Re: [agi] Re: Meaning, communication and understanding
On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Dr. Matthias Heger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But in any case there is a complete distinction between D and L. The brain never sends entities of D to its output region but it sends entities of L. Therefore there must be a strict separation between language model and D. In any case isn't good enough, Why does it even make sense to say that brain sends entities? From L? So far, all of this is completely unjustified, and probably not even wrong. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/ --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
It would also be nice if this mailing list could be operate on a bit more of a scientific basis. I get really tired of pointing to specific references and then being told that I have no facts or that it was solely my opinion. This really has to do with the culture of the community on the list, rather than the operation of the list per se, I'd say. I have also often been frustrated by the lack of inclination of some list members to read the relevant literature. Admittedly, there is a lot of it to read. But on the other hand, it's not reasonable to expect folks who *have* read a certain subset of the literature, to summarize that subset in emails for individuals who haven't taken the time. Creating such summaries carefully takes a lot of effort. I agree that if more careful attention were paid to the known science related to AGI ... and to the long history of prior discussions on the issues discussed here ... this list would be a lot more useful. But, this is not a structured discussion setting -- it's an Internet discussion group, and even if I had the inclination to moderate more carefully so as to try to encourage a more carefully scientific mode of discussion, I wouldn't have the time... ben g --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
[agi] Re: Value of philosophy
On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 2:33 AM, Samantha Atkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hmm. After the recent discussion it seems this list has turned into the philosophical musings related to AGI list. Where is the AGI engineering list? The problem isn't philosophy, but bad philosophy (the prevalent variety). Good philosophy is necessary for AI, and philosophy in some sense always focused on the questions of AI. Even if most of the existing philosophy is bunk, we need to build our own philosophy. Frankly, I don't remember any engineering discussions on this list that didn't fall on deaf ears of most of the people not believing that the direction is worthwhile, and for good reasons (barring occasional discussions of this or that logic, which might be interesting, but again). We need to work more on the foundations, to understand whether we are going in the right direction on at least good enough level to persuade other people (which is NOT good enough in itself, but barring that, who are we kidding). -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/ --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Re: Value of philosophy
Vlad:Good philosophy is necessary for AI...We need to work more on the foundations, to understand whether we are going in the right direction More or less perfectly said. While I can see that a majority of people here don't want it, actually philosophy, (which should be scientifically based), is essential for AGI, precisely as Vlad says - to decide what are the proper directions and targets for AGI. What is creativity? Intelligence? What are the kinds of problems an AGI should be dealing with? What kind(s) of knowledge representation are necessary? Is language necessary? What forms should concepts take? What kinds of information structures, eg networks, should underlie them? What kind(s) of search are necessary? How do analogy and metaphor work? Is embodiment necessary? etc etc. These are all matters for what is actually philosophical as well as scientific as well as technological/engineering discussion. They tend to be often more philosophical in practice because these areas are so vast that they can't be neatly covered - or not at present - by any scientific. experimentally-backed theory. If your philosophy is all wrong, then the chances are v. high that your engineering work will be a complete waste of time. So it's worth considering whether your personal AGI philosophy and direction are viable. And that is essentially what the philosophical discussions here have all been about - the proper *direction* for AGI efforts to take. Ben has mischaracterised these discussions. No one - certainly not me - is objecting to the *feasibility* of AGI. Everyone agrees that AGI in one form or other is indeed feasible, though some (and increasingly though by no means fully, Ben himself) incline to robotic AGI. The arguments are mainly about direction, not feasibility. (There is a separate, philosophical discussion, about feasibility in a different sense - the lack of a culture of feasibility, which is perhaps, subconsciously what Ben was also referring to - no one, but no one, in AGI, including Ben, seems willing to expose their AGI ideas and proposals to any kind of feasibility discussion at all - i.e. how can this or that method solve any of the problem of general intelligence? This is what Steve R has pointed to recently, albeit IMO in a rather confusing way. ) So while I recognize that a lot of people have an antipathy to my personal philosoophising, one way or another, you can't really avoid philosophising, unless you are, say, totally committed to just one approach, like Opencog. And even then... P.S. Philosophy is always a matter of (conflicting) opinion. (Especially, given last night's exchange, philosophy of science itself). --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] constructivist issues
I do not understand what kind of understanding of noncomputable numbers you think a human has, that AIXI could not have. Could you give a specific example of this kind of understanding? What is some fact about noncomputable numbers that a human can understand but AIXI cannot? And how are you defining understand in this context? I think uncomputable numbers can be indirectly useful in modeling the world even if the world is fundamentally computable. This is proved by differential and integral calculus, which are based on the continuum (most of the numbers on which are uncomputable), and which are extremely handy for analyzing real, finite-precision data ... more so, it seems, than computable analysis variants. But, I think AIXI or other AI systems can understand how to apply differential calculus in the same sense that humans can... And, neither AIXI nor a human can display a specific example of an uncomputable number. But, both can understand the diagonalization constructs that lead us to believe uncomputable numbers exist in some sense of the word exist -- Ben G On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 9:33 PM, Abram Demski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben, How so? Also, do you think it is nonsensical to put some probability on noncomputable models of the world? --Abram On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But: it seems to me that, in the same sense that AIXI is incapable of understanding proofs about uncomputable numbers, **so are we humans** ... On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 6:30 PM, Abram Demski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, Yes, that is completely true. I should have worded myself more clearly. Ben, Matt has sorted out the mistake you are referring to. What I meant was that AIXI is incapable of understanding the proof, not that it is incapable of producing it. Another way of describing it: AIXI could learn to accurately mimic the way humans talk about uncomputable entities, but it would never invent these things on its own. --Abram On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 4:32 PM, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- On Sat, 10/18/08, Abram Demski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No, I do not claim that computer theorem-provers cannot prove Goedel's Theorem. It has been done. The objection applies specifically to AIXI-- AIXI cannot prove goedel's theorem. Yes it can. It just can't understand its own proof in the sense of Tarski's undefinability theorem. Construct a predictive AIXI environment as follows: the environment output symbol does not depend on anything the agent does. However, the agent receives a reward when its output symbol matches the next symbol input from the environment. Thus, the environment can be modeled as a string that the agent has the goal of compressing. Now encode in the environment a series of theorems followed by their proofs. Since proofs can be mechanically checked, and therefore found given enough time (if the proof exists), then the optimal strategy for the agent, according to AIXI is to guess that the environment receives as input a series of theorems and that the environment then proves them and outputs the proof. AIXI then replicates its guess, thus correctly predicting the proofs and maximizing its reward. To prove Goedel's theorem, we simply encode it into the environment after a series of other theorems and their proofs. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- 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 --- 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson agi | Archives | Modify Your Subscription --- 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed:
Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
There is a wide area between moderation and complete laissez-faire. Also, as list owner, people tend to pay attention to what you say/request and also what you do. If you regularly point to references and ask others to do the same, they are likely to follow. If you were to gently chastise people for saying that there are no facts when references were provided, people might get the hint. Instead, you generally feed the trolls and humorously insult the people who are trying to keep it on a scientific basis. That's a pretty clear message all by itself. You don't need to spend more time but, as a serious role model for many of the people on the list, you do need to pay attention to the effects of what you say and do. I can't help but go back to my perceived summary of the most recent issue -- Ben Goertzel says that there is no true defined method to the scientific method (and Mark Waser is clueless for thinking that there is). - Original Message - From: Ben Goertzel To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Monday, October 20, 2008 6:53 AM Subject: Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI It would also be nice if this mailing list could be operate on a bit more of a scientific basis. I get really tired of pointing to specific references and then being told that I have no facts or that it was solely my opinion. This really has to do with the culture of the community on the list, rather than the operation of the list per se, I'd say. I have also often been frustrated by the lack of inclination of some list members to read the relevant literature. Admittedly, there is a lot of it to read. But on the other hand, it's not reasonable to expect folks who *have* read a certain subset of the literature, to summarize that subset in emails for individuals who haven't taken the time. Creating such summaries carefully takes a lot of effort. I agree that if more careful attention were paid to the known science related to AGI ... and to the long history of prior discussions on the issues discussed here ... this list would be a lot more useful. But, this is not a structured discussion setting -- it's an Internet discussion group, and even if I had the inclination to moderate more carefully so as to try to encourage a more carefully scientific mode of discussion, I wouldn't have the time... ben g -- agi | Archives | Modify Your Subscription --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
AW: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
Any argument of the kind you should better first read xxx + yyy +. is very weak. It is a pseudo killer argument against everything with no content at all. If xxx , yyy . contains really relevant information for the discussion then it should be possible to quote the essential part with few lines of text. If someone is not able to do this he should himself better read xxx, yyy, . once again. -Matthias Ben wrote It would also be nice if this mailing list could be operate on a bit more of a scientific basis. I get really tired of pointing to specific references and then being told that I have no facts or that it was solely my opinion. This really has to do with the culture of the community on the list, rather than the operation of the list per se, I'd say. I have also often been frustrated by the lack of inclination of some list members to read the relevant literature. Admittedly, there is a lot of it to read. But on the other hand, it's not reasonable to expect folks who *have* read a certain subset of the literature, to summarize that subset in emails for individuals who haven't taken the time. Creating such summaries carefully takes a lot of effort. I agree that if more careful attention were paid to the known science related to AGI ... and to the long history of prior discussions on the issues discussed here ... this list would be a lot more useful. But, this is not a structured discussion setting -- it's an Internet discussion group, and even if I had the inclination to moderate more carefully so as to try to encourage a more carefully scientific mode of discussion, I wouldn't have the time... ben g _ agi | https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | https://www.listbox.com/member/?; 7 Modify Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
RE: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question?
