The guy who stopped Go Programming Development ...
-
From the guy who stopped Go Programming Development ...
---------------------------------------------------------------
World Go News from the American Go Association
July 26, 2007; Volume 8, #56
[ ... ]
SAVING GO: A Modest Proposal to Programmers (Stop!)
By Paul Celmer
Now that checkers has been crushed and a computer has defeated the world
champion at chess, will go be the last great game to fall to the robots? Let’s
hope not. I hereby call upon any programmer working on computer go to stop
now.
Why? First of all, computer go would devalue human achievement. Professional
go players start training at a young age and work for years to attain top
rankings. Professional-level go-playing computers would devalue these heroic
efforts, making these rare skills available at the local big-box computer
store. When computers took over chess, former world champion Gary Kasparov,
arguably one of the greatest chess players in history, retired from the game
that allowed his brilliance to sparkle and is now reduced to seeking worthy
challenges in politics. I don’t think even the most cold hearted of us would
want our spectacular champion go players to suffer such a fate.
Computer go would also mar the beauty of our game. Part of beauty is mystery,
and if go is ever “solved,” it too, would be reduced to mindless tic-tac-toe.
It would be an amazing technical achievement to develop the software and
hardware to create an entire orchestra of symphony-playing robots. But
shouldn’t some things -- music, art, and poetry, just to think of a few --
remain our own human domain? The go board should be preserved as a place where
humanity can dream free.
I am no anti-technology Luddite. I embrace useful advances in science and
technology, have owned a computer since the dawn of the PC age and of course I
have a DVD player and a cellphone. I have no grudge against programmers and
think we actually need even more in many areas including alternative energy
development and medical diagnostic software. But we just don’t need a computer
go program that can beat humans.
No good can come from having our noble game and all its beautiful traditions
reduced to digital bits. Just because something can be done does not mean it
should be done. Who remembers the names of those who programmed the computer
that defeated Kasparov? Programmers, turn your praiseworthy ingenuity and
drive towards another mountain and leave go to stand unconquered, gleaming and
majestic. You will give up the chance to win the millions promised to the
first to develop a pro-level program, but you’ll save our art and better yet,
when next we meet, I’ll buy you a drink to celebrate!
Celmer 1d is a technical writer in Garner, North Carolina.
Text material published in the AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL may be
reproduced by any recipient: please credit the AGEJ as the source.
Juha Nieminen
Go being not "solved" by mundane machines using mundane brute force
not only adds mystery to the game itself, but also allows mystery
players of the game, especially in the age of the internet.
We all know the mystery internet player called "sai" in the Hikaru
no Go manga/anime. This is not far-fetched because it can happen in
real life too. There have been mysterious superstrong players in go
servers, nobody knows who he is and everyone speculates who he might
be. If I'm not completely mistaken, one such mystery player in IGS
turned to be Korean pro Jimmy Cha 4 dan. In KGS there has been this
player nicknamed tartrate for a while who defeated even the known
professionals regular to the server, and AFAIK nobody still knows
who he is.
The thing is, if someone shows incredible strength at Go, he really
is incredibly strong at Go. There's no way to cheat.
Not so in chess. If in a chess server there's an undefeated player
who always wins everyone and nobody knows who he is, everybody will
just think he is some kid cheating with the aid of a computer chess
program. And everybody will most probably be right. There's no
mystery, there's no excitement. It's just way too easy to cheat and
there's nothing that can be done about that.
It will indeed be a sad day if computer go achieves pro strength.
Yet another game will be ruined and reduced to a mundane number
crunching program, yet another game which can be cheated by people
who know nothing about the game nor its values. It's like a highly
trained samurai with tens of years of experience against a nobody
with a gun. There's no honor. Skill destroyed by a mundane machine.
Frank de Groot
> with a gun. There's no honor. Skill destroyed by a mundane machine.
Not true.
First of all, there is no difference between the skill of a machine and the
skill of a human.
Both are machines.
Secondly, the skill needed to program a computer to play chess at the
grandmaster level is much greater than the skill needed to become a
grandmaster.
Therefore, a computer that defeats the Go world champion is nothing more
than a testimony to its programmers' superior skillfullness over the Go
champion's skillfullness.
Denis Feldmann
> "Juha Nieminen" <nos...@thanks.invalid> wrote
>
>> with a gun. There's no honor. Skill destroyed by a mundane machine.
>
> Not true.
>
> First of all, there is no difference between the skill of a machine and the
> skill of a human.
> Both are machines.
>
> Secondly, the skill needed to program a computer to play chess at the
> grandmaster level is much greater than the skill needed to become a
> grandmaster.
<AnalogyOn> So the skill needed to program a computer to factorize
ten-digits number at the Inaudi level is much greater than the skill
needed to become a lightning calculator ? </AnalogyOn>
> Therefore, a computer that defeats the Go world champion is nothing more
> than a testimony to its programmers' superior skillfullness over the Go
> champion's skillfullness.
At chess, this is simply wrong. At Go, who knows? It is as futile to
speak of that at the moment that to speculate of what will happen when
computers will be smarter (and wiser) than us...
>
>
gaga
You need not be smart or wiser to win but you need play well. OTOH
machines stupid as they are already give guidance to people - see all
these 'great navigators' who are nothing without their navigation
systems. What I wanted to say is that although the machines exist and
will be better over time it is an ultimate challenge to defeat our own
weakness that drives progress and makes us play. Some of us only play to
win and for them win means the result of the game in which they have
more than the other player. For others the real win is within - if I
enjoyed the game, I showed skill, I observed skill, I analyzed and I
sweated fear although I thought I knew etc. I won but not because I had
more points at the end. The actual result is just one factor in a long
joy - sometimes it is better to lose to win later or in another
'corner'. Of course part of respect for it disappears together with
people that lose respect for the game and leave.
There are of course both types of people. I do not think one is better
than another but I know which one I belong to.
In my case computers or AI if one so will make not much of a difference
except maybe that I will always have an opponent ready for me. Or at
least as long as there are enough fossil and other fuels to run plants
that power the thing on...
Just my 0.02$
gaga
Denis Feldmann
> Denis Feldmann wrote:
>> Frank de Groot a écrit :
>>> "Juha Nieminen" <nos...@thanks.invalid> wrote
>>>
>>>> with a gun. There's no honor. Skill destroyed by a mundane machine.
>>>
>>> Not true.
>>>
>>> First of all, there is no difference between the skill of a machine
>>> and the skill of a human.
>>> Both are machines.
>>>
>>> Secondly, the skill needed to program a computer to play chess at the
>>> grandmaster level is much greater than the skill needed to become a
>>> grandmaster.
>>
>> <AnalogyOn> So the skill needed to program a computer to factorize
>> ten-digits number at the Inaudi level is much greater than the skill
>> needed to become a lightning calculator ? </AnalogyOn>
>>
>>> Therefore, a computer that defeats the Go world champion is nothing
>>> more than a testimony to its programmers' superior skillfullness over
>>> the Go champion's skillfullness.
>>
>> At chess, this is simply wrong. At Go, who knows? It is as futile to
>> speak of that at the moment that to speculate of what will happen when
>> computers will be smarter (and wiser) than us...
>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
> You need not be smart or wiser to win but you need play well.
Thanks a lot for replying so precisely to the point I was trying to
made. I should have said "to speculate of what will happen when
our lifepan will be in the thousands of years", so you could have
answered "ou need not be long-lived to win but you need play well".
Frank de Groot
>> Therefore, a computer that defeats the Go world champion is nothing more
>> than a testimony to its programmers' superior skillfullness over the Go
>> champion's skillfullness.
>
> At chess, this is simply wrong.
Anyone can blabber w/o supplying arguments.
The facts speak for themselves: there are orders of magnitudes more masters
and grandmasters than programmers who can defeat them with their software.
And that is not for lack of trying.
<AnalogyOn> So the skill needed to program a computer to factorize
ten-digits number at the Inaudi level is much greater than the skill
needed to become a lightning calculator ? </AnalogyOn>
Your scriptkiddie-like fascination with XML might have contributed to the
fact that in spite of having burnt through a lot of taxpayers' money, you
did not succeed in making a Go program..
Michael Alford
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> World Go News from the American Go Association
> July 26, 2007; Volume 8, #56
>
> [ ... ]
>
> SAVING GO: A Modest Proposal to Programmers (Stop!)
> By Paul Celmer
Laughed so hard I cried when I read this article in the e-journal
yesterday. There's nothing to fear re puters learning Go and reducing
it to number crunching. While I'm not a programmer, I subscribe to the
computer Go newsletter and find the discussions among the various Go
engine programmers quite interesting. They all seem to be convinced that
the MC\UCT scheme is capable (given time) of playing "perfect" Go, they
claim that this have been "proven". What amuses me is most of them can't
play Go, they're trying to program an engine using rules sets. Many of
them are surprised to learn that not only are there several rules sets,
but that there are both area and territory scoring (the strong programs
all use area scoring, they cannot use territory scoring). While Gelly's
program may play 9x9 at AGA dan level (it has one win [1] at 9x9 over, I
believe, Feng Yun), they all freely admit that 19x19 is a long way and
long time off. It seems that this is not from want of hardware, today's
machines are more than fast enough, the problem lies in the algorithms
currently developed, they simply aren't good enough. There was an
article recently about the number of playouts per move, and no increase
in strength was found in increasing the playouts from one million to two
million per move. And while Donninger (the author of Hydra) makes a
valid point about interest in society and throwing money at the problem,
I believe computers aren't capable of the kind of thought processes
necessary to play Go. It strikes me as absurd, really, for anyone that
can't play Go at a very high level (say amateur 4d on IGS) to even
attempt a program.
Even now, with Gelly's program playing 9x9 at AGA dan level there are
discussions in the newsletter about how to recognize an eye. Today's
programs can't even manage a capture on the first line via a series of
throw-ins to create dame-zumari for the connection. We are a very long
way from having a Go engine that can really play. Perhaps Donninger is
correct, if Go programming had resources available to it like Deep Blue
and Polaris had, maybe ...
Michael
Frank de Groot
> Laughed so hard I cried when I read this article in the e-journal
> yesterday. There's nothing to fear re puters learning Go and reducing it
> to number crunching. While I'm not a programmer, I subscribe to the
> computer Go newsletter and find the discussions among the various Go
> engine programmers quite interesting. They all seem to be convinced that
> the MC\UCT scheme is capable (given time) of playing "perfect" Go, they
> claim that this have been "proven".
Indeed sad to see how nobody there has any original ideas.
Someone dusts off an old idea, gets better results than a basket of
heuristics, and every single one of the crowd drops whatever they've been
doing and follows the leader.
> What amuses me is most of them can't play Go,
That's irrelevant, though.
Neither do I need to have wings and able to fly myself when I build an
airplane or a space rocket.
You do not use arguments. Your "arguments" are emotional outbursts and have
no value except -demagocical.
> they're trying to program an engine using rules sets.
Should work just fine.
> Many of them are surprised to learn that not only are there several rules
> sets, but that there are both area and territory scoring (the strong
> programs all use area scoring, they cannot use territory scoring).
If any is surprised, then still it's irrelevant.
Nice that non-programmers know a bit more about some trivial, obscure
details, but those details have no impact on the complexity of comp. Go.
> While Gelly's program may play 9x9 at AGA dan level (it has one win [1] at
> 9x9 over, I believe, Feng Yun), they all freely admit that 19x19 is a long
> way and long time off. It seems that this is not from want of hardware,
> today's machines are more than fast enough,
Says who? You as a non-programmer?
To simulate 1% of the human brain, a computer would be needed that's many
billions of times faster than the fastest clusters now used to test Go
programs on. The speed of current PC's is hopelessly low, in fact there
isn't much you can do with them apart from some crude shoot-em-ups. Just
about anything non-trivial requires gigantic number crunching capability.
BTW, the problem is not the state of the art of current hardware, but the
fact that PC's still suffer from the von-Neumann bottleneck.
> I believe computers aren't capable of the kind of thought processes
> necessary to play Go.
Unfounded, uninformed, elitist POV.
The thought processes needed to play Chess are very well emulated in a
computer, and the thought processes to play Go are not fundamentally
different.
> It strikes me as absurd, really, for anyone that can't play Go at a very
> high level (say amateur 4d on IGS) to even attempt a program.
I bet you 100 g Au that the Go program that will beat the world champion
will be made by a < 4d ama.
> Even now, with Gelly's program playing 9x9 at AGA dan level there are
> discussions in the newsletter about how to recognize an eye.
Because that's a very important feature of a Go algo's. Recognizing an eye
quickly is fundamental.
When that's and many other fundamental issues are solved, you can move to
the next stage.
It only shows that those dudes know what's important, and that you are
clueless as to what it takes to make a Go program.
> Today's programs can't even manage a capture on the first line via a
> series of throw-ins to create dame-zumari for the connection.
So what?
> We are a very long way from having a Go engine that can really play.
So what?
Feeling threatened?
It's not much of a skill - anyone with an IQ above 80 can learn it.
You need to worry about your mental sanity when you derive your feeling of
self-worth from the fact that you're a trained monkey.
Chess, Go - all just entertainment, games.
Go is not much different from Tic Tac Toe, really.
Don't take yourself so serious, as a player.
-
I halfway hoped that we might be able to -discuss- his article:
> SAVING GO: A Modest Proposal to Programmers (Stop!)
> By Paul Celmer
>
> Now that checkers has been crushed and a computer has defeated
> the world champion at chess, will go be the last great game to fall to
> the robots? Let’s hope not. I hereby call upon any programmer working
> on computer go to stop now.
>
> Why? First of all, computer go would devalue human achievement.
Mr. Celmer asserts that the only "achievement" at such games of
cognitive skill consists of capability to win. In practice the strongest
players are expected to win only about half the time... Is there no
intrinsic achievement at developing one's cognitive perceptual skill ?
Being or not being a chess/checkers/go player: this is not value-free.
What difference does it make to a player what any of the opponents do ?
Why that hatred toward robots ?
> ... Gary Kasparov, arguably one of the greatest chess players in history,
> retired from the game that allowed his brilliance to sparkle and is now
> reduced to seeking worthy challenges in politics. I don’t think even the
> most cold hearted of us would want our spectacular champion go players
> to suffer such a fate.
Those who devalue politics deserve the government that they get.
Ignore politics and they will ignore nation and culture. They would
ignore popular sovereignty perogatives of a people to chart destiny.
Is there something wrong with a retired player who continues teaching?
> Computer go would also mar the beauty of our game. Part of beauty is
> mystery, and if go is ever "solved," it too, would be reduced to mindless
> tic-tac-toe.
Mr. Celmer assumes that a computer go solution reduces its mystery.
