to clarify the levels. He's only using the term "subjective" to
point out that social level values are not physical objects. You might recall
the other example he used. Biologically and physically, the difference between
you and the President can not be detected. The difference between you is
social. Is the President just in your mind? Is it just somebody's opinion?
Well, no. It's a well known fact of our political reality and it'll go down in
history as an indisputable truth, but you can't see that in Barack's physiology
or in the atoms that make up his bones. It's not objective in the sense that
the Presidency is not a physical thing, and yet it is as real as rocks and
trees. That's what he's saying about the team of robots. You could teach them
to salute the flag if that only meant a series of physical actions but you'll
never find patriotism under a microscope, you know what i mean?
> >
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