Thanks to Ben and Vlad for their help answering my question about how to estimate the number of node assemblies A(N,O,S) one can get from a total set of N nodes, where each assembly has a size of S, and a maximum overlap with any other set of O. I am sorry I did not response sooner but I spend a fair amount of time reviewing the tables recited in the below wikipedia article and in thinking about how one might obtain more relevant information, and I went away for the weekend. It appears Ben and Vlad are right that the constant-weight code formula A(n,d,w) described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant-weight_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant-weight_code, is highly relevant to my question, if you take into account Vlad's suggestion that you fill in the variable slots in the constant-weight code formula A(n,d,w) with the parameters N,O, and S in my formula as follows; n = N d = 2(S-O+1) w = S I understand why you multiply (S-O+1) time 2 to get the hamming distance, i.e., because whenever comparing two sets, whatever non-overlap you had in one set, you would have an equal non-overlap from the other compared set to add to the hamming distance between the two sets being compared. I also don't understand whether A(n,d,w) is the number of sets where the hamming distance is exactly d (as it would seem from the text of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant-weight_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant-weight_code ), or whether it is the number of set where the hamming distance is d or less. If the former case is true then the lower bounds given in the tables would actually be lower than the actual lower bounds for the question I asked, which would correspond to all cases where the hamming distance is d or less. IT WAS INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT THE WIKI ARTICLE SAID APART FROM SOME TRIVIAL OBSERVATIONS, IT IS GENERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPUTE THESE NUMBERS IN A STRAIGHTFORWARD WAY. The tables at http://www.research.att.com/~njas/codes/Andw/index.html#dist16 http://www.research.att.com/~njas/codes/Andw/index.html#dist16 indicates the number of cell assemblies would, in fact be much larger than the number of nodes, WHERE THE OVERLAP WAS RELATIVELY LARGE, which would be equivalent to node assemblies with undesirably high cross talk. It doesn't provide any information for cases where over lap is small, i.e, d is actually larger than w. It is clear A drops sharply as a percent of all the possible combinations from set N of size S as O increases, but were N and S are large the number of combinations C(N,S) would be very large, so even a very small percent of it might be much larger than N. But I can be sure. Some of the closest examples to what I was looking for in these tables were the following: In the case where n=32, d=16, w=16 and A = 62, solving for O 16 = 2*(16-O+1) = 32-2O+2 = 34-2O 2O = 34-16 = 18 O = 9, which is over half of w (or S) Near the end of the page under the label Further lower bounds In case where A(80,20,20) = 53404, solving for O 20 = 2*(20-O+1) = 49-2O+2 = 42-2O 2O = 42-20 = 22 O = 1, which is over half of w (or S) In case where A(128,32,32)=512064, solving for O 32 = 2*(32-O+1) = 64-2O+2 = 66-2O 2O = 66-32 = 34 O = 17, which is over half of w (or S) But you can see than in all of them the overlap O was over half the value of S, which means there would be very high cross talk.. In my next email I will suggest an simple search algorithm for exploring the lower bounds on A(N,O,S). Unfortunately, I haven't coded for so long that even writing code as simple as this algorithm would be hard for me, because if have forgotten the peculiarities of different languages and programming environments. But to any of you who are still in the coding groove, you should be able to write this program in less than half an hour, and it would be interested to see what results it would give. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Ben Goertzel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:38 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question? Well, coding theory does let you derive upper bounds on the memory capacity of Hopfield-net type memory models... But, the real issue for Hopfield nets is not theoretical memory capacity, it's tractable incremental learning algorithms Along those lines, this work is really nice... http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.33.817 I wonder how closely that method lets you achieve the theoretical upper bound. Unfortunately, current math seems inadequate to discover this, but empirics could tell us. If anyone wants to explore it, we have a Java implementation of Storkey's palimpsest learning scheme for Hopfield nets, specialized for simple experiments with character arrays. -- Ben G On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 10:30 PM, Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 6:26 AM, Ben Goertzel
Re: [agi] Re: Value of philosophy
2008/10/20 Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]: (There is a separate, philosophical discussion, about feasibility in a different sense - the lack of a culture of feasibility, which is perhaps, subconsciously what Ben was also referring to - no one, but no one, in AGI, including Ben, seems willing to expose their AGI ideas and proposals to any kind of feasibility discussion at all - i.e. how can this or that method solve any of the problem of general intelligence? This is because you define GI to be totally about creativity, analogy etc. Now that is part of GI, but no means all. I'm a firm believer in splitting tasks down and people specialising in those tasks, so I am not worrying about creativity at the moment, apart from making sure that any architecture I build doesn't constrain people working on it with the types of creativity they can produce. Many useful advances in computer technology (operating systems, networks including the internet) have come about by not assuming too much about what will be done with them. I think the first layer of a GI system can be done the same way. My self-selected speciality is resource allocation (RA). There are some times when certain forms of creativity are not a good option, e.g. flying a passenger jet. When shouldn't humans be creative? How should creativity and X other systems be managed? Looking at opencog the RA is not baked into the arch so I have doubts about how well it would survive in its current state under recursive self-change. It will probably be reasonable for what the opencog team is doing at the moment, but getting low-level arch wrong or not fit for the next stage is a good way to waste work. Will Pearson --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question?
On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 6:37 PM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The tables at http://www.research.att.com/~njas/codes/Andw/index.html#dist16 indicates the number of cell assemblies would, in fact be much larger than the number of nodes, WHERE THE OVERLAP WAS RELATIVELY LARGE, which would be equivalent to node assemblies with undesirably high cross talk. Ed, find my reply where I derive a lower bound. Even if overlap must be no more than 1 node, you can still have a number of assemblies as much more than N as necessary, if N is big enough, given fixed S. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/ --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
Matthias, still awaiting a response to this post, quoted below. Thanks, Terren Matthias wrote: I don't think that learning of language is the entire point. If I have only learned language I still cannot create anything. A human who can understand language is by far still no good scientist. Intelligence means the ability to solve problems. Which problems can a system solve if it can nothing else than language understanding? Language understanding requires a sophisticated conceptual framework complete with causal models, because, whatever meaning means, it must be captured somehow in an AI's internal models of the world. The Piraha tribe in the Amazon basin has a very primitive language compared to all modern languages - it has no past or future tenses, for example - and as a people they exhibit barely any of the hallmarks of abstract reasoning that are so common to the rest of humanity, such as story-telling, artwork, religion... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people. How do you explain that? Einstein had to express his (non-linguistic) internal insights in natural language and in mathematical language. In both modalities he had to use his intelligence to make the translation from his mental models. The point is that someone else could understand Einstein even if he haven't had the same intelligence. This is a proof that understanding AI1 does not necessarily imply to have the intelligence of AI1. I'm saying that if an AI understands speaks natural language, you've solved AGI - your Nobel will be arriving soon. The difference between AI1 that understands Einstein, and any AI currently in existence, is much greater then the difference between AI1 and Einstein. Deaf people speak in sign language, which is only different from spoken language in superficial ways. This does not tell us much about language that we didn't already know. But it is a proof that *natural* language understanding is not necessary for human-level intelligence. Sorry, I don't see that, can you explain the proof? Are you saying that sign language isn't natural language? That would be patently false. (see http://crl.ucsd.edu/signlanguage/) I have already outlined the process of self-reflectivity: Internal patterns are translated into language. So you're agreeing that language is necessary for self-reflectivity. In your models, then, self-reflectivity is not important to AGI, since you say AGI can be realized without language, correct? This is routed to the brain's own input regions. You *hear* your own thoughts and have the illusion that you think linguistically. If you can speak two languages then you can make an easy test: Try to think in the foreign language. It works. If language would be inherently involved in the process of thoughts then thinking alternatively in two languages would cost many resources of the brain. In fact you need just use the other module for language translation. This is a big hint that language and thoughts do not have much in common. -Matthias I'm not saying that language is inherently involved in thinking, but it is crucial for the development of *sophisticated* causal models of the world - the kind of models that can support self-reflectivity. Word-concepts form the basis of abstract symbol manipulation. That gets the ball rolling for humans, but the conceptual framework that emerges is not necessarily tied to linguistics, especially as humans get feedback from the world in ways that are not linguistic (scientific experimentation/tinkering, studying math, art, music, etc). Terren __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
RE: [agi] META: A possible re-focusing of this list
Just an idea - not sure if it would work or not - 3 lists: [AGI-1], [AGI-2], [AGI-3]. Sub-content is determined by the posters themselves. Same amount of emails initially but partitioned up. Wonder what would happen? John --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] constructivist issues