Instead, recent statements from Martin Mueller, also from AGA Journal:
MUELLER ON COMPUTER GO’S "REVOLUTIONARY" ADVANCES:
"The last 12 months have been the most exciting ever in computer
go," computer scientist Martin Mueller told a packed lecture hall
Sunday night at the European Go Congress. Hundreds of go
players stayed after five grueling rounds in the EGC Weekend
Tournament to hear Mueller - a professor at the University of
Alberta -- discuss the latest "revolutionary" advances in
computer go. Quickly reviewing fifty years of computer go
research, Mueller explained that "old school" go-playing
programs like Goliath and Hand Talk focused on programming
in go knowledge, whereas the new approaches -- the Monte
Carlo method and UCT - are search-intensive and use random
move searches instead of deterministic algorithms. Programs
using this approach - GnuGo and MoGo are leading examples -
"are almost perfect on 7x7 and are as strong as an amateur 3-dan
on 9x9," said Mueller. Perhaps no go player has ever been as
happy as Mueller was to lose a game when GnuGo beat him in
December 2006. Last year, Guo Juan 5P played a series
against CrazyStone on a 7x7 board in which the program always
won or got a jigo when playing white against the pro; this year
MoGo scored 9 wins and 5 losses against Guo Juan on a 9x9
board. "Monte Carlo programs play many strange move,"
conceded Mueller, "but they’re very good at winning. All without
a single line of programming." Such programs run as many as
100,000 simulations - or 1 million moves per second -- for each
move in a 9x9 game. "Why does it work so well?" Mueller
asked. "There’s no theoretical explanation, although we
have excellent empirical results." In other words, a
broadly grinning Mueller said, "We don’t really know."
Although Mueller said that many researchers now think it’s "just
a matter of time before there’s a professional-level go-playing
program," he think it may be farther off. "My own feeling is that
we need one or two more good ideas, but where they’ll come
from I don’t know."
A strong performance program with "no theoretical explanation" is
hardly one which dispells any mysteries surrounding Go. If there's no
indication from where the "one or two more good ideas" will come then
the remaining mysteries are NOT being "reduced to mindless tic-tac-toe."
> It would be an amazing technical achievement to develop the software
> and hardware to create an entire orchestra of symphony-playing robots.
Surely a sensitive issue with young musicians who detest being
treated like robots. Wasn't the choice of music also partly to blame?
Symphony composers who think nothing of forcing woodwind, brass
and percussion players to count out long minutes of empty measures ?
> But shouldn’t some things -- music, art, and poetry, just to think of a few --
> remain our own human domain? The go board should be preserved as
> a place where humanity can dream free.
A bit awkward, ironic, even oxymoronic: free dreaming is not
exactly confined to a grid or matrix. Unfortunately, the premise of Go
was not so much "freedom" as "control and domination." Investigations
of how stones may fit together patterned by the feature of win and loss.
That's a rather specific aim, not necessary consonant with free dreaming.
> I am no anti-technology Luddite. I embrace useful advances in science
> and technology, have owned a computer since the dawn of the PC age
> and of course I have a DVD player and a cellphone. I have no grudge
> against programmers and think we actually need even more in many areas
> including alternative energy development and medical diagnostic software.
> But we just don’t need a computer go program that can beat humans.
I'm not persuaded by the "argument" advanced by Mr. Celmer. At
present human beings are behaving rather badly on Spaceship Earth.
However much we may hate the prospect of behavioral modification
the fact of the human species drifting thoughtlessly toward catastrophe
is not a pleasant prospect. I don't propose that gaming is a substitute
for thought, however in order to obtain a level of thinking prerequisite
for nation, culture, popular sovereignty, and environmentalism, maybe
gaming is a component. We acknowledge its utility in development of
fairness ideas and balanced character. In order to "save the world" we
may need to put a stop on human population expansion. Without some
surrogate activity in its place what would Mr. Celmer have humans do ?
Another game is played between human programmer and machine.
What is possible for human minds to understand about machine capability?
What is possible for electrical engineers who design intricate circuits?
The governing factor isn't so much what we WANT to do but what CAN be
done: if we don't accomplish something then surely someone else will.
You can legislate against computer viruses but you won't eliminate them.
Apparently we "needed" computer chess and checkers programs to
beat humans, because these exist. Our humanity was not been destroyed
by that and people did not quit playing Chess. We mignt not require a
trillion digits of PI, yet why have any strong opinion on the matter? At
the same time it is apparent that overwhelming computer chess/checkers
programs have not resulted in salvation of the world because humanity
expands its numbers unchecked and anything except "World Peace"
continues to be labelled as politically incorrect.
> No good can come from having our noble game and all its beautiful
> traditions reduced to digital bits. Just because something can be done
> does not mean it should be done.
No, the point concerns the fact that because something can be done
it will be done eventually, even if not by us. One cannot assume that
an opponent on the faceless internet will never be some robot program.
> Who remembers the names of those who programmed the computer
> that defeated Kasparov?
Was this about personal satisfaction or lust for fame and power?
Many programmers prefer to work in quiet isolation, even if they never
see the light of day, and the light of day never sees them. Everybody
cannot have a big name, of course, nor does everybody wish to.
> Programmers, turn your praiseworthy ingenuity and drive towards another
> mountain and leave go to stand unconquered, gleaming and majestic.
False pride as the consequence of isolationism and neglect...
> You will give up the chance to win the millions promised to the first
> to develop a pro-level program, but you’ll save our art and better yet,
> when next we meet, I’ll buy you a drink to celebrate!
Ahh, instead his goal was inebriation in sloshy suds. A satire!
- regards
- jb
------------------------------------------------------------
From: bodhi <The_Psyched...@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.impeach.bush,
alt.conspiracy,alt.current-events.wtc-explosion
Subject: Economic Collapse ..... War with Iran .....Looming Dictatorship
in the U.S. ..... What can YOU do???
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:45:24 -0700
You can start by writing your memoirs ........
Me?? ..... I'm changing my name to "Ellis Dee" (say it out loud) and
moving to Prague for the duration and spending the rest of my life
working on the Infinite Monkey Theorem:
"If you have enough monkeys
banging randomly on typewriters,
they will eventually type the works
of William Shakespeare."
However, the odds against monkeys typing Shakespeare by chance are
astronomical. With about 80 typewriter keys, the chance of getting the
first letter right is about 80 to 1. The chance of getting 2 letters
right is 1 in 80×80, or 6400 to 1. Each letter increases the odds
against by 80 times. The odds of getting 10 letters right is about 11
million million million to1.
....And that's not acccounting for carriage returns, capital letters,
or changing the paper.
The infinite monkey theorem was actually tested on a small scale once.
In 2003, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth
MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to
leave a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Sulawesi Crested
Macaques in Paignton Zoo in Devon in England for a month; not only did
the monkeys produce nothing but five pages consisting largely of the
letter S, they started by attacking the keyboard with a stone, and
continued by urinating and defecating on it.
http://encyclopedia.topliterature.com/?title=Infinite_monkey_theorem
But that was yesterday. Leave it to the R.S. - "Really Smart" computer
hackers to figger it all out:
http://techsupt.winbatch.com/webcgi/webbatch.exe?techsupt/nffunsupt.w..
.
Network Working Group S. Christey
Request for Comments: 2795 MonkeySeeDoo, Inc.
Category: Informational 1 April 2006
The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS)
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This memo describes a protocol suite which supports an infinite number
of monkeys that sit at an infinite number of typewriters in order to
determine when they have either produced the entire works of William
Shakespeare or a good television show. The suite includes
communications and control protocols for monkeys and the organizations
that interact with them.
1. Introduction
It has been posited that if an infinite number of monkeys sit at an
infinite number of typewriters and randomly press keys, they will
eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. But if such a
feat is accomplished, how would anybody be able to know? And what if
the monkey has flawlessly translated Shakespeare's works into
Esperanto? How could one build a system that obtains these works
while addressing the basic needs of monkeys, such as sleep and food?
Nobody has addressed the practical implications of these important
questions.
In addition, it would be a waste of resources if such a sizable effort
only focused on Shakespeare. With an infinite number of monkeys at
work, it is also equally likely that a monkey could produce a document
that describes how to end world poverty, cure disease, or most
importantly, write a good situation comedy for television. Such an
environment would be ripe for innovation and, with the proper
technical
design, could be effectively utilized to "make the world a whole lot
brighter".
The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS) is an experimental set of
protocols that specifies how monkey transcripts may be collected,
transferred, and reviewed for either historical accuracy (in the case
of Shakespearean works) or innovation (in the case of new works). It
also provides a basic communications framework for performing normal
monkey maintenance.
2. Objects in the Suite
There are four primary entities that communicate within an IMPS
network. Groups of monkeys are physically located in Zone Operations
Organizations (ZOOs). The ZOOs maintain the monkeys and their
equipment, obtain transcripts from the monkeys' typewriters, and
interact with other entities who evaluate the transcripts.
A SIMIAN (Semi-Integrated, Monkey-Interfacing Anthropomorphic Node) is
a device that is physically attached to the monkey. It provides the
communications interface between a monkey and its ZOO. It is
effectively a translator for the monkey. It sends status reports and
resource requests to the ZOO using human language phrases, and
responds to ZOO requests on behalf of the monkey.
The SIMIAN uses the Cross-Habitat Idiomatic Message Protocol (CHIMP)
to communicate with the ZOO. The ZOO uses the Knowledgeable and
Efficient Emulation Protocol for Ecosystem Resources (KEEPER) to
interact with the SIMIAN.
The ZOO obtains typewriter transcripts from the SIMIAN, which is
responsible for converting the monkey's typed text into an electronic
format if non-digital typewriters are used. The ZOO may then forward
the transcripts to one or more entities who review the transcript's
contents. IMPS defines two such reviewer protocols, although others
could be added.
For Shakespearean works, as well as any other classic literature that
has already been published, the ZOO forwards the transcript to a BARD
(Big Annex of Reference Documents). The BARD determines if a
transcript matches one or more documents in its annex. The ZOO sends
the transcript to a BARD using the Inter-Annex Message Broadcasting
Protocol for Evaluating Neoclassical Transcripts (IAMB-PENT). The
transcripts are considered Neoclassical because (a) they are
transferred in electronic media instead of the original paper medium,
and (b) the word "classical" does not begin with the letter N.
For new and potentially innovative works, the ZOO submits a transcript
to a CRITIC (Collective Reviewer's Innovative Transcript Integration
Center). The CRITIC determines if a transcript is sufficiently
innovative to be published. The ZOO uses the Protocol for Assessment
of Novelty (PAN) to communicate with the CRITIC. The process of using
PAN to send a transcript to a CRITIC is sometimes referred to as
foreshadowing.
A diagram of IMPS concepts is provided below. Non-technical readers
such as mid-level managers, marketing personnel, and liberal arts
majors are encouraged to skip the next two sections. The rest of
this document assumes that senior management has already stopped
reading.
-+-+-+-+-+- CHIMP -+-+-+-+-+-
| SIMIAN/ | ----------> * *
| MONKEY | * ZOO *
| | <---------- * *
-+-+-+-+-+- KEEPER -+-+-+-+-+-
/ \
/ \
IAMB-PENT / \ PAN
/ \
V V
-+-+-+-+-+- -+-+-+-+-+-
* * * *
* BARD * * CRITIC *
* * * *
-+-+-+-+-+- -+-+-+-+-+-
3. IMPS Packet Structure
All IMPS protocols must utilize the following packet structure.
|-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--|
|Version | Seq # | Protocol # | Reserved | Size |
|-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--|
| Source | Destination |
|-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--|
| Data | Padding |
|-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--|
The Version, Sequence Number, Protocol Number, and Reserved fields are
32 bit unsigned integers. For IMPS version 1.0, the Version must be
1. Reserved must be 0 and will always be 0 in future uses. It is
included because every other protocol specification includes a "future
use" reserved field which never, ever changes and is therefore a waste
of bandwidth and memory. [6] [7] [8].
The Source and Destination are identifiers for the IMPS objects that
are communicating. They are represented using Infinite TAGs (see next
section).
The Data section contains data which is of arbitrary length.
The Size field records the size of the entire packet using Infinite
TAG
encoding.
The end of the packet may contain extra padding, between 0 and 7 bits,
to ensure that the size of packet is rounded out to the next byte.
4. Infinite Threshold Accounting Gadget (I-TAG) Encoding
Each SIMIAN requires a unique identifier within IMPS. This section
describes design considerations for the IMPS identifier, referred to
as
an Infinite Threshold Accounting Gadget (I-TAG). The I-TAG can
represent numbers of any size.
To uniquely identify each SIMIAN, a system is required that is capable
of representing an infinite number of identifiers. The set of all
integers can be used as a compact representation. However, all
existing protocols inherently limit the number of available integers
by
specifying a maximum number of bytes to be used for an integer. This
approach cannot work well in an IMPS network with an infinite number
of monkeys to manage.
Practically speaking, one could select a byte size which could
represent an integer that is greater than the number of atoms in the
known universe. There are several limitations to this approach,
however: (a) it would needlessly exclude IMPS implementations that may
utilize sub-atomic monkeys and/or multiple universes; (b) there is not
a consensus as to how many atoms there are in this universe; and (c)
while the number is extremely large, it still falls pitifully short of
infinity. Since any entity that fully implements IMPS is probably
very, very good at handling infinite numbers, IMPS must ensure that it
can represent them.
Netstrings, i.e. strings which encode their own size, were considered.
However, netstrings have not been accepted as a standard, and they do
not scale to infinity, "[Greater than] 999999999 bytes is bad." Well
put.
A scheme for identifying arbitrary dates was also considered for
implementation. While it solves the Y10K problem and does scale to
infinity, its ASCII representation wastes memory by a factor greater
than 8. While this may not seem important in an environment that has
enough resources to support an infinite number of monkeys, it is
inelegant for the purpose of monkey identification. It is also CPU
intensive to convert such a representation to a binary number (at
least
based on the author's implementation, which was written in a
combination of LISP, Perl, and Java). The algorithm is complicated
and
could lead to incorrect implementations. Finally, the author of this
document sort of forgot about that RFC until it was too late to
include
it properly, and was already emotionally attached to the I- TAG idea
anyway. It should be noted, however, that if a monkey had typed this
particular section and it was submitted to a CRITIC, it would probably
receive a PAN rejection code signifying the reinvention of the wheel.
Since there is no acceptable representation for I-TAGs available, one
is defined below.
An I-TAG is divided into three sections:
|-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-|-+-+-+-+-+-+-|-+-+-+-+-+-+|
| META-SIZE | SIZE | ID |
|-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-|-+-+-+-+-+-+-|-+-+-+-+-+-+|
SIZE specifies how many bytes are used to represent the ID, which is
an
arbitrary integer. META-SIZE specifies an upper limit on how many
bits
are used to represent SIZE.
META-SIZE is an arbitrary length sequence of N '1' bits terminated by
a
'0' bit, i.e. it has the form:
11111...1110
where N is the smallest number such that 2^N exceeds the number of
bits required to represent the number of bytes that are necessary to
store the ID (i.e., SIZE).
The SIZE is then encoded using N bits, ordered from the most
significant bit to the least significant bit.
Finally, the ID is encoded using SIZE bytes.
This representation, while clunky, makes efficient use of memory and
is
scalable to infinity. For any number X which is less than 2^N (for
any
N), a maximum of (N + log(N) + log(log(N)))/8 bytes is necessary to
represent X. The math could be slightly incorrect, but it sounds
right.
A remarkable, elegant little C function was written to implement I-
TAG
processing, but it has too many lines of code to include in this
margin.
