Re: [singularity] Wrong focus?

[gifting]

Quoting Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

Gudrun: I think this is not about
intelligence, but it is about our mind being inter-dependent (also via
evolution) with senses and body.
Sorry, I've lost a subsequent post in which you went on to say that the very
terms "mind" and "body" in this context were splitting up something that
can't be split up. Would you (or anyone else) like to discurse - riff - on
that? However casually...

I said in so many words
Though, even this is kind of wrong, because we behave
like there
is a split  between senses, body and mind.
They are more interconnected or however  you would like
to phrase it.
Problem of dualist thinking.


The background for me is this:  there is a great, untrumpeted revolution
going on, which is called Embodied Cognitive Science. See Wiki. That is all
founded on the idea of the "embodied mind". Cognitive science is based on
the idea that thought is a program - which can in principle be instantiated
on any computational machine - and is a science founded on AI/ computers.
Embodied cog sci is Cog Sci Stage 2 and is based on the idea that thought is
a brain-and-body affair - and cannot take place without both - and is a
science founded on robotics.

But the whole terminology of this new science - "embodied mind" - is still
lopsided, still unduly deferential - and needs to be replaced. So I'm
interested in any thoughts related to this, however rough.

"Mike
Embodied Cog sci - is the idea that there is no thought without sensation,
emotion and
movement .....
("no mentation without re-presentation"..?  hmm... still an idea in progress)
We need to find ways of reconnecting the pieces that language has dissected.
Hey, you're
an artist.. do me a photo or model :). -----"

I do videos and installations, perhaps films. I write texts. I invent, too.
I think one would have to do what AI people to, invent an embodied AGI,
something that has a form of consciousness, senses, movement, body and is
really humorous, for a change.

"Stathis:  Are you simply arguing that an embodied AI that can interact 
with the
real world will find it easier to learn and develop, or are you
arguing that there is a fundamental reason why an AI can't develop in
a purely virtual environment?"
"Mike
The latter. I'm arguing that a disembodied AGI has as much chance of 
getting to
know,
understand and be intelligent about the world as Tommy - a deaf, dumb 
and blind
and
generally sense-less kid, that's totally autistic, can't play any 
physical game
let alone
a mean pin ball, and has a seriously impaired sense of self , (what's the name
for that
condition?) - and all that is even if the AGI *has* sensors. Think of a
disembodied AGI
as very severely mentally and physically disabled from birth - you wouldn't do
that to a
child, why do it to a computer?  It might be able to spout an encyclopaedia,
show you a
zillion photographs, and calculate a storm but it wouldn't understand, or be
able to
imagine/ reimagine, anything. As I indicated, a proper, formal argument 
for this
needs to
be made - and I and many others are thinking about it - and shouldn't 
be long in
forthcoming, backed with solid scientific evidence. There is already a lot of
evidence
via mirror neurons that you do think with your body, and it just keeps 
mounting.

While doing my research, | got the impression that disembodied might be 
equal or
similar to spirit (holy spirit). this comes from religions and religious
ideologies and terminology. A disembodied, extracted mind (spirit) also refers
to purity. Extract, pure or purified, or a mind in a mind like a voice 
in one's
head. The voice from the aether, radio television signals, all form of
disembodied stuff. (Okay embodied via radiowaves and caught in boxes like
radios, I am a bit ironic here).
I am not sure, if this is about the idea of an extract of purity, 
something that
moves (??) in a purely disembodied world, an idea of an afterlife (again
religion), a pure spirit or mind  interconnected with whatever is left (I am
thinking about what Moravec said, I have to look into my thesis to find his
quote).
I like it as science fiction, but it also scares me. It seems to me that this
disembodied AGI is the product of people who are tired of the burden body,
their own bodies. They are tired of a body that screams mortality, while a
"pure mind" might promise immortality. Just some thoughts.
I think an analogy to alchemists might not be to far fetched.

Gudrun



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