Ben, The most extreme case is if we happen to live in a universe with uncomputable physics, which of course would violate the AIXI assumption. This could be the case merely because we have physical constants that have no algorithmic description (but perhaps still have mathematical descriptions). As a concrete example, let's say some physical constant turns out to be a (whole-number) multiple of Chaitin's Omega. Omega cannot be computed, but it can be approximated (slowly), so we could after a long time suspect that we had determined the first 20 digits (although we would never know for sure!). If a physical constant turned out to match (some multiple of) these, we would strongly suspect that the rest of the digits matched as well. (Of course, the actual value of Omega depends on the model of computation employed, so it would be very surprising indeed if the physical constant matched Omega for one of our standard computational models...) AIXI would never except this inductive evidence. This is similar to Wei Dai's argument about aliens offering humans a box that seems to be a halting oracle. I think there is a less extreme case to be considered (meaning, I think there is a broader way in which we might say AIXI cannot understand uncomputable entities the way we can), but the argument is probably clearer for the extreme case, so I will leave it at that for now. Clearly, this argument is very type 2 at the moment. What I *really* would like to discuss is, as you put it, the set of sufficient mathematical axioms for (patially-)logic-based AGI such as OpenCogPrime. --Abram On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 9:45 AM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I do not understand what kind of understanding of noncomputable numbers you think a human has, that AIXI could not have. Could you give a specific example of this kind of understanding? What is some fact about noncomputable numbers that a human can understand but AIXI cannot? And how are you defining understand in this context? I think uncomputable numbers can be indirectly useful in modeling the world even if the world is fundamentally computable. This is proved by differential and integral calculus, which are based on the continuum (most of the numbers on which are uncomputable), and which are extremely handy for analyzing real, finite-precision data ... more so, it seems, than computable analysis variants. But, I think AIXI or other AI systems can understand how to apply differential calculus in the same sense that humans can... And, neither AIXI nor a human can display a specific example of an uncomputable number. But, both can understand the diagonalization constructs that lead us to believe uncomputable numbers exist in some sense of the word exist -- Ben G On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 9:33 PM, Abram Demski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben, How so? Also, do you think it is nonsensical to put some probability on noncomputable models of the world? --Abram On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But: it seems to me that, in the same sense that AIXI is incapable of understanding proofs about uncomputable numbers, **so are we humans** ... On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 6:30 PM, Abram Demski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, Yes, that is completely true. I should have worded myself more clearly. Ben, Matt has sorted out the mistake you are referring to. What I meant was that AIXI is incapable of understanding the proof, not that it is incapable of producing it. Another way of describing it: AIXI could learn to accurately mimic the way humans talk about uncomputable entities, but it would never invent these things on its own. --Abram On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 4:32 PM, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- On Sat, 10/18/08, Abram Demski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No, I do not claim that computer theorem-provers cannot prove Goedel's Theorem. It has been done. The objection applies specifically to AIXI-- AIXI cannot prove goedel's theorem. Yes it can. It just can't understand its own proof in the sense of Tarski's undefinability theorem. Construct a predictive AIXI environment as follows: the environment output symbol does not depend on anything the agent does. However, the agent receives a reward when its output symbol matches the next symbol input from the environment. Thus, the environment can be modeled as a string that the agent has the goal of compressing. Now encode in the environment a series of theorems followed by their proofs. Since proofs can be mechanically checked, and therefore found given enough time (if the proof exists), then the optimal strategy for the agent, according to AIXI is to guess that the environment receives as input a series of theorems and that the environment then proves them and outputs the proof. AIXI then replicates its guess, thus correctly predicting
AW: AW: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
Terren wrote Language understanding requires a sophisticated conceptual framework complete with causal models, because, whatever meaning means, it must be captured somehow in an AI's internal models of the world. Conceptual framework is not well defined. Therefore I can't agree or disagree. What do you mean with causal model? The Piraha tribe in the Amazon basin has a very primitive language compared to all modern languages - it has no past or future tenses, for example - and as a people they exhibit barely any of the hallmarks of abstract reasoning that are so common to the rest of humanity, such as story-telling, artwork, religion... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people. How do you explain that? In this example we observe two phenomena: 1. primitive language compared to all modern languages 2. and as a people they exhibit barely any of the hallmarks of abstract reasoning From this we can neither conclude that 1 causes 2 nor that 2 causes 1. I'm saying that if an AI understands speaks natural language, you've solved AGI - your Nobel will be arriving soon. This is just your opinion. I disagree that natural language understanding necessarily implies AGI. For instance, I doubt that anyone can prove that any system which understands natural language is necessarily able to solve the simple equation x *3 = y for a given y. And if this is not proven then we shouldn't assume that natural language understanding without hidden further assumptions implies AGI. The difference between AI1 that understands Einstein, and any AI currently in existence, is much greater then the difference between AI1 and Einstein. This might be true but what does this show? Sorry, I don't see that, can you explain the proof? Are you saying that sign language isn't natural language? That would be patently false. (see http://crl.ucsd.edu/signlanguage/) Yes. In my opinion, sign language is no natural language as it is usually understood. So you're agreeing that language is necessary for self-reflectivity. In your models, then, self-reflectivity is not important to AGI, since you say AGI can be realized without language, correct? No. Self-reflectifity needs just a feedback loop for own processes. I do not say that AGI can be realized without language. AGI must produce outputs and AGI must obtain inputs. For inputs and outputs there must be protocols. These protocols are not fixed but depend on the input devices on output devices. For instance the AGI could use the hubble telescope or a microscope or both. For the domain of mathematics a formal language which is specified by humans would be the best for input and output. I'm not saying that language is inherently involved in thinking, but it is crucial for the development of *sophisticated* causal models of the world - the kind of models that can support self-reflectivity. Word-concepts form the basis of abstract symbol manipulation. That gets the ball rolling for humans, but the conceptual framework that emerges is not necessarily tied to linguistics, especially as humans get feedback from the world in ways that are not linguistic (scientific experimentation/tinkering, studying math, art, music, etc). That is just your opinion again. I tolerate your opinion. But I have a different opinion. The future will show which approach is successful. - Matthias --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] constructivist issues
Yes, if we live in a universe that has Turing-uncomputable physics, then obviously AIXI is not necessarily going to be capable of adequately dealing with that universe ... and nor is AGI based on digital computer programs necessarily going to be able to equal human intelligence. In that case, we might need to articulate new computational models reflecting the actual properties of the universe (i.e. new models that relate to the newly-understood universe, the same way that AIXI relates to an assumed-computable universe). And we might need to build new kinds of computer hardware that make appropriate use of this Turing-uncomputable physics. I agree this is possible. I also see no evidence for it. This is essentially the same hypothesis that Penrose has put forth in his books The Emperor's New Mind, and Shadows of the Mind; and I found his arguments there completely unconvincing. Ultimately his argument comes down to: A) mathematical thinking doesn't feel computable to me, therefore it probably isn't B) we don't have a unified theory of physics, so when we do find one it might imply the universe is Turing-uncomputable Neither of those points constitutes remotely convincing evidence to me, nor is either one easily refutable. I do have a limited argument against these ideas, which has to do with language. My point is that, if you take any uncomputable universe U, there necessarily exists some computable universe C so that 1) there is no way to distinguish U from C based on any finite set of finite-precision observations 2) there is no finite set of sentences in any natural or formal language (where by language, I mean a series of symbols chosen from some discrete alphabet) that can applies to U but does not apply also to C To me, this takes a bit of the bite out of the idea of an uncomputable universe. Another way to frame this is: I think the notion of a computable universe is effectively equivalent to the notion of a universe that is describable in language or comprehensible via finite-precision observations. And the deeper these discussions get, the more I think they belong on an agi-phil list rather than an AGI list ;-) ... I like these sorts of ideas, but they really have little to do with creating AGI ... -- Ben G On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 11:23 AM, Abram Demski [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Ben, The most extreme case is if we happen to live in a universe with uncomputable physics, which of course would violate the AIXI assumption. This could be the case merely because we have physical constants that have no algorithmic description (but perhaps still have mathematical descriptions). As a concrete example, let's say some physical constant turns out to be a (whole-number) multiple of Chaitin's Omega. Omega cannot be computed, but it can be approximated (slowly), so we could after a long time suspect that we had determined the first 20 digits (although we would never know for sure!). If a physical constant turned out to match (some multiple of) these, we would strongly suspect that the rest of the digits matched as well. (Of course, the actual value of Omega depends on the model of computation employed, so it would be very surprising indeed if the physical constant matched Omega for one of our standard computational models...) AIXI would never except this inductive evidence. This is similar to Wei Dai's argument about aliens offering humans a box that seems to be a halting oracle. I think there is a less extreme case to be considered (meaning, I think there is a broader way in which we might say AIXI cannot understand uncomputable entities the way we can), but the argument is probably clearer for the extreme case, so I will leave it at that for now. Clearly, this argument is very type 2 at the moment. What I *really* would like to discuss is, as you put it, the set of sufficient mathematical axioms for (patially-)logic-based AGI such as OpenCogPrime. --Abram On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 9:45 AM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I do not understand what kind of understanding of noncomputable numbers you think a human has, that AIXI could not have. Could you give a specific example of this kind of understanding? What is some fact about noncomputable numbers that a human can understand but AIXI cannot? And how are you defining understand in this context? I think uncomputable numbers can be indirectly useful in modeling the world even if the world is fundamentally computable. This is proved by differential and integral calculus, which are based on the continuum (most of the numbers on which are uncomputable), and which are extremely handy for analyzing real, finite-precision data ... more so, it seems, than computable analysis variants. But, I think AIXI or other AI systems can understand how to apply differential calculus in the same sense that humans can... And, neither AIXI nor a human can display a specific
Re: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question?