5. KEEPER Specification
Following is a description of the Knowledgeable and Efficient
Emulation
Protocol for Ecosystem Resources (KEEPER), which the ZOO uses to
communicate with the SIMIAN. The IMPS protocol number for KEEPER is
1.
KEEPER is a connectionless protocol. The ZOO sends a request to the
SIMIAN using a single IMPS packet. The SIMIAN sends a response back
to the ZOO with another IMPS packet. The data portion of the packet
is of the following form:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Version | Type | Message ID | Message Code |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Version, Type, Message ID, and Message are all 16-bit integers.
Version = the version of KEEPER being used (in this document, the
version is 1)
Type = the type of message being sent. '0' is a request; '1' is a
response
Message ID = a unique identifier to distinguish different messages
Message Code = the specific message being sent
When a ZOO sends a KEEPER request, the SIMIAN must send a KEEPER
response which uses the same Message ID as the original request.
5.1 KEEPER Message Request Codes (ZOO-to-SIMIAN)
CODE NAME DESCRIPTION
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| 0 | RESERVED | Reserved |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| 1 | STATUS | Determine status of monkey |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| 2 | HEARTBEAT| Check to see if monkey has a heartbeat |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| 3 | WAKEUP | Wake up monkey |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| 4 | TYPE | Make sure monkey is typing |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| 5 | FASTER | Monkey must type faster |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| 6 |TRANSCRIPT| Send transcript |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| 7 | STOP | Stop all monkey business |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|8-512 | FUTURE | Reserved for future use |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| 513+ | USER | User defined |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
5.2 KEEPER Message Response Codes (SIMIAN-to-ZOO)
CODE NAME DESCRIPTION
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 0 | RESERVED | Reserved |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1 | ASLEEP | Status: Monkey is asleep |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2 | GONE | Status: Monkey is not at typewriter |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 3 |DISTRACTED| Status: Monkey is distracted (not typing) |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 4 |NORESPONSE| Status: Monkey is not responding |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 5 | ALIVE | Status: Monkey is alive |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 6 | DEAD | Status: Monkey is dead |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 7 | ACCEPT | Monkey accepts request |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 8 | REFUSE | Monkey refuses request |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 9-512| FUTURE | Reserved for future use |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 513+ | USER | User defined |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
5.3 Requirements for KEEPER Request and Response Codes
Below are the requirements for request and response codes within
KEEPER.
1. A SIMIAN must respond to a STATUS request with an ALIVE, DEAD,
ASLEEP, GONE, DISTRACTED, or NORESPONSE code.
2. A SIMIAN must respond to a HEARTBEAT request with an ALIVE or DEAD
code. SIMIAN implementors must be careful when checking the heartbeat
of very relaxed monkeys who practice transcendental meditation or
yoga, as they may appear DEAD even if they are still alive.
3. A SIMIAN must respond to a STOP request with a NORESPONSE, ALIVE,
DEAD, or GONE code. How a SIMIAN stops the monkey is implementation-
specific. However, the SIMIAN should preserve the
monkey's ALIVE status to protect the ZOO from being shut down by
authorities or animal rights groups. If the monkey is present but the
SIMIAN interface is unable to verify whether the monkey is ALIVE
or DEAD, then it must use a NORESPONSE.
4. A SIMIAN should respond to a TYPE or FASTER request with an ACCEPT
code, especially if there are deadlines. The only other allowed
responses are REFUSE, ASLEEP, GONE, NORESPONSE, or DEAD. This
protocol does not define what actions should be taken if a SIMIAN
responds with REFUSE, although a BRIBE_BANANA command may be added in
future versions.
5. A SIMIAN must respond to a WAKEUP request with ACCEPT, REFUSE,
GONE, NORESPONSE, or DEAD.
6. A SIMIAN must respond to a TRANSCRIPT request by establishing a
CHIMP session to send the transcript to the ZOO.
5.4 Example ZOO-to-SIMIAN Exchanges using KEEPER
Assume a ZOO (SanDiego) must interact with a monkey named BoBo. Using
KEEPER, SanDiego would interface with BoBo's SIMIAN (BoBoSIM). The
following exchange might take place if BoBo begins to evolve
self-awareness and independence.
SanDiego> STATUS
BoBoSIM> DISTRACTED
SanDiego> TYPE
BoBoSIM> REFUSE
SanDiego> TYPE
BoBoSIM> REFUSE
SanDiego> TYPE
BoBoSIM> GONE
The following exchange might take place early in the morning, if BoBo
was being poorly maintained and was working at its typewriter very
late
the night before.
SanDiego> WAKEUP
BoBoSIM> NORESPONSE
SanDiego> WAKEUP
BoBoSIM> NORESPONSE
SanDiego> WAKEUP
BoBoSIM> NORESPONSE
SanDiego> HEARTBEAT
BoBoSIM> DEAD
SanDiego> TRANSCRIPT
6. CHIMP Specification
Following is a description of the Cross-Habitat Idiomatic Message
Protocol (CHIMP), which the SIMIAN uses to communicate with the ZOO.
The IMPS protocol number for CHIMP is 2.
CHIMP is a connection-oriented protocol. A SIMIAN (the "client")
sends
a series of requests to the ZOO (the "server"), which sends replies
back to the SIMIAN.
6.1. SIMIAN Client Requests
SEND <resource>
The SIMIAN is requesting a specific resource. The resource may be
FOOD, WATER, MEDICINE, VETERINARIAN, or TECHNICIAN. The SIMIAN makes
requests for FOOD or WATER by interpreting the monkey's behavior and
environment, e.g. its food dish. It requests MEDICINE or VETERINARIAN
if it observes that the monkey's health is declining in any way, e.g.
carpal tunnel syndrome or sore buttocks. How the SIMIAN determines
health is implementation-specific. In cases where the SIMIAN itself
may be malfunctioning, it may request a TECHNICIAN.
REPLACE <item>
The ZOO must replace an item that is used by the monkey during typing
activities. The item to be replaced may be TYPEWRITER, PAPER, RIBBON,
CHAIR, TABLE, or MONKEY.
CLEAN <item>
The SIMIAN is requesting that the ZOO must clean an item. The item
may be CHAIR, TABLE, or MONKEY. How the ZOO cleans the item is
implementation-specific. This command is identified in the protocol
because it has been theorized that if an infinite number of monkeys
sit
at an infinite number of typewriters, the smell would be unbearable.
If
this theory is proven true, then CLEAN may become the most critical
command in the entire protocol suite.
NOTIFY <status>
The SIMIAN notifies the ZOO of the monkey's status. The status may be
any status as defined in the KEEPER protocol, i.e. ASLEEP, GONE,
DISTRACTED, NORESPONSE, ALIVE, or DEAD.
TRANSCRIPT <size>
The SIMIAN notifies the ZOO of a new transcript from the monkey.
The number of characters in the transcript is specified in the size
parameter.
BYE
The SIMIAN is terminating the connection.
6.2. ZOO Server Responses
HELO <free text>
Upon initial connection, the ZOO must send a HELO reply.
ACCEPT
The ZOO will fulfill the SIMIAN's request.
DELAY
The ZOO will fulfill the SIMIAN's request at a later time.
REFUSE
The ZOO refuses to fulfill the SIMIAN's request.
RECEIVED
The ZOO has received the full text of a transcript that has been
submitted by the SIMIAN.
6.3 Example SIMIAN-to-ZOO Session using CHIMP
Assume a monkey BoBo with a SIMIAN interface named BoBoSIM, and a ZOO
named SanDiego. Once the BoBoSIM client has established a connection
to the SanDiego server, the following session might take place.
SanDiego> HELO CHIMP version 1.0 4/1/2000
BoBoSIM> REPLACE PAPER
SanDiego> ACCEPT
BoBoSIM> TRANSCRIPT 87
SanDiego> ACCEPT
BoBoSIM> xvkxvn i hate Binky xFnk , feEL hungry and sIck sbNf
BoBoSIM> so so sad sDNfkodgv .,n., ,HELP MEEEEEEEEE cv.Cvn l
SanDiego> RECEIVED
BoBoSIM> SEND FOOD
SanDiego> ACCEPT
BoBoSIM> SEND MEDICINE
SanDiego> DELAY
BoBoSIM> SEND VETERINARIAN
SanDiego> REFUSE
BoBoSIM> SEND VETERINARIAN
SanDiego> REFUSE
BoBoSIM> NOTIFY NORESPONSE
SanDiego> ACCEPT
BoBoSIM> NOTIFY DEAD
SanDiego> ACCEPT
BoBoSIM> REPLACE MONKEY
SanDiego> ACCEPT
7. IAMB-PENT Specification
Following is a description of the Inter-Annex Message Broadcasting
Protocol for Evaluating Neoclassical Transcripts (IAMB-PENT), which a
ZOO uses to send transcripts to a BARD. The IMPS protocol number is
5.
IAMB-PENT is a connection-oriented protocol. A ZOO (the "client")
sends a transcript phrases to the BARD (the "server"), which evaluates
the transcript and notifies the ZOO if the transcript matches all of a
classical work or a portion thereof.
7.1. ZOO Client Requests
RECEIVETH <transcript name>
The ZOO notifies the BARD of a new transcript to be evaluated.
The name of the transcript is provided.
ANON <size>
The ZOO notifies the BARD that a transcript of the given size is to be
provided soon. The text of the transcript is then sent.
ABORTETH <A2> <U3> <A3> <U4> <A4> <U5> <A5>
The ZOO notifies the BARD that it is about to close the connection.
The ZOO must specify a closing message. A2, A3, A4, and A5 must be
accented syllables. U3, U4, and U5 must not be accented.
7.2 BARD Responses
HARK <U1> <A2> <U3> <A3> <U4> <A4> <U5> <A5>
When the ZOO establishes a connection, the BARD must send a HARK
command. A2, A3, A4, and A5 must be accented syllables. U1, U2, U3,
U4, and U5 must not be accented.
PRITHEE <A2> <U3> <A3> <U4> <A4> <U5> <A5>
When a ZOO uses a RECEIVETH command to specify a forthcoming
transcript, the BARD must respond with a PRITHEE. A2, A3, A4, and A5
must be accented syllables. U3, U4, and U5 must not be accented.
REGRETTETH <A2> <U3> <A3> <U4> <A4> <U5> <A5>
If the BARD does not have the transcript in its Annex, it uses the
REGRETTETH command to notify the ZOO. A2, A3, A4, and A5 must be
accented syllables. U3, U4, and U5 must not be accented.
ACCEPTETH <A2> <U3> <A3> <U4> <A4> <U5> <A5>
If the BARD has located the transcript in its Annex, it uses the
ACCEPTETH command to notify the ZOO. A2, A3, A4, and A5 must be
accented syllables. U3, U4, and U5 must not be accented.
7.3 Example ZOO-to-BARD Session using IAMB-PENT
This is a sample IAMB-PENT session in which a ZOO (SanDiego) sends a
transcript to a BARD (William).
William> HARK now, what light through yonder window breaks?
SanDiego> RECEIVETH TRANSCRIPT SanDiego.BoBo.17
William> PRITHEE thy monkey's wisdom poureth forth!
SanDiego> ANON 96
SanDiego> I must be cruel, only to be kind. Thus bad begins,
and worse remains in front.
William> REGRETTETH none hath writ thy words before
SanDiego> ABORTETH Fate may one day bless my zone
8. PAN Specification
Following is a description of the Protocol for Assessment of Novelty
(PAN). A ZOO uses PAN to send monkey transcripts for review by a
CRITIC. The IMPS protocol number for PAN is 10.
PAN is a connection-oriented protocol. A ZOO (the "unwashed masses")
sends a request to the CRITIC (the "all-powerful"), which sends a
response back to the ZOO.
8.1. ZOO Requests
COMPLIMENT <text>
The ZOO may say something nice to the CRITIC using the given text.
The CRITIC does not respond to the compliment within the protocol.
However, it is generally believed that the CRITIC is more likely to
accept a new transcript when a ZOO uses many compliments.
TRANSCRIPT <name> <size>
The ZOO notifies the CRITIC of a new transcript for review.
The name of the transcript, plus the number of characters, are
specified as parameters to this request. The text of the transcript
is
then sent.
THANKS
This is an indicator that a ZOO is about to terminate the connection.
8.2. CRITIC Responses
SIGH <insult>
When the ZOO establishes a connection, the CRITIC must respond with a
SIGH and an optional insult.
IMPRESS_ME
A CRITIC must respond with an IMPRESS_ME once a ZOO has made a
TRANSCRIPT request.
REJECT <code> REJECT 0 <text>
When a transcript has been received, the CRITIC must respond with a
REJECT and a code that indicates the reason for rejection. A table of
rejection codes is provided below. When the code is 0, the CRITIC may
respond using free text. A CRITIC may send a REJECT before it has
received or processed the full text of the transcript.
DONT_CALL_US_WE'LL_CALL_YOU_
The CRITIC makes this statement before terminating the connection.
GRUDGING_ACCEPTANCE
THIS RESPONSE IS NOT SUPPORTED IN THIS VERSION OF PAN. The Working
group for the Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (WIMPS) agreed that it is
highly unlikely that a CRITIC will ever use this response when a
REJECT is available. It is only included as an explanation to
implementors who do not fully understand how CRITICs work. In time,
it is possible that a CRITIC may evolve (in much the same way that a
monkey might). Should such a time ever come, the WIMPS may decide to
support this response in later versions of PAN.
8.3. Table of CRITIC Reject Codes
CODE DESCRIPTION
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | <Encrypted response following; see below>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 1 | "You're reinventing the wheel."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2 | "This will never, ever sell."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 3 | "Huh? I don't understand this at all."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 4 | "You forgot one little obscure reference from twenty years
| | ago that renders your whole idea null and void."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 5 | "Due to the number of submissions, we could not accept every
| | transcript."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 6 | "There aren't enough charts and graphs. Where is the color?"
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 7 | "I'm cranky and decided to take it out on you."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 8 | "This is not in within the scope of what we are looking for."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| 9 | "This is too derivative."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
|10 | "Your submission was received after the deadline. Try again
| | next year."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
If the CRITIC uses a reject code of 0, then the textual response must
use an encryption scheme that is selected by the CRITIC. Since the PAN
protocol does not specify how a ZOO may determine what scheme is being
used, the ZOO might not be able to understand the CRITIC's response.
8.4. Example ZOO-to-CRITIC Session using PAN
Below is a sample session from a ZOO (SanDiego) to a CRITIC
(NoBrainer).
NoBrainer> SIGH Abandon hope all who enter here
SanDiego> COMPLIMENT We love your work. Your words are like
SanDiego> COMPLIMENT jewels and you are always correct.
SanDiego> TRANSCRIPT RomeoAndJuliet.BoBo.763 251
NoBrainer> IMPRESS_ME
SanDiego> Two households, both alike in dignity,
SanDiego> In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
SanDiego> From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
SanDiego> Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
SanDiego> From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
SanDiego> A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
NoBrainer> REJECT 2 ("This will never, ever sell.")
SanDiego> THANKS
NoBrainer> DONT_CALL_US_WE'LL_CALL_YOU
9. Security Considerations
In accordance with the principles of the humane treatment of animals,
the design of IMPS specifically prohibits the CRITIC from contacting
the SIMIAN directly and hurting its feelings. BARDs and CRITICs are
also separated because of fundamental incompatibilities and design
flaws.
