RE: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-20 Thread John G. Rose
From: Mike Tintner [mailto:tint...@blueyonder.co.uk] Sound silly? Arguably the most essential requirement for a true human- level GI is to be able to consider any object whatsoever as a thing. It's a cognitively awesome feat . It means we can conceive of literally any thing as a thing -

[agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread Kaj Sotala
On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 1:47 AM, Mike Tintner tint...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: Ben, I radically disagree. Human intelligence involves both creativity and rationality, certainly. But rationality - and the rational systems of logic/maths and formal languages, [on which current AGI depends] -

Re: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread Pei Wang
Agree. As far as a system is not pure deductive, it can be creative. What usually called creative thinking often can be analyzed into a combination induction, abduction, analogy, etc, as well as deduction. When these inference are properly justified, they are rational. To treat creative and

Re: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread Mike Tintner
P.S. To put the distinction in a really simple easy to visualise (though *not* formal) form: rationality and creativity can be seen as reasoning about how to put bricks together - (from the metaphorical bricks of an argument to the literal bricks of a building) with rationality, you

Re: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread BillK
On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 3:55 PM, Mike Tintner wrote: (On the contrary, Pei, you can't get more narrow-minded than rational thinking. That's its strength and its weakness). Pei In case you haven't noticed, you won't gain anything from trying to engage with the troll. Mike does not discuss

Re: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread Pei Wang
BillK, Thanks for the reminder. I didn't reply to him, but still got involved. :-( I certainty don't want to encourage bad behaviors in this mailing list. Here bad behaviors are not in the conclusions or arguments, but in the way they are presented, as well as in the politeness/rudeness toward

Re: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread Ben Goertzel
IMHO, Mike Tintner is not often rude, and is not exactly a troll because I feel he is genuinely trying to understand the deeper issues related to AGI, rather than mainly trying to stir up trouble or cause irritation However, I find conversing with him generally frustrating because he combines A)

Re: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread Pei Wang
On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 1:40 PM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: IMHO, Mike Tintner is not often rude, and is not exactly a troll because I feel he is genuinely trying to understand the deeper issues related to AGI, rather than mainly trying to stir up trouble or cause irritation Well,

Re: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread Ben Goertzel
yeah ... that's not a matter of the English language but rather a matter of the American Way ;-p Through working with many non-Americans I have noted that what Americans often intend as a playful obnoxiousness is interpreted by non-Americans more seriously... I think we had some mutual

Re: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread BillK
On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 6:40 PM, Ben Goertzel wrote: IMHO, Mike Tintner is not often rude, and is not exactly a troll because I feel he is genuinely trying to understand the deeper issues related to AGI, rather than mainly trying to stir up trouble or cause irritation However, I find

Re: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread Ben Goertzel
In my opinion you are being too generous and your generosity is being taken advantage of. That is quite possible; it's certainly happened before... As well as trying to be nice to Mike, you have to bear list quality in mind and decide whether his ramblings are of some benefit to all the

RE: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread John G. Rose
Top posted here: Using your bricks to construct something, you have to construct it within constraints. Constraints is the key word. Whatever bricks you are using they have their own limiting properties. You CANNOT build anything anyway you please. Just by defining bricks you are already applying

Re: [agi] Creativity and Rationality (was: Re: Should I get a PhD?)

2008-12-19 Thread Mike Tintner
John:Just by defining bricks you are already applying rationalist hand tying due to the fact that even your abstract bricks have a limiting rationalist inducing structure... Maybe bricks are too rationalist, I want to use gloops to build creative things that are impossible to build with