On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 12:07 PM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As I said in my last email, since the Wikipedia article on constant weight codes said APART FROM SOME TRIVIAL OBSERVATIONS, IT IS GENERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPUTE THESE NUMBERS IN A STRAIGHTFORWARD WAY. And since all of the examples they gave had vary large overlaps, meaning high cross talk, I think it would be valuable to find some rough measure of whether is it possible to create sets of cell assemblies with low cross talk that had numbers exceeding, or far exceeding, the number of nodes they are created from. Intuitively, it seems obvious the answer is YES ... ben g --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question?
I also don't understand whether A(n,d,w) is the number of sets where the hamming distance is exactly d (as it would seem from the text of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant-weight_code ), or whether it is the number of set where the hamming distance is d or less. If the former case is true then the lower bounds given in the tables would actually be lower than the actual lower bounds for the question I asked, which would correspond to all cases where the hamming distance is d or less. The case where the Hamming distance is d or less corresponds to a bounded-weight code rather than a constant-weight code. I already forwarded you a link to a paper on bounded-weight codes, which are also combinatorially intractable and have been studied only via computational analysis. -- Ben G --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Re: Value of philosophy
Mike, Vladimir, Ben, et al, The mere presence of philosophy is proof positive that there are some domains in which GI doesn't work well at all. Are those domains truly difficult, or just ill adapted to GI? The mere existence of Dr. Eliza would seem to be proof positive that those domains are NOT difficult - but rather we are just missing neuron type 201 or something. No, an AGI can NOT figure these things out on its own! First, much of the data underlying philosophy has been long lost. Sun Tsu is still taught in military colleges, even though the battles upon which that philosophy is based have long been forgotten, thousands of years ago. Further, those battles were fought with primitive hand weapons and bamboo armour, yet these non-obvious principles still apply to modern heavy weapons. Note that these principles predict a quick demise for the U.S. Hence, I am sort of on Ben's side in this particular discussion (Ben, please correct me if I am wrong in this), that an AGI need NOT engage in philosophy to be interesting and even useful, though such an AGI will never rise to become a singularity, but will remain more of a pet. Maybe from such an AGI we can learn enough to build a truly powerful AGI. Closing with yet another entry for Ben's list: *Limits to AGI: GI has fundamental (and somewhat simplistic) limits, which philosophy, decision theory, and some AI efforts seek to surpass. There is absolutely no evidence that an AGI that is better/stronger than our own GI will be any better at competing in the real world, just as many/most of the smartest people in our population (e.g. AGI researchers) are some of society's least successful people, and are often unable to even hold a job. Hence, if the effort is to produce cheap droids, then we already have more than enough biological droids. However, if the effort is to produce super-smart machines able to lead our society, then there are some really fundamental philosophical things that have yet to be understood enough to start engineering such machines.* Steve Richfield On 10/20/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vlad:Good philosophy is necessary for AI...We need to work more on the foundations, to understand whether we are going in the right direction More or less perfectly said. While I can see that a majority of people here don't want it, actually philosophy, (which should be scientifically based), is essential for AGI, precisely as Vlad says - to decide what are the proper directions and targets for AGI. What is creativity? Intelligence? What are the kinds of problems an AGI should be dealing with? What kind(s) of knowledge representation are necessary? Is language necessary? What forms should concepts take? What kinds of information structures, eg networks, should underlie them? What kind(s) of search are necessary? How do analogy and metaphor work? Is embodiment necessary? etc etc. These are all matters for what is actually philosophical as well as scientific as well as technological/engineering discussion. They tend to be often more philosophical in practice because these areas are so vast that they can't be neatly covered - or not at present - by any scientific. experimentally-backed theory. If your philosophy is all wrong, then the chances are v. high that your engineering work will be a complete waste of time. So it's worth considering whether your personal AGI philosophy and direction are viable. And that is essentially what the philosophical discussions here have all been about - the proper *direction* for AGI efforts to take. Ben has mischaracterised these discussions. No one - certainly not me - is objecting to the *feasibility* of AGI. Everyone agrees that AGI in one form or other is indeed feasible, though some (and increasingly though by no means fully, Ben himself) incline to robotic AGI. The arguments are mainly about direction, not feasibility. (There is a separate, philosophical discussion, about feasibility in a different sense - the lack of a culture of feasibility, which is perhaps, subconsciously what Ben was also referring to - no one, but no one, in AGI, including Ben, seems willing to expose their AGI ideas and proposals to any kind of feasibility discussion at all - i.e. how can this or that method solve any of the problem of general intelligence? This is what Steve R has pointed to recently, albeit IMO in a rather confusing way. ) So while I recognize that a lot of people have an antipathy to my personal philosoophising, one way or another, you can't really avoid philosophising, unless you are, say, totally committed to just one approach, like Opencog. And even then... P.S. Philosophy is always a matter of (conflicting) opinion. (Especially, given last night's exchange, philosophy of science itself). --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed:
Re: [agi] Re: Value of philosophy
Just to clarify one point: I am not opposed to philosophy, nor do I consider it irrelevant to AGI. I wrote a book on my own philosophy of mind in 2006. I just feel like the philosophical discussions tend to overwhelm the pragmatic discussions on this list, and that a greater number of pragmatic discussions **might** emerge if the pragmatic and philosophical discussions were carried out in separate venues. Some of us feel we already have adequate philosophical understanding to design and engineer AGI systems. We may be wrong, but that doesn't mean we should spend our time debating our philosophical understandings, to the exclusion of discussing the details of our concrete AGI work. For me, after enough discussion of the same philosophical issue, I stop learning anything. Most of the philosophical discussions on this list are nearly identical in content to discussions I had with others 20 years ago. I learned a lot from the discussions then, and learn a lot less from the repeats... -- Ben On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 9:06 AM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Vlad:Good philosophy is necessary for AI...We need to work more on the foundations, to understand whether we are going in the right direction More or less perfectly said. While I can see that a majority of people here don't want it, actually philosophy, (which should be scientifically based), is essential for AGI, precisely as Vlad says - to decide what are the proper directions and targets for AGI. What is creativity? Intelligence? What are the kinds of problems an AGI should be dealing with? What kind(s) of knowledge representation are necessary? Is language necessary? What forms should concepts take? What kinds of information structures, eg networks, should underlie them? What kind(s) of search are necessary? How do analogy and metaphor work? Is embodiment necessary? etc etc. These are all matters for what is actually philosophical as well as scientific as well as technological/engineering discussion. They tend to be often more philosophical in practice because these areas are so vast that they can't be neatly covered - or not at present - by any scientific. experimentally-backed theory. If your philosophy is all wrong, then the chances are v. high that your engineering work will be a complete waste of time. So it's worth considering whether your personal AGI philosophy and direction are viable. And that is essentially what the philosophical discussions here have all been about - the proper *direction* for AGI efforts to take. Ben has mischaracterised these discussions. No one - certainly not me - is objecting to the *feasibility* of AGI. Everyone agrees that AGI in one form or other is indeed feasible, though some (and increasingly though by no means fully, Ben himself) incline to robotic AGI. The arguments are mainly about direction, not feasibility. (There is a separate, philosophical discussion, about feasibility in a different sense - the lack of a culture of feasibility, which is perhaps, subconsciously what Ben was also referring to - no one, but no one, in AGI, including Ben, seems willing to expose their AGI ideas and proposals to any kind of feasibility discussion at all - i.e. how can this or that method solve any of the problem of general intelligence? This is what Steve R has pointed to recently, albeit IMO in a rather confusing way. ) So while I recognize that a lot of people have an antipathy to my personal philosoophising, one way or another, you can't really avoid philosophising, unless you are, say, totally committed to just one approach, like Opencog. And even then... P.S. Philosophy is always a matter of (conflicting) opinion. (Especially, given last night's exchange, philosophy of science itself). --- 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] META: A possible re-focusing of this list
Samantha, On 10/19/08, Samantha Atkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This sounds good to me. I am much more drawn to topic #1. Topic #2 I have seen discussed recursively and in dozens of variants multiple places. The only thing I will add to Topic #2 is that I very seriously doubt current human intelligence individually or collectively is sufficient to address or meaningfully resolve or even crisply articulate such questions. We are in absolute agreement that revolution rather than evolution is necessary to advance. Aside from the specific technique, things like Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum shows that, for example, that intractable disputes absolutely MUST include a commonly held false assumption. This means, for example, that if you take EITHER side in the abortion debate, then you absolutely MUST hold a false assumption. The only hope is broad societal education that flies in the face of nearly every religion, which will never happen. Without that impossible education, a truly successful AGI would have ~half of the world's population bent on its immediate destruction, and not more than 100 people would even understand what it said. Note that if you take either side in the abortion debate, that you will NOT be one of those 100 people. Who could you find to even maintain such a machine, and who would ever follow such a machine? Much more is accomplished by actually looking into the horse's mouth than philosophizing endlessly. Here, you think that AGI efforts will point the way to freeing man from his collective maddness. Given the constraints explained above, I just don't see how this is possible. Another entry for Ben's List: *Impossible Expectations: Man has many issues and problems for which he has no good answers. Given man's inductive abilities, this comes NOT because of any inability to imagine the correct answers, but comes instead because either no such answers exist, or because man rejects the correct answers when they are placed before him. Obviously, AGI cannot help either of these situations. * Steve Richfield === Ben Goertzel wrote: Hi all, I have been thinking a bit about the nature of conversations on this list. It seems to me there are two types of conversations here: 1) Discussions of how to design or engineer AGI systems, using current computers, according to designs that can feasibly be implemented by moderately-sized groups of people 2) Discussions about whether the above is even possible -- or whether it is impossible because of weird physics, or poorly-defined special characteristics of human creativity, or the so-called complex systems problem, or because AGI intrinsically requires billions of people and quadrillions of dollars, or whatever Personally I am pretty bored with all the conversations of type 2. It's not that I consider them useless discussions in a grand sense ... certainly, they are valid topics for intellectual inquiry. But, to do anything real, you have to make **some** decisions about what approach to take, and I've decided long ago to take an approach of trying to engineer an AGI system. Now, if someone had a solid argument as to why engineering an AGI system is impossible, that would be important. But that never seems to be the case. Rather, what we hear are long discussions of peoples' intuitions and opinions in this regard. People are welcome to their own intuitions and opinions, but I get really bored scanning through all these intuitions about why AGI is impossible. One possibility would be to more narrowly focus this list, specifically on **how to make AGI work**. If this re-focusing were done, then philosophical arguments about the impossibility of engineering AGI in the near term would be judged **off topic** by definition of the list purpose. Potentially, there could be another list, something like agi-philosophy, devoted to philosophical and weird-physics and other discussions about whether AGI is possible or not. I am not sure whether I feel like running that other list ... and even if I ran it, I might not bother to read it very often. I'm interested in new, substantial ideas related to the in-principle possibility of AGI, but not interested at all in endless philosophical arguments over various peoples' intuitions in this regard. One fear I have is that people who are actually interested in building AGI, could be scared away from this list because of the large volume of anti-AGI philosophical discussion. Which, I add, almost never has any new content, and mainly just repeats well-known anti-AGI arguments (Penrose-like physics arguments ... mind is too complex to engineer, it has to be evolved ... no one has built an AGI yet therefore it will never be done ... etc.) What are your thoughts on this? -- Ben On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 10:49 AM, Jim Bromer [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 10:14 AM, Ben Goertzel
Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
Ben Goertzel says that there is no true defined method to the scientific method (and Mark Waser is clueless for thinking that there is). This is pretty profound. I never saw Ben Goertzel abolish the scientific method. I think he explained that its implementation is intractable, with reference to expert systems whose domain knowledge necessarily extrapolates massively to cover fringe cases. A strong AI would produce its own expert system and could follow the same general scientific method as a human. Can you quote the claim that there is no such thing --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 4:04 PM, Eric Burton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben Goertzel says that there is no true defined method to the scientific method (and Mark Waser is clueless for thinking that there is). That is not what I said. My views on the philosophy of science are given here: http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2004/PhilosophyOfScience_v2.htm with an addition here http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2008/10/reflections-on-religulous-and.html The argument with Mark* *was about his claim that a below-intelligence human could be trained to be a good scientist ... then modified to the claim that a below-intelligence human could be trained to be good at evaluating (rather than discovering) scientific results. I said I doubted this was true. * *I still doubt it's true. Given the current state of scientific experimental and statistical tools, and scientific theory, I don't think a below-average-intelligence person can be trained to be good (as opposed to, say, barely passable) at discovering or evaluating scientific results.* *This is because I don't think the scientific method as currently practiced has been formalized fully enough that it can be practiced by a person without a fair amount of intelligence and common sense. My feeling is that, if someone needs to use a cash register with little pictures of burgers and fries on it rather than numbers, it's probably not going to work out to teach them to effectively discover or evaluate scientific theories.* *Again, I don't understand what this argument has to do with AGI in the first place. I'm just continuing this dialogue to avoid having my statements publicly misrepresented (I'm sure this misrepresentation is inadvertent, but still).* * This is pretty profound. I never saw Ben Goertzel abolish the scientific method. I think he explained that its implementation is intractable, with reference to expert systems whose domain knowledge necessarily extrapolates massively to cover fringe cases. A strong AI would produce its own expert system and could follow the same general scientific method as a human. Can you quote the claim that there is no such thing --- 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question?