The security considerations for the rest of IMPS are similar to those
for the original Internet protocols. Specifically, IMPS refuses to
learn from the mistakes of the past and blithely repeats the same
errors without batting an eye. Spoofing and denial of service attacks
abound if untrusted entities gain access
to an IMPS network. Since all transmissions occur in cleartext
without
encryption, innovative works are subject to theft, which is not a
significant problem unless the network contains entities other than
CRITICs. The open nature of BARDs with respect to IAMB-PENT messages
allows a BARD to borrow heavily from transmitted works, but by design
BARDs are incapable of stealing transcripts outright.
The ZOO may be left open to exploitation by pseudo-SIMIANs from around
the world. A third party could interrupt communications between a ZOO
and a SIMIAN by flooding the SIMIAN with packets,
incrementing the message ID by 1 for each packet. More heinously, the
party could exploit the KEEPER protocol by sending a single STOP
request to each SIMIAN, thus causing a massive denial of service
throughout the ZOO. The party could also spoof a CHIMP request or
send false information such as a DEAD status, which could cause a ZOO
to attempt to replace a monkey that is still functioning properly.
In addition, if a ZOO repeatedly rejects a SIMIAN's requests
(especially those for FOOD, WATER, and VETERINARIAN), then the ZOO may
inadvertently cause its own denial of service with respect to that
particular SIMIAN. However, both KEEPER and CHIMP allow the ZOO to
detect this condition in a timely fashion via the NORESPONSE or DEAD
status codes.
All BARDs are inherently insecure because they face insurmountable
financial problems and low prioritization, which prevents them from
working reliably. In the rare cases when a BARD implementation
overcomes these obstacles, it is only successful for 15 minutes, and
reverts to being insecure immediately thereafter. Since a CRITIC
could
significantly reduce the success of a BARD with an appropriate PAN
response, this is one more reason why BARDs and CRITICs should always
be kept separate from each other.
It is expected that very few people will care about most
implementations of CRITIC, and CRITICs themselves are inherently
insecure. Therefore, security is not a priority for CRITICs. The
CRITIC may become the victim of a denial of service attack if too many
SIMIANs submit transcripts at the same time. In addition, one SIMIAN
may submit a non-innovative work by spoofing another SIMIAN (this is
referred to as the Plagiarism Problem). A CRITIC response can also be
spoofed, but since the only response supported in PAN version 1 is
REJECT, this is of little consequence. Care must be taken in future
versions if a GRUDGING_ACCEPTANCE response is allowed. Finally, a
transcript may be lost in transmission, and PAN does not provide a
mechanism for a ZOO to determine if this has happened. Future
versions of IMPS may be better suited to answer this fundamental
design problem:
if an innovative work is lost in transmission, can a CRITIC still PAN
it?
Based on the number of packet-level vulnerabilities discovered in
recent years, it is a foregone conclusion that some implementations
will behave extremely poorly when processing malformed IMPS packets
with incorrect padding or reserved bits.
Finally, no security considerations are made with respect to the fact
that over the course of infinite time, monkeys may evolve and discover
how to control their own SIMIAN interfaces and send false requests, or
to compose and submit their own transcripts. There are indications
that this may already be happening
---------------
namaste
bodhi
just one monkey typing.....
http://psychedelictourist.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------------------------
-
Juha Nieminen <nos...@thanks.invalid> wrote:
> Go being not "solved" by mundane machines using mundane brute
> force not only adds mystery to the game itself, but also allows mystery
> players of the game, especially in the age of the internet.
Seems unrelated: mystery problems vs. mystery players.
> We all know the mystery internet player called "sai" in the Hikaru
> no Go manga/anime.
We don't. You're speaking of a fictional character who is a ghost.
> It will indeed be a sad day if computer go achieves pro strength.
> Yet another game will be ruined and reduced to a mundane number
> crunching program, yet another game which can be cheated by people
> who know nothing about the game nor its values. It's like a highly
> trained samurai with tens of years of experience against a nobody
> with a gun. There's no honor. Skill destroyed by a mundane machine.
Well, this is a crucial point: owing to kids with chess programs
what has been "destroyed" in chess is the ability to hold any internet
tournaments. Chess has again been revived as a face-to-face battle.
I suppose that Go Clubs would also enjoy resurgence so that human
beings will be assurred that they are playing actual human players.
-----------------------------------------------------
"Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
> First of all, there is no difference between the skill of a machine and
> the skill of a human. Both are machines.
This is an extensive discussion in semantics & philosophy of science,
which Frank reduces unfairly. "Skill" is something acquired by a lot
of training and work, something which can be -appreciated- by others,
a task specialized by certain features of rarity and necessity of focus.
Removing those aspects we associate with "skill" also removes what
was being meant by "skill." A cowboy with "skill" can ride the bucking
bronco but simply handing over the reins to a young whippersnapper
does not impart "skill." A machine which can duplicate its program
to another machine transmits trivia, but has not conveyed "skill."
> Secondly, the skill needed to program a computer to play chess at the
> grandmaster level is much greater than the skill needed to become a
> grandmaster.
Well ... no. A hacker who reverse-engineers code, steals data, or
breaks copyright encryption, has not established the sort of skill which
was being imputed from the source material by which data was created.
A programmer stands upon the shoulders of prior scientists/engineers
who have supplied the hardware and tools of the trade. That's a very
different prospect from the game player who constructs all from scratch.
> Therefore, a computer that defeats the Go world champion is nothing
> more than a testimony to its programmers' superior skillfullness over
> the Go champion's skillfullness.
But if we are to believe Frank then the entire edifice of discussion
on this point, within philosophy of science, comes to a screeching halt.
However the "halting problem" was a difficult question, not an answer.
Skillfulness is not measured by comparing the weight of apples & oranges.
A task facing "Seven of Nine" (STV) is how she may recover her humanity
after having absorbed (what was available to her of) the Borg Culture.
----------------------------------------------
"Denis Feldmann" <denis.feldm...@club-internet.fr> wrote:
> It is as futile to speak of that at the moment that to speculate of what
> will happen when computers will be smarter (and wiser) than us...
Could wisdom ever be disconnected from the perceiver of wisdom?
- regards
- jb
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
US Says Al Qaeda Safe Haven Inaccessible
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072707O.shtml
Reuters reports, "Al Qaeda's safe haven in northwestern Pakistan is largely
inaccessible to outside forces and unlikely to be eliminated soon by the US
or Pakistani military, top intelligence officials said on Wednesday."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank de Groot
news:46aa3784....@news.isomedia.com...
> This is an extensive discussion in semantics & philosophy of science,
> which Frank reduces unfairly. "Skill" is something acquired by a lot
> of training and work, something which can be -appreciated- by others,
> a task specialized by certain features of rarity and necessity of
> focus.
Same with a Go program.
> does not impart "skill." A machine which can duplicate its program
> to another machine transmits trivia, but has not conveyed "skill."
Transferring the Go software is like a brain transplant.
Hardly "trivia".
> A programmer stands upon the shoulders of prior scientists/engineers
> who have supplied the hardware and tools of the trade. That's a very
> different prospect from the game player who constructs all from
> scratch.
Nonsense.
A beginning Go player learns from others, either verbally, or by reading, or
from actual play.
And this is demonstrably easier than programming a machine to play Go.
So - double nonsense.
Frank de Groot
> This isn't new information I am talking about here either. The way I
> understand your program, Frank, and please do provide a better
> explanation if mine isn't sufficient.. is that your program analyzes
> professional games and learns, essentially, tesujis- then it attempts
> to best match a certain style or quality of the move in a particular
> situation. This is, in fact, miles above a so-called "brute force"
> approach, but it is in essence still a brute force approach.
On the contrary.
Programmers use the term Brute Force to designate heavy number crunching
WHILST playing, not BEFORE playing.
Furthermore, I did not make a Go program, I made a pattern study tool for
people who are interested in Fuseki, Joseki and Shape.
This was a detour from a Go program (to fund its development).
> just running through millions if not billions of patterns looking for
> the best match.
Not at all.
The pattern system only sees identical matches.
>A noble effort but, this reduces to an approximation
> of a move tree, doesn't it? I mean, of course it does.
Don't use terminology when you are at a loss as to what it means.
No, it does not in the least.
The sloppiness with which you use language makes it impossible to argue with
you about anything more complex than what's for breakfast.
> but that's the key, isn't it frank - not how you select the move but
> how you evaluate it. Therein lies the real problem with computer go.
Thanks for teaching me about the real problem with comp. Go, Mr. Shit
Talking Idiot :-)
One wonders why you got that title?
> A non-go player hoping to program this kind of evaluational knowledge
> will be at a loss, because he doesn't know how to do it. It has
> nothing to do with finding moves and more about calculating the score
> more accurately.
You are just as big a schlemiel as those who said that computers would never
be able to play Chess properly.
A big mouth but a small brain.
> I'll give you an example, frank.
Why don't you take a hike, you jobless parasite.
> - you might say this is childs play for a pro. For a computer to do
> this based on your algorithm or based on brute force isn't just
> unlikely - again, it's physically impossible.
You are just as big a schlemiel as those who said that computers would never
be able to play Chess properly.
A big mouth but a small brain.
> In a brute force
> approach the computer would need to read through and evaluate millions
> of positions, the way I understand your program, the search box just
> isn't that big..
What program?
I do not have a Go program.
You might confuse my Fuseki/Joseki/Shape expert system with a "Go program",
but that shows how little you know about Go.
I can't help it that my Opening library module turned out to be not only the
biggest revolution in Go AI and copied by MS, and a bestseller. Side effects
of having a good approach to it. Dumbo's like yourself can confuse a very
successful minor module with a very unsuccessful major module. It can be
that the dumbo really is that dumb, or it can be that the dumbo deliberately
obfuscates the issue to argument his ego-depreciation-based attacks.
> How do you hope to program a thought process which you do not
> understand?
Ask some of the guys on the Go mailing list.
I guess they don't have time for schmucks like you though.
> Maybe it's possible, but it would take the kind of person
> who comes along only once every 2,000 years. And these people rarely
> bother with trivialities like go and computer programming.
You are taking your silly little game much too seriously, I'm afraid.
The thought processes needed to play Go are a kazillion times simpler than
the thought processes needed for rational thought.
>> The thought processes needed to play Chess are very well emulated in a
>> computer, and the thought processes to play Go are not fundamentally
>> different.
>
> They're vastly different, Frank.
I am not sensitive to religious "arguments".
Sorry.
Just because a pretentious wanker, a cuntrag, a douchebag says so, doesn't
make it fact.
> Fundamental building blocks aren't present. They create weird
> weaknesses which, once known, render the program extremely weak.
You are like the losers who criticized the Montgolfier/Wright dudes.
Pity that rifraff like you is nowhere to be found when they've been proven
full of hot air.
> I think he's just trying to say that as good a programmer as you are,
> you just don't know what you're doing...
I know hwat I am doing.
I am making money with a PC repair business, that's what I am doing.
Soon I'll open up a shop with an employee :-)
You guys have to wait for someone else to make you a Go program.
gowan4
Of course all this discussion depends on what you mean by "playing
go". Actually no computer plays go the way human brains do. They are
simulating human performance, not emulating it.
There are many areas where machines outperform humans, such as fast
transportation, but AFAIK human-shaped robots are not very good at
running type behavior on an uneven unknown course.
Even if computers simulate playing go at a high (pro) level why should
that detract from human enjoyment of the game? None of us is really
any good at the game as it is and I for one would love to have a
personal pro-level teacher who would be available any time I wanted
and whose services didn't cost $50+/hour.
Frank de Groot
> Of course all this discussion depends on what you mean by "playing
> go". Actually no computer plays go the way human brains do. They are
> simulating human performance, not emulating it.
Wrong.
Main Entry: 1em·u·late
Pronunciation: 'em-y&-"lAt, -yü-
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -lat·ed; -lat·ing
Etymology: Latin aemulatus, past participle of aemulari, from aemulus
rivaling
1 a : to strive to equal or excel b : IMITATE; especially : to imitate by
means of an emulator
2 : to equal or approach equality with
goanna
> Frank de Groot a ecrit :
> > "Juha Nieminen" <nos...@thanks.invalid> wrote
> >
> >> with a gun. There's no honor. Skill destroyed by a mundane machine.
> >
> > Not true.
> >
> > First of all, there is no difference between the skill of a machine and the
> > skill of a human.
> > Both are machines.
Both are machines, but rather different ones, so the skills involved
are rather different.
> >
> > Secondly, the skill needed to program a computer to play chess at the
> > grandmaster level is much greater than the skill needed to become a
> > grandmaster.
> <AnalogyOn> So the skill needed to program a computer to factorize
> ten-digits number at the Inaudi level is much greater than the skill
> needed to become a lightning calculator ? </AnalogyOn>
Frank is right. There were plenty of chess grandmasters around before
someone (in fact a team) worked out how to develop a machine chess GM.
The skills involved *in doing that development* are undoubtedly rarer
hence arguably superior to those involved in merely becoming a human GM.
Of course, it takes much less skill to implement (i.e. copy) those
techniques once they have been developed by someone else. Programming
known algorithms is essentially trivial, merely a matter of effectively
managing complexity, but developing new ones is not.
> > Therefore, a computer that defeats the Go world champion is nothing more
> > than a testimony to its programmers' superior skillfullness over the Go
> > champion's skillfullness.
> At chess, this is simply wrong. At Go, who knows? It is as futile to
> speak of that at the moment that to speculate of what will happen when
> computers will be smarter (and wiser) than us...
Why you think it's wrong? Given that noone has yet developed a computer
Go world champion (and many geniuses have tried), and there are plenty
of humans who have learned to play (almost) as well as this, it is
undoubtedly more intellectually challenging to develop the computer
that can defeat the WC than to become the human that can. And the skills
involved in doing these are clearly different.
goanna
> - wrote:
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > World Go News from the American Go Association
> > July 26, 2007; Volume 8, #56
> >
> > [ ... ]
> >
> > SAVING GO: A Modest Proposal to Programmers (Stop!)
> > By Paul Celmer
> Laughed so hard I cried when I read this article in the e-journal
> yesterday. There's nothing to fear re puters learning Go and reducing
> it to number crunching. While I'm not a programmer, I subscribe to the
> computer Go newsletter and find the discussions among the various Go
> engine programmers quite interesting.
> [discussion of current vogue approach in computer Go snipped ...]
There are indeed some significant things to fear from it (beyond the
increase in human cheating already mentioned), because it will happen
relatively soon, and the software techniques that will underpin the
achievement will find quite broad application beyond Go. Indeed, they
will likely achieve spectacular success in other areas before Go.
The things to fear from it are not however that Go will have been
destroyed, but rather the usual types of abuse of advanced technology
to control, exploit, deceive, defraud, etc, and some unknown new
variants of these. Not to mention the many negative psychological
and social consequences already becoming apparent as our world
becomes increasingly mechanised, synthetic and impersonal.
> .... And while Donninger (the author of Hydra) makes a
> valid point about interest in society and throwing money at the problem,
> I believe computers aren't capable of the kind of thought processes
> necessary to play Go.
