--- Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Matt Mahoney wrote: > > --- Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >> Matt Mahoney wrote: > >>> --- Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>> > >>>> What I wanted was a set of non-circular definitions of such terms as > >>>> "intelligence" and "learning", so that you could somehow *demonstrate* > >>>> that your mathematical idealization of these terms correspond with the > >>>> real thing, ... so that we could believe that the mathematical > >>>> idealizations were not just a fantasy. > >>> The last time I looked at a dictionary, all definitions are circular. > So > >> you > >>> win. > >> Sigh! > >> > >> This is a waste of time: you just (facetiously) rejected the > >> fundamental tenet of science. Which means that the stuff you were > >> talking about was just pure mathematical fantasy, after all, and nothing > >> to do with science, or the real world. > >> > >> > >> Richard Loosemre. > > > > What does the definition of intelligence have to do with AIXI? AIXI is an > > optimization problem. The problem is to maximize an accumulated signal in > an > > unknown environment. AIXI says the solution is to guess the simplest > > explanation for past observation (Occam's razor), and that this solution > is > > not computable in general. I believe these principles have broad > > applicability to the design of machine learning algorithms, regardless of > > whether you consider such algorithms intelligent. > > You're going around in circles. > > If you were only talking about "machine learning" in the sense of an > abstract mathematical formalism that has no relationship to "learning," > "intelligence" or anything going on in the real world, and in particular > the real world in which some of us are interested in the problem of > trying to build an intelligent system, then, fine, all power to you. At > *that* level you are talking about a mathematical fantasy, not about > science. > > But you did not do that: you made claims that went far beyond the > confines of a pure, abstract mathematical formalism: you tried to > relate that to an explanation of why Occam's Razor works (and remember, > the original meaning of Occam's Razor was all about how an *intelligent* > being should use its intelligence to best understand the world), and you > also seemed to make inferences to the possibility that the real world > was some kind of simulation. > > It seems to me that you are trying to have your cake and eat it too.
I claim that AIXI has practical applications to machine learning. I also claim (implicitly) that machine learning has practical applications to the real world. Therefore, I claim that AIXI has practical applications to the real world (i.e. as Occam's razor). Further, because AIXI requires that the unknown environment be computable, I claim that we cannot exclude the possibility that the universe is a simulation. If Occam's razor did not work in practice, then you could claim that the universe is not computable, and therefore could not be a simulation. This really has nothing to do with the definition of intelligence. You can accept Turing's definition, which would exclude all animals except Homo Sapiens. You can accept a broader definition that would include machine learning. Both the human brain and linear regression algorithms make use of Occam's razor. I don't care if you call them intelligent or not. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=11983