Wait, now I'm confused. I think I misunderstood your question. Bounded-weight codes correspond to the case where the assemblies themselves can have n or fewer neurons, rather than exactly n. Constant-weight codes correspond to assemblies with exactly n neurons. A complication btw is that an assembly can hold multiple memories in multiple attractors. For instance using Storkey's palimpsest model a completely connected assembly with n neurons can hold about .25n attractors, where each attractor has around .5n neurons switched on. In a constant-weight code, I believe the numbers estimated tell you the number of sets where the Hamming distance is greater than or equal to d. The idea in coding is that the code strings denoting distinct messages should not be closer to each other than d. But I'm not sure I'm following your notation exactly. ben g On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I also don't understand whether A(n,d,w) is the number of sets where the hamming distance is exactly d (as it would seem from the text of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant-weight_code ), or whether it is the number of set where the hamming distance is d or less. If the former case is true then the lower bounds given in the tables would actually be lower than the actual lower bounds for the question I asked, which would correspond to all cases where the hamming distance is d or less. The case where the Hamming distance is d or less corresponds to a bounded-weight code rather than a constant-weight code. I already forwarded you a link to a paper on bounded-weight codes, which are also combinatorially intractable and have been studied only via computational analysis. -- Ben G -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] constructivist issues
Ben, I agree that these issues don't need to have much to do with implementation... William Pearson convinced me of that, since his framework is about as general as general can get. His idea is to search the space of *internal* programs rather than *external* ones, so that we aren't assuming that the universe is computable, we are just assuming that *we* are. This is like the Goedel Machine, except Will's doesn't need to prove the correctness of its next version, so it wouldn't run into the incompleteness of its logic. So, one can say, If there is an AGI program that can be implemented on this hardware, then we can find it if we set up a good enough search. Of course, good enough search is highly nontrivial. The point is, it circumvents all the foundational logical issues by saying that if logic X really does work better than logic Y, the machine should eventually notice and switch, assuming it has time/resources to try both. (Again, if I could formalize this for the limit of infinite computational resources, I'd be happy...) But, on to those philosophical issues. Generally, all I'm arguing is that an AGI should be able to admit the possibility of an uncomputable reality, like you just did. I am not sure about your statements 1 and 2. Generally responding, I'll point out that uncomputable models may compress the data better than computable ones. (A practical example would be fractal compression of images. Decompression is not exactly a computation because it never halts, we just cut it off at a point at which the approximation to the fractal is good.) But more specifically, I am not sure your statements are true... can you explain how they would apply to Wei Dai's example of a black box that outputs solutions to the halting problem? Are you assuming a universe that ends in finite time, so that the box always has only a finite number of queries? Otherwise, it is consistent to assume that for any program P, the box is eventually queried about its halting. Then, the universal statement The box is always right couldn't hold in any computable version of U. --Abram On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 3:01 PM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, if we live in a universe that has Turing-uncomputable physics, then obviously AIXI is not necessarily going to be capable of adequately dealing with that universe ... and nor is AGI based on digital computer programs necessarily going to be able to equal human intelligence. In that case, we might need to articulate new computational models reflecting the actual properties of the universe (i.e. new models that relate to the newly-understood universe, the same way that AIXI relates to an assumed-computable universe). And we might need to build new kinds of computer hardware that make appropriate use of this Turing-uncomputable physics. I agree this is possible. I also see no evidence for it. This is essentially the same hypothesis that Penrose has put forth in his books The Emperor's New Mind, and Shadows of the Mind; and I found his arguments there completely unconvincing. Ultimately his argument comes down to: A) mathematical thinking doesn't feel computable to me, therefore it probably isn't B) we don't have a unified theory of physics, so when we do find one it might imply the universe is Turing-uncomputable Neither of those points constitutes remotely convincing evidence to me, nor is either one easily refutable. I do have a limited argument against these ideas, which has to do with language. My point is that, if you take any uncomputable universe U, there necessarily exists some computable universe C so that 1) there is no way to distinguish U from C based on any finite set of finite-precision observations 2) there is no finite set of sentences in any natural or formal language (where by language, I mean a series of symbols chosen from some discrete alphabet) that can applies to U but does not apply also to C To me, this takes a bit of the bite out of the idea of an uncomputable universe. Another way to frame this is: I think the notion of a computable universe is effectively equivalent to the notion of a universe that is describable in language or comprehensible via finite-precision observations. And the deeper these discussions get, the more I think they belong on an agi-phil list rather than an AGI list ;-) ... I like these sorts of ideas, but they really have little to do with creating AGI ... -- Ben G --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
AW: [agi] Re: Value of philosophy
I think in the past there were always difficult technological problems leading to a conceptual controversy how to solve these problems. Time has always shown which approaches were successful and which were not successful. The fact, that we have so many philosophical discussions show that we still are at the beginning. There is still no real evidence for a certain AGI approach to be a successful approach. Sorry, this is just my opinion. And this is the only(!!) reason why AGI doubters can still survive. I am no AGI doubter at all. In my opinion a lot of people want to make things more complicated than they are. AGI is possible! Proof: We exist. AGI is easy! Proof: Our genome is less than 1GB, i.e. less than your USB-stick. How much is need for our brain? Probably Windows Vista needs more memory than AGI. We always have to think about the huge computational and memory resources of the brain with massively concurrent computing. We can therefore assume that a lot of mythical things like creativity are nothing else than brute force giant database phenomena of the brain. Especially, before there isn't any evidence that things must be complicated we should assume that they are easy. The AGI community suffers from its own main assumption that AGI is difficult. For instance, things like Gödel' theorem etc are of no relevance at all. All we want to build is a finite system with a maximum number of applications. Gödel says absolutely nothing against this goal. Further problem: AGI approaches are often too much anthropomorphized approaches. (embodiment, natural language ,... sorry). - Matthias We need to work more on the foundations, to understand whether we are going in the right direction on at least good enough level to persuade other people (which is NOT good enough in itself, but barring that, who are we kidding). -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/ --- 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 --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] constructivist issues
I am not sure about your statements 1 and 2. Generally responding, I'll point out that uncomputable models may compress the data better than computable ones. (A practical example would be fractal compression of images. Decompression is not exactly a computation because it never halts, we just cut it off at a point at which the approximation to the fractal is good.) Fractal image compression is computable. But more specifically, I am not sure your statements are true... can you explain how they would apply to Wei Dai's example of a black box that outputs solutions to the halting problem? Are you assuming a universe that ends in finite time, so that the box always has only a finite number of queries? Otherwise, it is consistent to assume that for any program P, the box is eventually queried about its halting. Then, the universal statement The box is always right couldn't hold in any computable version of U. Based on a finite set of finite-precision observations, there is no way to distinguish Wei Dai's black box from a black box with a Turing machine inside. -- Ben G --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