As you said, you're not a programmer, much less a computer scientist,
so your belief about this is no more than a touching article of faith,
on a par with "heavier than air machines will never fly" and
"men will never travel to the moon". But you've inadvertantly touched
upon a key thing required for computer Go to outstrip humans, and
you're right that it's not some naive (or even sophisticated) synthesis
of MC and search. The "kind of thought proceses" actually needed are
not ones specific to Go, but those that underpin general learning.
What's needed is software systems that can learn to play Go well by
playing Go, initially very badly, but improving over time as they
learn from every game they play.
> It strikes me as absurd, really, for anyone that
> can't play Go at a very high level (say amateur 4d on IGS) to even
> attempt a program.
This is really silly, it's like saying that you need to be a pro
cyclist to develop a robot that can learn to ride a bicycle expertly.
You're stuck in the widespread but long outdated mindset that the
programmer has to tell the program everything it needs in advance.
Machine learning allows the program to acquire knowledge that the
programmer never had and probably can never have. Do you imagine
that speech recognition software that learns to recognize your
commands has been pre-programmed with exact details of how *you*
talk?
The key point is that the Go learning environment is readily
available, and anyone or anything that has the capacity to learn
effectively from playing Go (and to continue learning) can develop
the skills to play it excellently.
> [...] We are a very long
> way from having a Go engine that can really play. Perhaps Donninger is
> correct, if Go programming had resources available to it like Deep Blue
> and Polaris had, maybe ...
The resources applied will just determine how soon we get there,
not whether we do. Most of the amateur computer Go community is
barking up the wrong tree, but some very bright minds are at work
on it and related problems. Checkers has been solved, and we're
not very far away from computer Poker outstripping human efforts.
Computer Go will defeat top human players within 20 years, more
likely 10, assuming our hi-tech world doesn't suffer a meltdown.
gowan4
Not wrong. My comment refers to definition 1b.
EinarDogfin
> From the guy who stopped Go Programming Development ...
Yup, there are no more chess masters, all the clubs shut down, you can't
buy $1000 chess boards, or $20 boards, in fact, no one plays at all
anymore.
Then there's reality. Who knows why he quit chess, and I work with
people that have never heard of him or deep blue. Boy was their world
shattered by that event.
It didn't change anything, and if a computer gets good at go, it'll be
the same, nothing will change.
dogfin -
Ben Finney
> SAVING GO: A Modest Proposal to Programmers (Stop!)
> By Paul Celmer
> [...]
>
> No good can come from having our noble game and all its beautiful
> traditions reduced to digital bits.
Any abstract game can be reduced to digital bits. That doesn't in any
way rob it of nobility or tradition.
> Just because something can be done does not mean it should be done.
Just because something can be represented as digital information does
not mean it loses beauty.
--
\ "Holy hole in a donut, Batman!" -- Robin |
`\ |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
Michael Alford
Michael Alford
> "Michael Alford" <ma...@aracnet.com> wrote
>
>> Laughed so hard I cried when I read this article in the e-journal
>> yesterday. There's nothing to fear re puters learning Go and reducing it
>> to number crunching. While I'm not a programmer, I subscribe to the
>> computer Go newsletter and find the discussions among the various Go
>> engine programmers quite interesting. They all seem to be convinced that
>> the MC\UCT scheme is capable (given time) of playing "perfect" Go, they
>> claim that this have been "proven".
>
> Indeed sad to see how nobody there has any original ideas.
> Someone dusts off an old idea, gets better results than a basket of
> heuristics, and every single one of the crowd drops whatever they've been
> doing and follows the leader.
>
>
>> What amuses me is most of them can't play Go,
>
>
> That's irrelevant, though.
> Neither do I need to have wings and able to fly myself when I build an
> airplane or a space rocket.
Well, no, I'm an educated ape, monkeys are another species. As for
yourself, I'll use your own words:
"your belief about this is no more than a touching article of faith"
> Chess, Go - all just entertainment, games.
> Go is not much different from Tic Tac Toe, really.
> Don't take yourself so serious, as a player.
Oh, I'm not the one taking himself all too seriously in this :)
Michael
Denis Feldmann
> Denis Feldmann <denis.feldm...@club-internet.fr> writes:
>> Frank de Groot a ecrit :
>>> "Juha Nieminen" <nos...@thanks.invalid> wrote
>>>
>>>> with a gun. There's no honor. Skill destroyed by a mundane machine.
>>> Not true.
>>>
>>> First of all, there is no difference between the skill of a machine and the
>>> skill of a human.
>>> Both are machines.
>
> Both are machines, but rather different ones, so the skills involved
> are rather different.
"So" (the skills)? According to yor analysis below, I doubt the strength
of the argument. But on that point, I agree with you...
>
>>> Secondly, the skill needed to program a computer to play chess at the
>>> grandmaster level is much greater than the skill needed to become a
>>> grandmaster.
>
>> <AnalogyOn> So the skill needed to program a computer to factorize
>> ten-digits number at the Inaudi level is much greater than the skill
>> needed to become a lightning calculator ? </AnalogyOn>
>
> Frank is right.
Sure. You are obviously an expert (and you never commented my analogy)
There were plenty of chess grandmasters around before
> someone (in fact a team) worked out how to develop a machine chess GM.
??? Minimax was "discovered" by Von Neuman, implemented (with the
important improvement of alpha-beta, dicovered in the early 50's) very
early in the history of chess (and other games) programing. It happens
that this was mostly enough to get GM level at chess when lmachines
became fast enough. It happens too that this approach looks hopeless for
Go, but similar things may yet happen, as is shown by the recent
successes of MonteCarlo programs...
> The skills involved *in doing that development* are undoubtedly rarer
??? Very few chess GM"s, very few good ches programmers. Hard to compare.
> hence arguably
Argue, argue
superior to those involved in merely becoming a human GM.
> Of course, it takes much less skill to implement (i.e. copy) those
> techniques once they have been developed by someone else. Programming
> known algorithms is essentially trivial, merely a matter of effectively
> managing complexity, but developing new ones is not.
>
>>> Therefore, a computer that defeats the Go world champion is nothing more
>>> than a testimony to its programmers' superior skillfullness over the Go
>>> champion's skillfullness.
>
>> At chess, this is simply wrong.
At Go, who knows? It is as futile to
>> speak of that at the moment that to speculate of what will happen when
>> computers will be smarter (and wiser) than us...
>
> Why you think it's wrong?
Because Chess was "solved" by raw strength.
Given that noone has yet developed a computer
> Go world champion (and many geniuses have tried), and there are plenty
> of humans who have learned to play (almost) as well as this, it is
> undoubtedly
Ridiculous. It could still happen that the MonteCarlo method, helped by
a few tricks and the utilisation of databases, plus a *very fast*
computer (just wait 10-15 years for those) would succeed. See? I just
almost solved it on paper, so I am 12d, no doubt...
more intellectually challenging to develop the computer
> that can defeat the WC than to become the human that can. And the skills
> involved in doing these are clearly different.
>
Only part where I agree...
-
>> "Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
>>> First of all, there is no difference between the skill of a machine
>>> and the skill of a human. Both are machines.
>"-" <jazze...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> This is an extensive discussion in semantics & philosophy of science,
>> which Frank reduces unfairly. "Skill" is something acquired by a lot
>> of training and work, something which can be -appreciated- by others,
>> a task specialized by certain features of rarity and necessity of
>> focus.
"Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
> Same with a Go program.
Nobody argues that the programming task is not skillful. You
have attributed the subject of that skill to the machine itself, rather
than to the programmer of those machines.
>> ... A machine which can duplicate its program
>> to another machine transmits trivia, but has not conveyed "skill."
> Transferring the Go software is like a brain transplant.
> Hardly "trivia".
I was not discussing the transfer between human brain to machine.
I am discussing transfer between one machine and another machine.
Because machines can easily upload and/or download their softwares
to each other, it would be misattribution to assign "skill" attributes to
machines as the consequence of the particular software they execute.
>> A programmer stands upon the shoulders of prior scientists/engineers
>> who have supplied the hardware and tools of the trade. That's a very
>> different prospect from the game player who constructs all from scratch.
> Nonsense.
> A beginning Go player learns from others, either verbally, or by reading,
> or from actual play.
> And this is demonstrably easier than programming a machine to play Go.
> So - double nonsense.
Well, you've already disqualified yourself from speaking about the
experience of Go players. Any memory of yourself as "a beginning Go
Player" rapidly fades away with disuse when you do not polish your skill.
We are not discussing how easy it is to "play" Go, or to "play at" Go.
Of course this game is -easy- to play. We are discussing the difficult
task of -winning- at Go, whether this be a human being or a machine.
- regards
- jb
------------------------------------------------------------
Captain Kangaroo Court
http://www.snopes.com/military/marvin.asp
------------------------------------------------------------
Frank de Groot
Not wrong. My comment refers to definition 1b.
..which would be wrong.
Frank de Groot
> *you're* the one that thinks it's pretentious to say computers can't
> play go the same way humans do :0)
And *you're* the one who is a registered sex offender, having been convicted
for child molestation in 1996.
Denis Feldmann
convince you you are not 100% right. And you are the one who never could
make a Go program at all (at least, mine did play go...), not to mention
your other boasts...
Frank de Groot
news:46ab2ebd$0$21146$7a62...@news.club-internet.fr...
When Oliver Richman makes a deliberate lie (twisting my words 180 degrees),
am make a point by making a deliberate lie too.
Florian
> play go the same way humans do :0)
>
Airplanes don't fly in the same way as birds, chess computers use a
different 'thought process' than humans playing chess. Still, airplanes
fly, computers beat humans. I think that's one of the reasons there's
sometimes an aversion against strong go playing computers: a human
playing go thinks hard about it, uses pattern recognition and smart
thinking to come up with a good move, and feels 'cheated' if a computer
can come up with a better move, without being smart. I for one wouldn't
mind being beaten by a computer with a human-like intelligence, but I
know I'd feel a small sting of pride if I felt my opponent was 'just
number-crunching'.
Hans-Georg Michna
>Airplanes don't fly in the same way as birds, chess computers use a
>different 'thought process' than humans playing chess. Still, airplanes
>fly, computers beat humans. I think that's one of the reasons there's
>sometimes an aversion against strong go playing computers: a human
>playing go thinks hard about it, uses pattern recognition and smart
>thinking to come up with a good move, and feels 'cheated' if a computer
>can come up with a better move, without being smart. I for one wouldn't
>mind being beaten by a computer with a human-like intelligence, but I
>know I'd feel a small sting of pride if I felt my opponent was 'just
>number-crunching'.
Florian,
I think that's a misconception. On a low level the human brain
is also just number-crunching, and a computer that could beat a
human at go could well be called smart in that area of
expertise.
What's behind this is the justified feeling of inadequacy that
befalls everybody who looks honestly at the shortcomings and
limitations of the human brain. Consider that any desktop
computer could already beat almost all humans at go today.
If you think human brains are just wonderful, look wherever you
like, and look carefully. Look at these newsgroups, for example,
and read a number of randomly picked discussions. Are they proof
of the excellence and perfection of the human brain?
Hans-Georg
--
No mail, please.
goanna
> Airplanes don't fly in the same way as birds, chess computers use a
> different 'thought process' than humans playing chess. Still, airplanes
> fly, computers beat humans. I think that's one of the reasons there's
> sometimes an aversion against strong go playing computers: a human
> playing go thinks hard about it, uses pattern recognition and smart
> thinking to come up with a good move, and feels 'cheated' if a computer
> can come up with a better move, without being smart. I for one wouldn't
> mind being beaten by a computer with a human-like intelligence, but I
> know I'd feel a small sting of pride if I felt my opponent was 'just
> number-crunching'.
And you, is it fair to say you're not smart because you're just
neural-spike-crunching?
Why this false dichotomy between a computer that wins "without
being smart" and one that wins using "a human-like intelligence"?
If it ain't smart enough it won't beat you, as the combinatorics of
Go defy brute force approaches and will continue to do so without
an unlikely revolutionary breakthrough in computing hardware.
The first computer Go world champion will be very smart at Go and
not very smart at anything else. It will be designed to learn to
play Go and nothing else. Expect it within 20 years, perhaps 10.
Don't expect to see computers with human-like general intelligence
in your lifetime, unless you're very young, but when they appear,
their ability to learn to play games of skill well will be a very
reasonable basis for rating their smarts.
goanna
> Florian,
Well said. There's plenty of compelling evidence that most people
aren't so smart, just examine an average person's belief system.
Indeed, one can recognise about 3 levels of human smartness:
people so dumb that they're forced to recognise it, people who think
they're smart but aren't smart enough to realize that they're not,
and people smart enough to recognize that in most respects they're
really rather dumb.
Dirt At Your Face
<snip>
>
> It will indeed be a sad day if computer go achieves pro strength.
> Yet another game will be ruined and reduced to a mundane number
> crunching program, yet another game which can be cheated by people
> who know nothing about the game nor its values. It's like a highly
> trained samurai with tens of years of experience against a nobody
> with a gun. There's no honor. Skill destroyed by a mundane machine.
Unavoidable destiny and if only humanity has a price tag.
Solution? How about refraining the bots from tournaments catered for human but
instead create a entirely a new tournament format where both entities could
compete each other with final grand prize say about US$500 Millions (anything
less just boycott) to the human winner?
All is not loss for humanity should the bots conquered the go scene. Suppose one
day aliens landed on earth and no human strength can match their super go skill
except our very own designed AI. Would this be a valid argument to claim
humanity is still not lost to the alien since we gave go a birth into AI? Would
a loss to your own creation be accepatble than a loss to the aliens of external
origin?
Don't get me wrong but I'm with the "stop go programming" camp.
-
"Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
> ... Suppose one day aliens landed on earth and no human strength
> Would this be a valid argument to claim humanity is still not lost to
> the alien since we gave go a birth into AI?
One has to absorb a lot of science fiction to accept all of those
assumptions. All too easily we assign to the alien attributes which
were those typical of our own humanity (or inhumanity). Even our
own literature offers significant lattitude concerning what the aliens
might be like.
Our premise antecedent to copyright consisted of according the
credit to an individual, or specific group of individuals, rather than to
the collective ("all humanity"). A.I. was the result of certain named
individuals and not all of humanity. The win or loss of A.I. software
would neither save nor condemn all of humanity. Those of humanity
too busy for playing Go would not be fairly judged on a skill by which
they had no previous interest nor provable opportunity.
An "alien" might be not much different from other sentient animal
forms produced by Earth; they are "aliens" only in the sense of not
having official citizenship in any of Earth's nations. By the same logic
neither do dogs and cats bear official citizenship in any Earth nation.
Whether they are friendly or unfriendly: "aliens" are not distinguished
from the environment generally, so our survival with or without "aliens"
again reduces to the Darwinian evolutionary question, and also as it
does for them. Quite likely they are Carbon-based, not Silicon-based
life forms, sharing features of DNA stranding and so forth. It's not an
easy prospect to colonize entire worlds, because space is so vulnerable,
so the likelihood of interplanetary alien invasion is not very credible.
It's more likely that our demise will be the result of our own biowarfare
labs rather than something induced here by "aliens" from outer space.
In the process of our own pathology perhaps humans prefer to blame
"aliens" rather than blaming ourselves, if blame is appropriately given.
Millions of years elapsed without "alien" involvement so thousands
of years in our own recorded history, and the accelerated pace of life
during the intense "information age", is but a small drop in the ocean
of time. Though, in that drop, all could quite easily come to naught:
here the real tragedy is never encountering the "alien", owing to our
own anti-ecological stupidity. Life forms are their own worst enemies,
resorting to cannibalism rather than discovering sensible alternatives.
Of course one question concerns why "aliens" would be searching
for other Go players if they're already so proficient that they defeat
the best Earth Pros and any A.I. programs available for consumption.
We would become mere bystanders in their agenda if we could not offer
them serious challenges. On the other hand, if we detain them here
then we would interfere with their space quest, negating "alien" status.
> Would a loss to your own creation be accepatble than a loss to
> the aliens of external origin?
It should not make any difference ... just varieties of evolutionary
activity. Knowldge about an external world is full of logical connundra.
Loss of any kind should not be deemed "acceptible" other than the
breaks of a 50-50 win/loss proposition occurring at the player plateau.
- regards
- jb
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ernst Zundel and the Politics of 'Gotcha'
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_24990.shtml
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dirt At Your Face
> "Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
>> ... Suppose one day aliens landed on earth and no human strength
>> can match their super go skill except our very own designed AI.
>> Would this be a valid argument to claim humanity is still not lost to
>> the alien since we gave go a birth into AI?
>
>
> One has to absorb a lot of science fiction to accept all of those
> assumptions. All too easily we assign to the alien attributes which
> were those typical of our own humanity (or inhumanity). Even our
> own literature offers significant lattitude concerning what the aliens
> might be like.
SETI is no a science fiction. So is expolaration for life in distance outer
space.
In my example, the aliens that landed on earth do not constitute into our scope
of humanity. Why couldn't we land on their planet and challenge any intelligent
game they have to offer? The ability of space travel suggest highly evolved
beings than all the humanities here on earth.
We know the inner working of our best AI but to understand the "mind" of new
beings? Are we even capable of that?
>
>
>
>
>> Would a loss to your own creation be accepatble than a loss to
>> the aliens of external origin?
>
>
> It should not make any difference ... just varieties of evolutionary
> activity. Knowldge about an external world is full of logical connundra.
> Loss of any kind should not be deemed "acceptible" other than the
> breaks of a 50-50 win/loss proposition occurring at the player plateau.
Would it matter if I used monkey instead of the alien to defeat our humanity in
go? The break of win/loss proposition (50-50) is only within the realm of our
humanity.
gaga
hail to that.
gaga
Michael Alford
> We know the inner working of our best AI but to understand the "mind" of new
> beings? Are we even capable of that?
Before we get to "aliens", humans had better work on understanding the
minds of dolphins, whales, elephants, and other apes.
Lawson English
> On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 17:39:02 +0200, Florian wrote:
>
>> Airplanes don't fly in the same way as birds, chess computers use a
>> different 'thought process' than humans playing chess. Still, airplanes
>> fly, computers beat humans. I think that's one of the reasons there's
>> sometimes an aversion against strong go playing computers: a human
>> playing go thinks hard about it, uses pattern recognition and smart
>> thinking to come up with a good move, and feels 'cheated' if a computer
>> can come up with a better move, without being smart. I for one wouldn't
>> mind being beaten by a computer with a human-like intelligence, but I
>> know I'd feel a small sting of pride if I felt my opponent was 'just
>> number-crunching'.
>
> Florian,
>
> I think that's a misconception. On a low level the human brain
> is also just number-crunching, and a computer that could beat a
> human at go could well be called smart in that area of
> expertise.
At the lowest level, human brains use analog neural networks, according
to mainstream theories. According to more speculative theories, they use
computing based on Quantum Mechanics. Neither is "number crunching" in
the usual sense of the word.
>
> What's behind this is the justified feeling of inadequacy that
> befalls everybody who looks honestly at the shortcomings and
> limitations of the human brain. Consider that any desktop
> computer could already beat almost all humans at go today.
You don't understand much about the human brain if you think that
number-crunching adequately describes how it works, and believe that a
chess program beating the world champion shows how inferior humans are
to computers.
>
> If you think human brains are just wonderful, look wherever you
> like, and look carefully. Look at these newsgroups, for example,
> and read a number of randomly picked discussions. Are they proof
> of the excellence and perfection of the human brain?
Please point to the newsgroup threads by computers that pass a simple
Turing Test.
Lawson English
> From the guy who stopped Go Programming Development ...
>
>
> World Go News from the American Go Association
> July 26, 2007; Volume 8, #56
>
> [ ... ]
>
> SAVING GO: A Modest Proposal to Programmers (Stop!)
> By Paul Celmer
>
> champion at chess, will go be the last great game to fall to the robots? Let’s
> hope not. I hereby call upon any programmer working on computer go to stop
> now.
>
> Why? First of all, computer go would devalue human achievement.
Shrug. Even if what is said has merit (and I don't agree with most of
what follows), change the goban to 21 x 21 or even 23 x 23. That pushes
the "problem" off by another decade or 5.
Frank de Groot
> At the lowest level, human brains use analog neural networks, according to
> mainstream theories.
Wrong - brains use digital neural networks. When the total of digital pulse
firings (dependent of both duty cycle and frequency) at its input exceeds a
treshold, the neuron fires a digital pulse.
Andrew Nicholson
> - wrote:
>
> Shrug. Even if what is said has merit (and I don't agree with most of
> what follows), change the goban to 21 x 21 or even 23 x 23. That pushes
> the "problem" off by another decade or 5.
Given that the 19x19 board is already to large for a computer game
player doing an exhaustive search, there is no guarantee that the
methods used in a successful go computer player would have to scale
by board size. It is more likely that the computer player would just
relearn how to play on the larger board and it would only take the
same time it took to learn the 19x19 game.
Aside: We already have a neuron simulator for a small chunk of mouse
brain that behaves in exactly the same way as the original mouse brain
did. It simulates the individual neurons and all the thousands of
connections for each neuron. It's expensive at a couple of million
dollars. Given we continue to follow some variant of Moore's law, we
should be able to build a human brain equivalent in roughly 17 years
for the same cost. 10 years after that do it for $1000. I'm sure that
we'll teach it how to play games. If we don't build a specialized go
computer player within 25 years, one will appear by "accident".
--
Andrew Nicholson <and...@lesto.com> http://lesto.com/andrewn/
kill -9 them all, let reboot -rf now sort them out
-- Peter Gutmann
-
"Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
> SETI is no a science fiction. So is expolaration for life in distance
> outer space.
If one asks fundamental questions concerning the nature
of reality it would be a difficult proposition to demonstrate that
something is "not science fiction." Even with regards to the SETI
background computer software some speculate that a computer
mafia is stealing cycles for encryption-cracking rather than any
moralistic & bonafide "search for extraterrestrial life." :-)
> In my example, the aliens that landed on earth do not constitute into
> our scope of humanity. Why couldn't we land on their planet and
> challenge any intelligent game they have to offer?
Their ability to travel to us does not imply our ability to travel to
them. Aliens may have very different ideas about what characterizes
a "game." They might have no idea what "winning" and "losing" mean.
> ... The ability of space travel suggest highly evolved beings than
> all the humanities here on earth.
Yes, how far must one travel through space to be "space travel" ?
> We know the inner working of our best AI but to understand the "mind"
> of new beings? Are we even capable of that?
Regarding some recent successes of Monte Carlo, Martin Mueller
recently told the European Go Congress "There’s no theoretical
explanation, although we have excellent empirical results." In other
words, a broadly grinning Mueller said, "We don’t really know." So
we do -NOT- "know the inner working of our best AI." Why bother
with the project "to understand the `mind' of beings" when the task
is simply that of winning at games of Go? You would only fool yourself
into thinking that you understood somebody's mind, even your own mind.
At the basis of what is usually termed "understanding" is yet another
doorway of perception, and perhaps many other windows of delusion.
> Would it matter if I used monkey instead of the alien to defeat our
> humanity in go? The break of win/loss proposition (50-50) is only
> within the realm of our humanity.
Once placing all opponents via an Internet Tournament your
question converts to the Turing Problem or a variant of Searle's
Chinese Room. You discuss only results here, not talking about style.
Mental operations would differentiate (or disregard) the environment.
Those mental operations are not the same for all players & observors.
- regards
- jb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Political Correctness Kills: The Consequence of Bad Ideas
Dozens of Polish women infected with HIV / AIDS after sex with black male
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1298
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike
> On Jul 28, 1:38 am, "Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
>
> How do you hope to program a thought process which you do not
> understand? Maybe it's possible, but it would take the kind of person
> who comes along only once every 2,000 years. And these people rarely
> bother with trivialities like go and computer programming.
>
> > The thought processes needed to play Chess are very well emulated in a
> > computer, and the thought processes to play Go are not fundamentally
> > different.
>
>
I think you are wrong there - the thought processes are similar, it is the quality of the emulation by computational
means that is very different.
Mike
Dirt At Your Face
> "Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
>> In my example, the aliens that landed on earth do not constitute into
>> our scope of humanity. Why couldn't we land on their planet and
>> challenge any intelligent game they have to offer?
>
>
> Their ability to travel to us does not imply our ability to travel to
> them. Aliens may have very different ideas about what characterizes
> a "game." They might have no idea what "winning" and "losing" mean.
>
>
>
>> ... The ability of space travel suggest highly evolved beings than
>> all the humanities here on earth.
If they are traveling and landed in our backyard clearly they have a navigation
system as a mean to achieve the objective of space travel - from Point A to
Point B. Yes, they can perceive what "winning" and "losing" mean as notion in
success or failure of reaching from Point A to Point B.
>> We know the inner working of our best AI but to understand the "mind"
>> of new beings? Are we even capable of that?
>
>
> Regarding some recent successes of Monte Carlo, Martin Mueller
> recently told the European Go Congress "There’s no theoretical
> explanation, although we have excellent empirical results." In other
> words, a broadly grinning Mueller said, "We don’t really know." So
> we do -NOT- "know the inner working of our best AI." Why bother
> with the project "to understand the `mind' of beings" when the task
> is simply that of winning at games of Go? You would only fool yourself
> into thinking that you understood somebody's mind, even your own mind.
> At the basis of what is usually termed "understanding" is yet another
> doorway of perception, and perhaps many other windows of delusion.
Rather absurd remark by Martin Mueller.
Dirt At Your Face
> "Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
>> In my example, the aliens that landed on earth do not constitute into
>> our scope of humanity. Why couldn't we land on their planet and
>> challenge any intelligent game they have to offer?
>
>
> Their ability to travel to us does not imply our ability to travel to
> them. Aliens may have very different ideas about what characterizes
> a "game." They might have no idea what "winning" and "losing" mean.
>
>
>
>> ... The ability of space travel suggest highly evolved beings than
>> all the humanities here on earth.
If they are traveling and landed in our backyard clearly they have a navigation
system as a mean to achieve the objective of space travel - from Point A to
Point B. Yes, they can perceive what "winning" and "losing" mean as notion in
success or failure of reaching from Point A to Point B.
>> We know the inner working of our best AI but to understand the "mind"
>> of new beings? Are we even capable of that?
>
>
> Regarding some recent successes of Monte Carlo, Martin Mueller
> recently told the European Go Congress "There’s no theoretical
> explanation, although we have excellent empirical results." In other
> words, a broadly grinning Mueller said, "We don’t really know." So
> we do -NOT- "know the inner working of our best AI." Why bother
> with the project "to understand the `mind' of beings" when the task
> is simply that of winning at games of Go? You would only fool yourself
> into thinking that you understood somebody's mind, even your own mind.
> At the basis of what is usually termed "understanding" is yet another
> doorway of perception, and perhaps many other windows of delusion.
Rather absurd remark by Martin Mueller.
Lawson English
If, by "digital," you mean that there is a countable limit to the number
of neuro-transmitter molecules that impinge upon a given neuron before
it starts firing, you are correct. However, it is generally understood
that "analog" is merely shorthand for "a very large, unknown number of
states" since there are a discrete number of possible electron-states in
an analog circuit, for instance.
If you insist on using the term "digital" in a description of neurons, a
better use would be "an analog to digital/binary converter," since the
number of input-neurons that any given neuron might interact with might
number in the thousands, each producing an unknown number of transmitter
molecules required to trigger a single signal by that receptor-neuron
that gets passed on to its receptor-neighbors in the network. Once that
signal is triggered, there is a refractory period during which another
signal will not be triggered, so there is a maximum frequency at which a
given neuron can fire under normal circumstances, no matter how strong
the inputs (how many neurotransmitter molecules) that it is receiving.
Regardless, the neuro-network AI model assumes that the "intelligence"
of the system is contained in the mutual interactions of the many parts
the system, rather than as discrete computer processors that process
specific inputs in some complicated fashion.
That is the core difference between a "number crunching" system and a
neural network, artificial or natural. Each input in a number-cruncher
is vital to the system. Not so, in general, with a neural network.
Lawson English
> In article <493ri.7592$BX3...@newsfe13.lga>, Lawson English wrote:
>> - wrote:
>>
>> Shrug. Even if what is said has merit (and I don't agree with most of
>> what follows), change the goban to 21 x 21 or even 23 x 23. That pushes
>> the "problem" off by another decade or 5.
>
> Given that the 19x19 board is already to large for a computer game
> player doing an exhaustive search, there is no guarantee that the
> methods used in a successful go computer player would have to scale
> by board size. It is more likely that the computer player would just
> relearn how to play on the larger board and it would only take the
> same time it took to learn the 19x19 game.
Heh. Assuming that we can teach one to play go any time soon...
>
> Aside: We already have a neuron simulator for a small chunk of mouse
> brain that behaves in exactly the same way as the original mouse brain
> did. It simulates the individual neurons and all the thousands of
> connections for each neuron. It's expensive at a couple of million
> dollars. Given we continue to follow some variant of Moore's law, we
> should be able to build a human brain equivalent in roughly 17 years
> for the same cost. 10 years after that do it for $1000. I'm sure that
> we'll teach it how to play games. If we don't build a specialized go
> computer player within 25 years, one will appear by "accident".
>
...or that one "learns by accident" somehow.
I've no doubt tht someday, some artificially created intelligence
thingie will learn to play Go, but I'm not worried about it for several
decades, at the very least.
-
>> "Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
>>> In my example, the aliens that landed on earth do not constitute into
>>> our scope of humanity. Why couldn't we land on their planet and
>>> challenge any intelligent game they have to offer?
>> Their ability to travel to us does not imply our ability to travel to
>> them. Aliens may have very different ideas about what characterizes
>> a "game." They might have no idea what "winning" and "losing" mean.
> "-" <jazze...@hotmail.com> typed:
>>> ... The ability of space travel suggest highly evolved beings than
>>> all the humanities here on earth.
"Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
> If they are traveling and landed in our backyard clearly they have a
> navigation system as a mean to achieve the objective of space travel -
> from Point A to Point B. Yes, they can perceive what "winning" and "losing"
> mean as notion in success or failure of reaching from Point A to Point B.