Eric: Ben Goertzel says that there is no true defined method to the scientific method (and Mark Waser is clueless for thinking that there is). This is pretty profound. I never saw Ben Goertzel abolish the scientific method. I think he explained that its implementation is intractable, with reference to expert systems whose domain knowledge necessarily extrapolates massively to cover fringe cases. A strong AI would produce its own expert system and could follow the same general scientific method as a human. Can you quote the claim that there is no such thing Eric, You and MW are clearly as philosophically ignorant, as I am in AI. The reason there is an extensive discipline called philosophy of science, (as with every other branch of knowledge), is that there are conflicting opinions and arguments about virtually every aspect of science. Yes, there is a very broad consensus that science - the scientific method - generally involves a reliance on evidence, experiment and measurement But exactly what constitutes evidence, and how much is required, and what constitutes experiment, either generally or in any particular field, and what form theories should take, are open to, and receiving, endless discussion. Plus new kinds of all of these are continually being invented. Hence the wiki entry on scientific method: Scientific method is not a recipe: it requires intelligence, imagination, and creativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method This is basic stuff. --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
You and MW are clearly as philosophically ignorant, as I am in AI. But MW and I have not agreed on anything. Hence the wiki entry on scientific method: Scientific method is not a recipe: it requires intelligence, imagination, and creativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method This is basic stuff. And this is fundamentally what I was trying to say. I don't think of myself as philosophically ignorant. I believe you've reversed the intention of my post. It's probably my fault for choosing my words poorly. I could have conveyed the nuances of the argument better as I understood them. Next time! --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] constructivist issues
My statement was *** if you take any uncomputable universe U, there necessarily exists some computable universe C so that 1) there is no way to distinguish U from C based on any finite set of finite-precision observations 2) there is no finite set of sentences in any natural or formal language (where by language, I mean a series of symbols chosen from some discrete alphabet) that can applies to U but does not apply also to C *** This seems to incorporate the assumption of a finite period of time because a finite set of sentences or observations must occur during a finite period of time. -- Ben G On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 4:19 PM, Abram Demski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben, I agree that these issues don't need to have much to do with implementation... William Pearson convinced me of that, since his framework is about as general as general can get. His idea is to search the space of *internal* programs rather than *external* ones, so that we aren't assuming that the universe is computable, we are just assuming that *we* are. This is like the Goedel Machine, except Will's doesn't need to prove the correctness of its next version, so it wouldn't run into the incompleteness of its logic. So, one can say, If there is an AGI program that can be implemented on this hardware, then we can find it if we set up a good enough search. Of course, good enough search is highly nontrivial. The point is, it circumvents all the foundational logical issues by saying that if logic X really does work better than logic Y, the machine should eventually notice and switch, assuming it has time/resources to try both. (Again, if I could formalize this for the limit of infinite computational resources, I'd be happy...) But, on to those philosophical issues. Generally, all I'm arguing is that an AGI should be able to admit the possibility of an uncomputable reality, like you just did. I am not sure about your statements 1 and 2. Generally responding, I'll point out that uncomputable models may compress the data better than computable ones. (A practical example would be fractal compression of images. Decompression is not exactly a computation because it never halts, we just cut it off at a point at which the approximation to the fractal is good.) But more specifically, I am not sure your statements are true... can you explain how they would apply to Wei Dai's example of a black box that outputs solutions to the halting problem? Are you assuming a universe that ends in finite time, so that the box always has only a finite number of queries? Otherwise, it is consistent to assume that for any program P, the box is eventually queried about its halting. Then, the universal statement The box is always right couldn't hold in any computable version of U. --Abram On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 3:01 PM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, if we live in a universe that has Turing-uncomputable physics, then obviously AIXI is not necessarily going to be capable of adequately dealing with that universe ... and nor is AGI based on digital computer programs necessarily going to be able to equal human intelligence. In that case, we might need to articulate new computational models reflecting the actual properties of the universe (i.e. new models that relate to the newly-understood universe, the same way that AIXI relates to an assumed-computable universe). And we might need to build new kinds of computer hardware that make appropriate use of this Turing-uncomputable physics. I agree this is possible. I also see no evidence for it. This is essentially the same hypothesis that Penrose has put forth in his books The Emperor's New Mind, and Shadows of the Mind; and I found his arguments there completely unconvincing. Ultimately his argument comes down to: A) mathematical thinking doesn't feel computable to me, therefore it probably isn't B) we don't have a unified theory of physics, so when we do find one it might imply the universe is Turing-uncomputable Neither of those points constitutes remotely convincing evidence to me, nor is either one easily refutable. I do have a limited argument against these ideas, which has to do with language. My point is that, if you take any uncomputable universe U, there necessarily exists some computable universe C so that 1) there is no way to distinguish U from C based on any finite set of finite-precision observations 2) there is no finite set of sentences in any natural or formal language (where by language, I mean a series of symbols chosen from some discrete alphabet) that can applies to U but does not apply also to C To me, this takes a bit of the bite out of the idea of an uncomputable universe. Another way to frame this is: I think the notion of a computable universe is effectively equivalent to the notion of a universe that is describable in language or comprehensible
Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
I could have conveyed the nuances of the argument better as I understood them. s/as I/inasmuch as I/ ,_, --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
AW: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
If MW would be scientific then he would not have asked Ben to prove that MWs hypothesis is wrong. The person who has to prove something is the person who creates the hypothesis. And MW has given not a tiny argument for his hypothesis that a natural language understanding system can easily be a scientist. -Matthias -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: Eric Burton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gesendet: Montag, 20. Oktober 2008 22:48 An: agi@v2.listbox.com Betreff: Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI You and MW are clearly as philosophically ignorant, as I am in AI. But MW and I have not agreed on anything. Hence the wiki entry on scientific method: Scientific method is not a recipe: it requires intelligence, imagination, and creativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method This is basic stuff. And this is fundamentally what I was trying to say. I don't think of myself as philosophically ignorant. I believe you've reversed the intention of my post. It's probably my fault for choosing my words poorly. I could have conveyed the nuances of the argument better as I understood them. Next time! --- 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 --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 12:56 AM, Dr. Matthias Heger [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Any argument of the kind you should better first read xxx + yyy +… is very weak. It is a pseudo killer argument against everything with no content at all. If xxx , yyy … contains really relevant information for the discussion then it should be possible to quote the essential part with few lines of text. If someone is not able to do this he should himself better read xxx, yyy, … once again. I disagree. Books and papers are places to make complex multi-part arguments. Dragging out those arguments through a series of email-based soundbites in many cases will not help someone to grok the higher levels of those arguments, and will constantly miss out on smaller points that fuel countless unecessary misunderstandings. We witness these problems and others (practically daily) on the AGI list. -dave --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
RE: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question?