Again, the perpetual problem of conjecture about "aliens" is that of
anthropomorphizing them. We don't know that they have a "navigation
system" nor that "space travel" was an "objective" for them. We don't
know that they came from some "Point A." You're violating quite a few
"rules of science fiction" by unwarranted limiations on what the "aliens"
are allowed to be. If the "aliens" don't presently perceive "winning"
and "losing" in terms of reaching an objective how could communication
be established? There's the classic Feynman problem of communicating
what "right & left" are to Martians (who are on Mars) using only radio.
You can't appeal to an "example" of what you hope "aliens" should
be if our topic of discussion here concerns aliens generally.
>>> We know the inner working of our best AI but to understand the "mind"
>>> of new beings? Are we even capable of that?
>> Regarding some recent successes of Monte Carlo, Martin Mueller
>> recently told the European Go Congress "There’s no theoretical
>> explanation, although we have excellent empirical results." In other
>> words, a broadly grinning Mueller said, "We don’t really know." So
>> we do -NOT- "know the inner working of our best AI." Why bother
>> with the project "to understand the `mind' of beings" when the task
>> is simply that of winning at games of Go? You would only fool yourself
>> into thinking that you understood somebody's mind, even your own mind.
>> At the basis of what is usually termed "understanding" is yet another
>> doorway of perception, and perhaps many other windows of delusion.
> Rather absurd remark by Martin Mueller.
It's the feature of him "earning the right to speak" at the European
Go Congress, contrasted with this forum of a penny press where nobody
earns any right to speak. Can you quote somebody at the European
Go Congress who retorted that Martin Mueller's remark was absurd?
Quite likely nobody even dreamed of asking to say such things, much
less being granted permission by Congress Organizers to follow onstage.
It seems more absurd for you to criticize Martin Mueller, who has already
established himself over many decades as a heavyweight contributor to
Theories of Go Programming.
-------------------------------------------------
>> "Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
>>> The thought processes needed to play Chess are very well emulated
>>> in a computer, and the thought processes to play Go are not
>>> fundamentally different.
> usagi....@gmail.com says...
> > They're vastly different, Frank.
"Mike" <m.fee@iirrll..ccrrii..nnzz> wrote in message
> I think you are wrong there - the thought processes are similar, it is
> the quality of the emulation by computational means that is very different.
First "thought" is assumed to be something which aids Go Playing,
then it is never put into question whether "thought processes" are very
much involved in Go Playing. The 2006 U.S. Open was won by a 15-yr
old boy, and the 2006 U.S. Ing Tournament by a 17-yr old boy. Clearly,
something other than "thought processes" are facilitating these wins by
teenagers against adults who have played longer than they have lived.
It is also assumed that humans "think" and/or that machines "think."
To discuss this properly won't we require suitable definitions of terms?
- regards
- jb
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Four Endangered Gorillas Found Shot Dead
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1312
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dirt At Your Face
>>> "Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
>>>> We know the inner working of our best AI but to understand the "mind"
>>>> of new beings? Are we even capable of that?
>
>>> Regarding some recent successes of Monte Carlo, Martin Mueller
>>> recently told the European Go Congress "There’s no theoretical
>>> explanation, although we have excellent empirical results." In other
>>> words, a broadly grinning Mueller said, "We don’t really know." So
>>> we do -NOT- "know the inner working of our best AI." Why bother
>>> with the project "to understand the `mind' of beings" when the task
>>> is simply that of winning at games of Go? You would only fool yourself
>>> into thinking that you understood somebody's mind, even your own mind.
>>> At the basis of what is usually termed "understanding" is yet another
>>> doorway of perception, and perhaps many other windows of delusion.
>
>> Rather absurd remark by Martin Mueller.
>
>
> It's the feature of him "earning the right to speak" at the European
> Go Congress, contrasted with this forum of a penny press where nobody
> earns any right to speak. Can you quote somebody at the European
> Go Congress who retorted that Martin Mueller's remark was absurd?
> Quite likely nobody even dreamed of asking to say such things, much
> less being granted permission by Congress Organizers to follow onstage.
> It seems more absurd for you to criticize Martin Mueller, who has already
> established himself over many decades as a heavyweight contributor to
> Theories of Go Programming.
There are plenty of heavyweights who fall before the cult-like followers to a
better newcomer.
Dirt At Your Face
...and when Martin Mueller do fall with his Theories of Go Programming to others
who know in-and-out of their theories I guess I'm right to called his remark
absurd first. You? I guess must be the first who defended his absurdities. Here,
I even make a nice qoute box just for you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------
"There’s no theoretical explanation, although we have excellent empirical
results." by Martin Mueller
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------
-
> "Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
>> There are plenty of heavyweights who fall before the cult-like followers
>> to a better newcomer.
Shall we categorize your fallacy as an argument by analogy,
by argument to authority, or some syllogism and category error?
> Dirt At Your Face <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> typed:
> ...and when Martin Mueller do fall with his Theories of Go Programming
> to others who know in-and-out of their theories I guess I'm right to called
> his remark absurd first. You? I guess must be the first who defended his
> absurdities.
Ah, now your fallacies are "assuming the consequent", then strawman
(Mueller hasn't remarked on the "absurdity" aspect); finally you seek to
instantiate yourself as "the one" for yet another argument by authority.
Have you published papers and programs on Go Theory, with bibliography?
- regards
- jb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Let truth be your authority, not authority be your truth."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dirt At Your Face
>> "Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
>>> There are plenty of heavyweights who fall before the cult-like followers
>>> to a better newcomer.
>
>
> Shall we categorize your fallacy as an argument by analogy,
> by argument to authority, or some syllogism and category error?
You can't tell? or you don't know?
>
>
>
>> Dirt At Your Face <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> typed:
>> ...and when Martin Mueller do fall with his Theories of Go Programming
>> to others who know in-and-out of their theories I guess I'm right to called
>> his remark absurd first. You? I guess must be the first who defended his
>> absurdities.
>
>
> Ah, now your fallacies are "assuming the consequent", then strawman
> (Mueller hasn't remarked on the "absurdity" aspect); finally you seek to
> instantiate yourself as "the one" for yet another argument by authority.
> Have you published papers and programs on Go Theory, with bibliography?
The truth will only be revealed to the right authority. The right authority can
always seek out the truth no matter how deep hidden away.
-
>>> "Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
>>>> There are plenty of heavyweights who fall before the cult-like
>>>> followers to a better newcomer.
> "-" <jazze...@hotmail.com> typed:
>> Shall we categorize your fallacy as an argument by analogy,
>> by argument to authority, or some syllogism and category error?
"Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
> You can't tell? or you don't know?
Take your pick. Any fallacy suffices to demolish irrelevant sophistries.
>>> Dirt At Your Face <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> typed:
>>> ...and when Martin Mueller do fall with his Theories of Go Programming
>>> to others who know in-and-out of their theories I guess I'm right to called
>>> his remark absurd first. You? I guess must be the first who defended his
>>> absurdities.
>> Ah, now your fallacies are "assuming the consequent", then strawman
>> (Mueller hasn't remarked on the "absurdity" aspect); finally you seek to
>> instantiate yourself as "the one" for yet another argument by authority.
>> Have you published papers and programs on Go Theory, with bibliography?
> The truth will only be revealed to the right authority. The right authority
> can always seek out the truth no matter how deep hidden away.
This time it was rulemaking behavior on your part. The rules, however,
were never exempt from a public group discussion about their content.
The little boy noticed the lack of emperor's clothes, or he cried "wolf."
If you wish to play authority games, speak at the European Go Congress.
Publish some academic papers and write a tournament-winning program.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> "There’s no theoretical explanation, although we have excellent
> empirical results." by Martin Mueller
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
Go is not entirely absent of continuity. If I locate some optimal
moves in a certain region perhaps other optimal moves also exist.
Conversely if most tested moves are bad perhaps the region is bad.
- regards
- jb
----------------------------------------------------------------
La santa Muerte; Death's adoration dismays Catholic Church
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1305
----------------------------------------------------------------
gaga
Till now the Moore guy was more or less right. That is quite a feat for
a manager. Alas 'if current trends continue' is just another silly
thing. It will end one day or another. I am sure however that the true
followers of this 'law' will find innovative ways of proving that it is
not so.
I wonder why is this of importance however. I guess more important than
'when' question is 'why' followed by 'how'.
gaga
Frank de Groot
> If they are traveling and landed in our backyard clearly they have a
> navigation
> system as a mean to achieve the objective of space travel - from Point A
> to
> Point B. Yes, they can perceive what "winning" and "losing" mean as notion
> in
> success or failure of reaching from Point A to Point B.
Indeed - well put!
Overly imaginative SF has led many to believe that aliens are likely very
"alien".
Instead, the laws of nature likely lead to similar evolution universe-wide.
Besides - aliens downed > 100 aircraft and humans have made several alien
craft crash by (alledgedly) high-powered RADAR, LASER and even particle
beams, so the concept of winning & losing should be clear to them by now..
Frank de Groot
> neural network, artificial or natural. Each input in a number-cruncher is
> vital to the system. Not so, in general, with a neural network.
Yeah, fine.
I just wanted to point out that brains are digital, not analog :-)
Dirt At Your Face
The figure of downed alien aircrafts does not counter well with cases of human
abduction by alien. They seem to be in upper hand.
Lawson English
And I just pointed out that the normal definition of analog is
shorthand for "lots and lots of values."
Frank de Groot
> And I just pointed out that the normal definition of analog is shorthand
> for "lots and lots of values."
Being a digital electronics engineer by education, I can tell you that a
neuron is a "gate" (like an AND gate) but instead of looking at the signal
level, the gate is looking at the duty cycle of the digital pulses.
So for all practical purposes, when professionals like myself consider the
brain, it's "digital".
There are NO "lots and lots of values" involved - the signal is DIGITAL -
either a 0 or a 1.
The duty cycle of the pulse train is what you call "lots and lots of
values", or the number of digital inputs is what you call "lots and lots of
values".
This is wrong:
- The signals that travel in the brain are only ZERO or ONE, there is a
pulse or there is no pulse.
- A neuron gives off either a pulse, or no pulse, and those pulses are
always of the same strength.
So the brain is a fully digital machine, the only difference with a bunch of
TTL/CMOS gates is that instead of being "clocked", it's running
asynchronously and instead of differentaiting the input signals, they are
integrated.
Lawson English
> "Lawson English" <LEng...@cox.net> wrote
>
>> And I just pointed out that the normal definition of analog is shorthand
>> for "lots and lots of values."
>
> Being a digital electronics engineer by education, I can tell you that a
> neuron is a "gate" (like an AND gate) but instead of looking at the signal
> level, the gate is looking at the duty cycle of the digital pulses.
Sigh.
The "digital" signal you speak of passes down the axon to the axonic
terminals where it is distributed to many other neurons. These other
neurons in turn, receive signals from as many as a thousand different
neurons, more or less asynchronously. The signals are often/usually
passed from one neuron to the next in the form of molecules called
neurotransmitters.
The signal that is *triggered* is digital in the sense that it is
discrete and occurs at a maximum frequency. However, it takes a finite
and indeterminate amount of time for the the accumulation of sufficient
neurotransmitters to trigger the next signal. If the signal hasn't
triggered recently, a smaller number of molecules is required to trigger
the signal than if it triggered more recently. No matter how many
molecules are released by the signaling neurons, the receptor neuron
will not trigger sooner than the time dictated by its maximum rate.
the incoming signal consists of the accumulation of thousands, probably
millions of molecules. The number required is dependent on the current
state of the target neuron--how recently it last fired.
The incoming signal can range in strength through some large number of
states: some large range that isn't measurable as far as I know. The
output signal can range in value from 0 to perhaps 100 pulses per second.
Perhaps 0 to 100 counts as "digital" in your book, but some unknown
"large number of states" certainly qualifies as analog, on the input side.
>
> So for all practical purposes, when professionals like myself consider the
> brain, it's "digital".
>
> There are NO "lots and lots of values" involved - the signal is DIGITAL -
> either a 0 or a 1.
>
Sigh.
> The duty cycle of the pulse train is what you call "lots and lots of
> values", or the number of digital inputs is what you call "lots and lots of
> values".
>
> This is wrong:
>
> - The signals that travel in the brain are only ZERO or ONE, there is a
> pulse or there is no pulse.
>
> - A neuron gives off either a pulse, or no pulse, and those pulses are
> always of the same strength.
>
> So the brain is a fully digital machine, the only difference with a bunch of
> TTL/CMOS gates is that instead of being "clocked", it's running
> asynchronously and instead of differentaiting the input signals, they are
> integrated.
And the values they integrate number in the thousands or even millions.
Jeff Nowakowski
> - The signals that travel in the brain are only ZERO or ONE, there is a
> pulse or there is no pulse.
I don't follow neuron research, but a Google search turned this up:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060312201648data_trunc_sys.shtml
"The longstanding belief that each of the brain's 100 billion neurons
communicate strictly by a digital code looks to be incorrect."
As I said, I don't follow the research, so maybe further research
invalidated or confirmed this.
-Jeff
Frank de Groot
> Perhaps 0 to 100 counts as "digital" in your book, but some unknown "large
> number of states" certainly qualifies as analog, on the input side.
You're not giving up, are ya?
Although your boneheadedness seems hopeless, here you go:
Since when is a gate with a lot of inputs "analog"?
<chuckle>
Since when is a digital pulse train with variabe duty cycle "analog"?
<chortle>
You're out of your league, buddy, and you try to save face by citing stuff
from a textbook.
The brain is digital, period. And you didn't know it, and you are too
childish to admit that.
-
>> "Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote
>>> If they are traveling and landed in our backyard clearly they have
>>> a navigation system as a mean to achieve the objective of space
>>> travel - from Point A to Point B. Yes, they can perceive what "winning"
>>> and "losing" mean as notion in success or failure of reaching from
>>> Point A to Point B.
> Frank de Groot <fr...@moyogo.com> typed:
>> Overly imaginative SF has led many to believe that aliens are likely very
>> "alien".
>> Instead, the laws of nature likely lead to similar evolution universe-wide.
I won't disagree, however on principle one must acknowledge your
assumption that "laws of nature" must be uniform throughout the universe.
For example, the "physics of Go" are said to change around the 2-2 pt.
>> Besides - aliens downed > 100 aircraft and humans have made several alien
>> craft crash by (alledgedly) high-powered RADAR, LASER and even particle
>> beams, so the concept of winning & losing should be clear to them by now..
Yes, to them who are -those- aliens, though of course one cannot be
assuming Species 116 to be identical, or even similar to, Species 8472.
"Dirt At Your Face" <Handfu...@CheapDirt.com> wrote:
> The figure of downed alien aircrafts does not counter well with cases
> of human abduction by alien. They seem to be in upper hand.
Similar facetious remark about a potentially facetious topic, also
due to fallacy by category error. Downed alien aircrafts could also be
the result of sabotage by the abducted humans, such as with Flight 93.
-------------------------------------------------------------
> Frank de Groot wrote:
>> Yeah, fine.
>> I just wanted to point out that brains are digital, not analog :-)
Brains are whatever those with brains can do, such as music.
A "bit" may be defined as electrical activity which conforms to certain
notions of edge-detection and threshold. Analog phenomena may be
simulated (painfully) also by intensive digital number-crunching.