Ben, I am interested in exactly the case where individual nodes partake in multiple attractors, I use the notation A(N,O,S) which is similar to the A(n,d,w) formula of constant weight codes, except as Vlad says you would plug my varaiables into the constant weight formula buy using A(N, 2*(S-0+1),S). I have asked my question assuming each node assembly has the same size S for to make the math easier. Each such assembly is an autoassociative attractor. I want to keep the overlap O low to reduce the cross talk between attractors. So the question is how many node assemblies A, can you make having a size S, and no more than an overlap O, given N nodes. Actually the cross talk between auto associative patterns becomes an even bigger problem if there are many attractors being activated at once (such as hundreds of them), but if the signaling driving different the population of different attractors could have different timing or timing patterns, and if the auto associatively was sensitive to such timing, this problem could be greatly reduced. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Ben Goertzel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 20, 2008 4:16 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question? Wait, now I'm confused. I think I misunderstood your question. Bounded-weight codes correspond to the case where the assemblies themselves can have n or fewer neurons, rather than exactly n. Constant-weight codes correspond to assemblies with exactly n neurons. A complication btw is that an assembly can hold multiple memories in multiple attractors. For instance using Storkey's palimpsest model a completely connected assembly with n neurons can hold about .25n attractors, where each attractor has around .5n neurons switched on. In a constant-weight code, I believe the numbers estimated tell you the number of sets where the Hamming distance is greater than or equal to d. The idea in coding is that the code strings denoting distinct messages should not be closer to each other than d. But I'm not sure I'm following your notation exactly. ben g On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I also don't understand whether A(n,d,w) is the number of sets where the hamming distance is exactly d (as it would seem from the text of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant-weight_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant-weight_code ), or whether it is the number of set where the hamming distance is d or less. If the former case is true then the lower bounds given in the tables would actually be lower than the actual lower bounds for the question I asked, which would correspond to all cases where the hamming distance is d or less. The case where the Hamming distance is d or less corresponds to a bounded-weight code rather than a constant-weight code. I already forwarded you a link to a paper on bounded-weight codes, which are also combinatorially intractable and have been studied only via computational analysis. -- Ben G -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson _ agi | https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | https://www.listbox.com/member/?; 5 Modify Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] constructivist issues
Ben, [my statement] seems to incorporate the assumption of a finite period of time because a finite set of sentences or observations must occur during a finite period of time. A finite set of observations, sure, but a finite set of statements can include universal statements. Fractal image compression is computable. OK, yea, scratch the example. The point would possibly be valid if fractal compression relied on a superset of the Mandelbrot set's math, since the computability of that is still open as far as I know. Based on a finite set of finite-precision observations, there is no way to distinguish Wei Dai's black box from a black box with a Turing machine inside. Sure, but the more observations, the longer the description length of that turing machine, so that at some point it will exceed the description length of the uncomputable alternative. --Abram --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
AW: AW: AW: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
A conceptual framework starts with knowledge representation. Thus a symbol S refers to a persistent pattern P which is, in some way or another, a reflection of the agent's environment and/or a composition of other symbols. Symbols are related to each other in various ways. These relations (such as, is a property of, contains, is associated with) are either given or emerge in some kind of self-organizing dynamic. A causal model M is a set of symbols such that the activation of symbols S1...Sn are used to infer the future activation of symbol S'. The rules of inference are either given or emerge in some kind of self-organizing dynamic. A conceptual framework refers to the whole set of symbols and their relations, which includes all causal models and rules of inference. Such a framework is necessary for language comprehension because meaning is grounded in that framework. For example, the word 'flies' has at least two totally distinct meanings, and each is unambiguously evoked only when given the appropriate conceptual context, as in the classic example time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. time and fruit have very different sets of relations to other patterns, and these relations can in principle be employed to disambiguate the intended meaning of flies and like. If you think language comprehension is possible with just statistical methods, perhaps you can show how they would work to disambiguate the above example. I agree with your framework but it is in my approach a part of nonlinguistic D which is separated from L. D and L interact only during the process of translation but even in this process D and L are separated. OK, let's look at all 3 cases: 1. Primitive language *causes* reduced abstraction faculties 2. Reduced abstraction faculties *causes* primitive language 3. Primitive language and reduced abstraction faculties are merely correlated; neither strictly causes the other I've been arguing for (1), saying that language and intelligence are inseparable (for social intelligences). The sophistication of one's language bounds the sophistication of one's conceptual framework. In (2), one must be saying with the Piraha that they are cognitively deficient for another reason, and their language is primitive as a result of that deficiency. Professor Daniel Everett, the anthropological linguist who first described the Piraha grammar, dismissed this possibility in his paper Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Piraha˜ (see http://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/pdf/Publications_2005_PDF/Commentary_on_D.Everett_05.pdf): ... [the idea that] the Piraha˜ are sub- standard mentally—is easily disposed of. The source of this collective conceptual deficit could only be ge- netics, health, or culture. Genetics can be ruled out because the Piraha˜ people (according to my own ob- servations and Nimuendajú’s have long intermarried with outsiders. In fact, they have intermarried to the extent that no well-defined phenotype other than stat- ure can be identified. Piraha˜s also enjoy a good and varied diet of fish, game, nuts, legumes, and fruits, so there seems to be no dietary basis for any inferiority. We are left, then, with culture, and here my argument is exactly that their grammatical differences derive from cultural values. I am not, however, making a claim about Piraha˜ conceptual abilities but about their expression of certain concepts linguistically, and this is a crucial difference. This quote thus also addresses (3), that the language and the conceptual deficiency are merely correlated. Everett seems to be arguing for this point, that their language and conceptual abilities are both held back by their culture. There are questions about the dynamic between culture and language, but that's all speculative. I realize this leaves the issue unresolved. I include it because I raised the Piraha example and it would be disingenuous of me to not mention Everett's interpretation. Everett's interpretation is that culture is responsible for reduced abstraction facilities. I agree with this. But this does not imply your claim (1) that language causes the reduced facilities. The reduced number of cultural experiences in which abstraction is important is responsible for the reduced abstraction facilities. Of course, but our opinions have consequences, and in debating the consequences we may arrive at a situation in which one of our positions appears absurd, contradictory, or totally improbable. That is why we debate about what is ultimately speculative, because sometimes we can show the falsehood of a position without empirical facts. On to your example. The ability to do algebra is hardly a test of general intelligence, as software like Mathematica can do it. One could say that the ability to be *taught* how to do algebra reflects general intelligence, but again, that involves learning the *language* of mathematical formalism.
Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
Eric: I could have conveyed the nuances of the argument better as I understood them. Eric, My apologies if I've misconstrued you. Regardless of any fault, the basic point was/is important. Even if a considerable percentage of science's conclusions are v. hard, there is no definitive scientific method for reaching them . --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
RE: [agi] META: A possible re-focusing of this list
The singularity list is probably more appropriate for philosophical discussions about AGI. But good luck on moving such discussions to that list or a new list. Philosophical arguments usually result from different interpretations of what words mean. But usually the people doing the arguing don't know this. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] constructivist issues
--- On Mon, 10/20/08, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I do have a limited argument against these ideas, which has to do with language. My point is that, if you take any uncomputable universe U, there necessarily exists some computable universe C so that 1) there is no way to distinguish U from C based on any finite set of finite-precision observations 2) there is no finite set of sentences in any natural or formal language (where by language, I mean a series of symbols chosen from some discrete alphabet) that can applies to U but does not apply also to C That is only true in C. In U you might be able to make an infinite number of observations with infinite precision. On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 11:23 AM, Abram Demski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As a concrete example, let's say some physical constant turns out to be a (whole-number) multiple of Chaitin's Omega. Omega cannot be computed, but it can be approximated (slowly), so we could after a long time suspect that we had determined the first 20 digits (although we would never know for sure!). If a physical constant turned out to match (some multiple of) these, we would strongly suspect that the rest of the digits matched as well. You are reasoning by Occam's Razor, but that only holds in a universe where AIXI holds. In an uncomputable universe there is no reason to prefer the simplest explanation for an observation. (You might also be able to compute Omega exactly). Note: I am not suggesting that our universe is not Turing computable. All of the evidence suggests that it is. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] constructivist issues
On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Abram Demski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben, [my statement] seems to incorporate the assumption of a finite period of time because a finite set of sentences or observations must occur during a finite period of time. A finite set of observations, sure, but a finite set of statements can include universal statements. Ok ... let me clarify what I meant re sentences I'll define what I mean by a **descriptive sentence** What I mean by a sentence is a finite string of symbols drawn from a finite alphabet. What I mean by a *descriptive sentence* is a sentence that is agreed by a certain community to denote some subset of the total set of observations (where all observations have finite precision and are drawn from a certain finite set). So, whether or not a descriptive sentence contains universal quantifiers or quantum-gravity quantifiers or psychospirituometaphysical quantifiers, or whatever, in the end there are some observation-sets it applies to, and some it does not. Then, what I claim is that any finite set of descriptive sentences corresponds to some computable model of reality. One never needs an uncomputable model of reality to justify a set of descriptive sentences. Fractal image compression is computable. OK, yea, scratch the example. The point would possibly be valid if fractal compression relied on a superset of the Mandelbrot set's math, since the computability of that is still open as far as I know. No ... because any algorithm that can be implemented on a digital computer, can obviously be described in purely computable terms, using assembly language. Regardless of what uncomputable semantics you may wish to assign to the expression of the algorithm in some higher-level language. Based on a finite set of finite-precision observations, there is no way to distinguish Wei Dai's black box from a black box with a Turing machine inside. Sure, but the more observations, the longer the description length of that turing machine, so that at some point it will exceed the description length of the uncomputable alternative. We have to be careful with use of language here. It is not clear what you really mean by the description length of something uncomputable, since the essence of uncomputability is the property of **not being finitely describable**. One can create a Turing machine that proves theorems about uncomputable sets ... i.e., that carries out computations that we can choose to interpret as manipulating uncomputable sets. Just as, one can create a Turing machine that carries out computations that we interpret as differential calculus operations, acting on infinitesimals. However, even though we call them uncomputable, in reality these computations are computational, and their so-called uncomputability is actually just a mapping between one computable formal structure and another (the first formal structure being the algorithms/structures carrying out the computations ... the second formal structure being the formal theory of computability, which is itself a finite set of axioms that can be manipulated by a Turing machine ;-) ... There is no such thing as an uncomputable procedure with a short description length (where descriptions are finite concatenations of symbols from a finite vocabulary). There are however procedures with short description lengths that have interpretations in terms of uncomputability -- where these interpretations, if they're to be finitely describable, must also be computable ;-) -- Ben G --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question?
But, suppose you have two assemblies A and B, which have nA and nB neurons respectively, and which overlap in O neurons... It seems that the system's capability to distinguish A from B is going to depend on the specific **weight matrix** of the synapses inside the assemblies A and B, not just on the numbers nA, nB and O. And this weight matrix depends on the statistical properties of the memories being remembered. So, these counting arguments you're trying to do are only going to give you a very crude indication, anyway, right? ben On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 5:09 PM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben, I am interested in exactly the case where individual nodes partake in multiple attractors, I use the notation A(N,O,S) which is similar to the A(n,d,w) formula of constant weight codes, except as Vlad says you would plug my varaiables into the constant weight formula buy using A(N, 2*(S-0+1),S). I have asked my question assuming each node assembly has the same size S for to make the math easier. Each such assembly is an autoassociative attractor. I want to keep the overlap O low to reduce the cross talk between attractors. So the question is how many node assemblies A, can you make having a size S, and no more than an overlap O, given N nodes. Actually the cross talk between auto associative patterns becomes an even bigger problem if there are many attractors being activated at once (such as hundreds of them), but if the signaling driving different the population of different attractors could have different timing or timing patterns, and if the auto associatively was sensitive to such timing, this problem could be greatly reduced. Ed Porter -Original Message- *From:* Ben Goertzel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *Sent:* Monday, October 20, 2008 4:16 PM *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com *Subject:* Re: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question? Wait, now I'm confused. I think I misunderstood your question. Bounded-weight codes correspond to the case where the assemblies themselves can have n or fewer neurons, rather than exactly n. Constant-weight codes correspond to assemblies with exactly n neurons. A complication btw is that an assembly can hold multiple memories in multiple attractors. For instance using Storkey's palimpsest model a completely connected assembly with n neurons can hold about .25n attractors, where each attractor has around .5n neurons switched on. In a constant-weight code, I believe the numbers estimated tell you the number of sets where the Hamming distance is greater than or equal to d. The idea in coding is that the code strings denoting distinct messages should not be closer to each other than d. But I'm not sure I'm following your notation exactly. ben g On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I also don't understand whether A(n,d,w) is the number of sets where the hamming distance is exactly d (as it would seem from the text of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant-weight_code ), or whether it is the number of set where the hamming distance is d or less. If the former case is true then the lower bounds given in the tables would actually be lower than the actual lower bounds for the question I asked, which would correspond to all cases where the hamming distance is d or less. The case where the Hamming distance is d or less corresponds to a bounded-weight code rather than a constant-weight code. I already forwarded you a link to a paper on bounded-weight codes, which are also combinatorially intractable and have been studied only via computational analysis. -- Ben G -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/| Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
[agi] Language learning (was Re: Defining AGI)
--- On Mon, 10/20/08, Dr. Matthias Heger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: For instance, I doubt that anyone can prove that any system which understands natural language is necessarily able to solve the simple equation x *3 = y for a given y. It can be solved with statistics. Take y = 12 and count Google hits: string count -- - 1x3=12 760 2x3=12 2030 3x3=12 9190 4x3=12 16200 5x3=12 1540 6x3=12 1010 More generally, people learn algebra and higher mathematics by induction, by generalizing from lots of examples. 5 * 7 = 35 - 35 / 7 = 5 4 * 6 = 24 - 24 / 6 = 4 etc... a * b = c - c = b / a It is the same way we learn grammatical rules, for example converting active to passive voice and applying it to novel sentences: Bob kissed Alice - Alice was kissed by Bob. I ate dinner - Dinner was eaten by me. etc... SUBJ VERB OBJ - OBJ was VERB by SUBJ. In a similar manner, we can learn to solve problems using logical deduction: All frogs are green. Kermit is a frog. Therefore Kermit is green. All fish live in water. A shark is a fish. Therefore sharks live in water. etc... I understand the objection to learning math and logic in a language model instead of coding the rules directly. It is horribly inefficient. I estimate that a neural language model with 10^9 connections would need up to 10^18 operations to learn simple arithmetic like 2+2=4 well enough to get it right 90% of the time. But I don't know of a better way to learn how to convert natural language word problems to a formal language suitable for entering into a calculator at the level of an average human adult. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Who is smart enough to answer this question?
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 12:07 AM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I built an excel spread sheet to calculate this for various values of N,S, and O. But when O = zero, the value of C(N,S)/T(N,S,O) doesn't make sense for most values of N and S. For example if N = 100 and S = 10, and O = zero, then A should equal 10, not one as it does on the spread sheet. It's a lower bound. I have attached the excel spreadsheet I made to play around with your formulas, and a PDF of one page of it, in case you don't have access to Excel. Your spreadsheet doesn't catch it for S=100 and O=1, it explodes when you try to increase N. But at S=10, O=2, you can see how lower bound increases as you increase N. At N=5000, lower bound is 6000, at N=10^6, it's 2.5*10^8, and at N=10^9 it's 2.5*10^14. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/ --- 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=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