"Lawson English" <LEng...@cox.net> wrote in message
> And I just pointed out that the normal definition of analog is
> shorthand for "lots and lots of values."
Well, a better definition would be unlimited intermediate values
within any range being specified.
- regards
- jb
------------------------------------------------------------
The Changing Face of Europe
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1310
------------------------------------------------------------
Hans-Georg Michna
>Before we get to "aliens", humans had better work on understanding the
>minds of dolphins, whales, elephants, and other apes.
So true!
Some web sites on elephants: http://elephanttrust.net/ and
http://elephantvoices.org/
Hans-Georg
--
No mail, please.
Hans-Georg Michna
>I've no doubt tht someday, some artificially created intelligence
>thingie will learn to play Go, but I'm not worried about it for several
>decades, at the very least.
Chess players always said that too, not very long ago.
Frank de Groot
news:46adf6ab....@news.isomedia.com...
> Yes, to them who are -those- aliens, though of course one cannot
> be
> assuming Species 116 to be identical, or even similar to, Species
> 8472.
Rest assured that any spacetravelling species is evolved enough to
understand the concept of "winning".
> Similar facetious remark about a potentially facetious topic,
> also
> due to fallacy by category error. Downed alien aircrafts could also
> be
> the result of sabotage by the abducted humans, such as with Flight 93.
Nonsense.
Flight 93 never crashed and its occupants did nothing.
Neither did they call family.
There was no wreckage.
Anyone who looked into this case reached the same conclusion.
Keep your personal delusions (especially wacko conspiracy theories about how
some people overcame "Al Qaida" "highjackers") to yourself.
Besides - you really think a drugged abductee has a chance against a group
of trained abductors, so much that their craft crashes?
Look at the facts (MJ12 documents, Disclosure Project etc.)
Then shut up.
gaga
Are you going to tell us that this coming today or what? Do not
misunderstand me - I do not say when it is going to come or whether as I
do not care all that much. This discussion is fascinating for number of
reasons but arguing about when better than human software is going to
come is just unreasonable unless you work on such software and are
relatively certain to deliver something useful this coming week or next
month at the latest. Considering that the most commonly used methodology
of software production is based on banana deliveries I guess we are not
going to lose any sleep playing this amazing software any day soon.
if it is going to be some day next year or next decade it may as well be
next century for what I care. The discussion is just pure speculation
based not on facts but beliefs.
So - are you going to tell us that your software will remove any chosen
human master of the game from the board by next Wednesday or it should
come to us as a surprise?
Whichever way I still will be visiting my club this week and I think
that is actually the interesting thing - will I meet anybody there even
if this mysterious software gets delivered to the go playing community?!
gaga
-
> "-" <jazze...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> ... of course one cannot be assuming Species 116 to be identical,
"Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
> Rest assured that any spacetravelling species is evolved enough
> to understand the concept of "winning".
Not all "spacetravelling species" need be -sentient- species.
Even if they be -sentient- there is no guarantee that they would
"understand the concept of `winning'" in the same way we do.
>> ... Downed alien aircrafts could also be the result of sabotage
>> by the abducted humans, such as with Flight 93.
> Nonsense.
> Flight 93 never crashed and its occupants did nothing.
> Neither did they call family.
> There was no wreckage.
Quite fortunately, when dealing with issues in science fiction,
your "reality criterion" does not need to apply. This is not to say,
however, that science fiction does not have its own necessary rules.
I can speak in the hypothetical (as I have done here) because the
Flight 93 abduction forms the substance of official story and also a
Hollywood feature film, sufficient to run with my "as if..." account.
> Anyone who looked into this case reached the same conclusion.
Which, in your world, became tautological and logically circular.
> Keep your personal delusions (especially wacko conspiracy theories about
> how some people overcame "Al Qaida" "highjackers") to yourself.
That's not how we conduct business in "free speech" America.
> Besides - you really think a drugged abductee has a chance against
> a group of trained abductors, so much that their craft crashes?
> Look at the facts (MJ12 documents, Disclosure Project etc.)
> Then shut up.
Europeans continue to have difficulty with "free speech" don't they?
The Hollywood film industry, an enterprise of imagination and talent, is
among America's economic assets. Even a Reichstag Operation receives
lucrative capitalization under direction of skillful film producers, e.g.
_Wag_the_Dog_, _Primary_Colors_, _Downfall_, and countless others.
Have you ever visited Roswell, New Mexico? I didn't think so.
- regards
- jb
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Depleted Uranium Blasts to Increase At Livermore Lab
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/25/18437308.php
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank de Groot
> Not all "spacetravelling species" need be -sentient- species.
Baloney.
> Have you ever visited Roswell, New Mexico? I didn't think so.
No.
But I spend a couple hundred hours reading a dearth of material on the
subject, including the books from the leading researchers, military
testimonies etc.
Visiting the place would not make a difference (except in terms of air
pollution).
Orne Batmagoo
> Are you going to tell us that this coming today or what? Do not
> misunderstand me - I do not say when it is going to come or whether as I
> do not care all that much. This discussion is fascinating for number of
> reasons but arguing about when better than human software is going to
> come is just unreasonable unless you work on such software and are
> relatively certain to deliver something useful this coming week or next
> month at the latest. Considering that the most commonly used methodology
> of software production is based on banana deliveries I guess we are not
> going to lose any sleep playing this amazing software any day soon.
Banana deliveries, eh?
The da-a-a-ay, oh! The day, oh, the day, oh, the day, oh, the day-ay-
ay, o-oh...
AI come, me wan' go home.
--
Orne Batmagoo
-
"Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
> Baloney.
Asteroidal "space seeding" is not exactly sentient. There's a
distinction between search for extraterrestrial life and the search
for extraterrestrial intelligence. I asked earlier how much space
needs to be travelled in order to be "space travelling." Even w/r/t
human beings it has not yet been properly established whether
such claims as cognition, intelligence, sentience, and/or thinking
really occur. You exhibit serious limits to your imagination, Frank.
>> Have you ever visited Roswell, New Mexico? I didn't think so.
> No. But I spend a couple hundred hours reading a dearth of material
> on the subject, including the books from the leading researchers,
> military testimonies etc. Visiting the place would not make a difference
> (except in terms of air pollution).
No matter. Little do people know that Roswell, NM is famous not
only for its two UFO museums but also the Goddard Rocketry Museum.
Roswell's surrounding landscape is of a nature quite "friendly" for the
visitors from outer space, or so it seems. Commercial overflights and
chemtrails are generally absent from most of New Mexico airspace.
You may obtain "a free breakfast" if you can prove you are from outer
space, you may "trade in your old UFO for a new one" at the used car
dealership, and local delicatessans serve "bar-b-qued alien chicken."
All in all, a visit to Roswell establishes conspiratorial entanglement by
its Chamber of Commerce, which renders it more difficult to separate
fact from fiction, a separation against which the UFO enthusiasts rail.
- regards
- jb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Their powerful biology renders them immune to most Federation
scanning technology and they are the only species the Borg
have been unable to assimilate."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_8472
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lawson English
> "Lawson English" <LEng...@cox.net> wrote
>
>> Perhaps 0 to 100 counts as "digital" in your book, but some unknown "large
>> number of states" certainly qualifies as analog, on the input side.
>
>
> You're not giving up, are ya?
>
> Although your boneheadedness seems hopeless, here you go:
>
> Since when is a gate with a lot of inputs "analog"?
>
> <chuckle>
>
> Since when is a digital pulse train with variabe duty cycle "analog"?
A vibration with constant amplitude, but infinitely variable frequency
between 0 and 100, is "digital?" True, there are a discrete number of
signals from a given neuron in any given second, but that holds for the
peak signal of a vibrating violin string as well. An infinitely variable
square wave is analog in time, not amplitude.
>
> <chortle>
>
> You're out of your league, buddy, and you try to save face by citing stuff
> from a textbook.
> The brain is digital, period. And you didn't know it, and you are too
> childish to admit that.
>
>
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/3433
[...]
"But ears, eyes, and even individual brain cells also have a digital
aspect. Brain cells, or neurons, can be viewed as special-purpose
analog-to-digital converters. They recognize particular patterns of
voltage inputs from other neurons, integrate these signals in an analog
manner, and then output a digital-like signal, a voltage spike (1) or
its absence (0). Output spikes from one neuron act as inputs to the next
neuron. And this simple process, amplified and repeated by billions of
interconnected neurons, leads to movement, hearing, thought, and
everything else under our brain's control [see the sidebar, "
Lawson English
Actually, they were saying it for about the length of time that the
computer scientists were predicting that they would be able to say it.
Go isn't as easily described using current computer AI theory as Chess
has been and the AI people aren't giving as definite a figure for when
GO will be cracked by AI.
Frank de Groot
> A vibration with constant amplitude, but infinitely variable frequency
Wrong.
It's not a "vibration" (= sine wave) but a DIGITAL PULSETRAIN.
A SQUARE WAVE.
Get it into your thick skull!
> peak signal of a vibrating violin string as well. An infinitely variable
> square wave is analog in time, not amplitude.
By your definition of "analog", everything is analog, and the entire concept
of digital becomes non-existant.
There is nothing more digital than a block wave, dude.
Neither are the neurons "analog" themselves. They only know two states: 0
and 1.
The see either a 0 or a 1 on their inputs, and they emit either a 0 or a 1
at their outputs.
A system that works with 0 and 1, exclusively.
That's called "digital", sonny.
Frank de Groot
Ah - I see why you deliberately twist my words:
You're well-known for your discussion tricks:
http://www.aaskolnick.com/junkyarddog/pilpel.htm
(yes, you are the same Lawson English, because both your current addy and
the addy in question post on identical groups about meditation, zen etc.)
Figures. You have "Religious Issues" with neuroscience, and you prefer
intellectual dishonesty and demagogy over Truth.
-
> "Lawson English" <LEng...@cox.net> wrote:
>> A vibration with constant amplitude, but infinitely variable frequency
"Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
> It's not a "vibration" (= sine wave) but a DIGITAL PULSETRAIN.
> A SQUARE WAVE. Get it into your thick skull!
Here's something for your thick skull, Frank: The square wave
is constructed in electronic circuitry by summation of frequency
overtone harmonics. It's not exactly square but very nearly so.
> By your definition of "analog", everything is analog, and the entire
> concept of digital becomes non-existant.
He's not wrong, Frank. Digital electronics is a man-made
construction, not the spike-functions from Dirac quantum theory.
Computers are a result of -engineering- with upper-speed limits.
> Neither are the neurons "analog" themselves. They only know
> two states: 0 and 1.
As hinted earlier, what passes for "knowledge" here fails to meet
basic standards. Knowledge implies correct behavior, which we lack.
By the way, MoyoGo is just "ok or great" even if your physics is whacked.
> The see either a 0 or a 1 on their inputs, and they emit either a 0 or a 1
> at their outputs. A system that works with 0 and 1, exclusively.
> That's called "digital", sonny.
No: called "binary." The term "digital" references what fingers do.
Human activity is analog through and through. You would need to
be somebody like "Kes" ("The Gift" on Star Trek Voyager) to affect
subatomic physics. Got out of control for her as she was evolving to
another form of life. She had to explode into a ball of white light out
there in one of the shuttlecrafts. Two states are natural for pendulum
motion. Given enough time, however, a pendulum will precess while
the Earth turns beneath it.
- regards
- jb
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Kes also becomes a friend and student of Tuvok, who helps
her develop and learn to control her psionic abilities."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kes_%28Star_Trek%29
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Alford
--------------------------------snip----------------------------
> The da-a-a-ay, oh! The day, oh, the day, oh, the day, oh, the day-ay-
> ay, o-oh...
>
> AI come, me wan' go home.
rofl :)
Frank de Groot
> is constructed in electronic circuitry by summation of frequency
> overtone harmonics. It's not exactly square but very nearly so.
Irrelevant.
The issue here is that a square wave is a digital signal.
> He's not wrong, Frank. Digital electronics is a man-made
> construction, not the spike-functions from Dirac quantum theory.
> Computers are a result of -engineering- with upper-speed limits.
Irrelevant.
Man-made digital or natural digital, irrelevant.
> No: called "binary."
Not "no", but "also".
(Since when is binary analog?)
> The term "digital" references what fingers do.
They count, yes.
Enumerable sets of discrete values instead of analog signals.
Exactly what I tried to explain that dude.
Thanks for making my point.
> Human activity is analog through and through.
We were talking about neurons, not human activities.
Frank de Groot
> uhh frank, the human brain is analog...... there is a lot more going
> on than neurons firing.
Remove all neurons firing and what do you got?
The brain is bathed in neurotransmitters and hormones and whatnot, but
essentially and in principle, the brain is a binary digital computer based
on massively parallel processing of digital binary pulse trains.
If you know it better, go bugger some neuroscientist.
-
>> Here's something for your thick skull, Frank: The square wave
>> is constructed in electronic circuitry by summation of frequency
>> overtone harmonics. It's not exactly square but very nearly so.
"Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
> Irrelevant. The issue here is that a square wave is a digital signal.
The issue concerns whether what you call "square waves" is
comprised of a substructure of analog wave superimpositions.
>> He's not wrong, Frank. Digital electronics is a man-made
>> construction, not the spike-functions from Dirac quantum theory.
>> Computers are a result of -engineering- with upper-speed limits.
> Irrelevant. Man-made digital or natural digital, irrelevant.
We don't have computers operating from Dirac spike-functions.
Last I checked it still requires about 35<->50 electrons to set a bit.
>> No: called "binary."
> Not "no", but "also". (Since when is binary analog?)
When binary is defined in terms of pendulum motion...
>> The term "digital" references what fingers do.
> They count, yes.
> Enumerable sets of discrete values instead of analog signals.
> Exactly what I tried to explain that dude.
> Thanks for making my point.
An analog heartbeat pumps blood through fingertips.
>> Human activity is analog through and through.
> We were talking about neurons, not human activities.
I doubt very much that you are capable of talking about neurons.
Everywhere you look, Frank, you will encounter the analog character.
- regards
- jb
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A new comedy spoof on the Ten Commandments portrays
Jesus Christ deflowering a sexy virgin, and is raising some
eyebrows in the Christian community.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1334
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank de Groot
> comprised of a substructure of analog wave superimpositions.
That is a purely metaphysical issue, and utterly irrelevant to the topic.
The topic is neurons, and whether they are analog or digital.
Besides - neurons do *not* construct their digital signals out of
superponated sine harmonics!
Stay in your own league - whatever it may be, it obviously is neither
neuroscience nor electronics.
> We don't have computers operating from Dirac spike-functions.
> Last I checked it still requires about 35<->50 electrons to set a bit.
..which makes it digital.
The entire universe, on a quantummechanical level, is digital, BTW.
There is such a thing as a minimum unit of distance, for example.
Electrons do not move smoothly, but are "clocked" and every "cycle" they
move a discrete distance.
> When binary is defined in terms of pendulum motion...
If my aunt would have had a dick, it would have been my uncle.
Lawson English
Wow. Someone who cites a worship site to win an argument.
-
>> The issue concerns whether what you call "square waves" is
>> comprised of a substructure of analog wave superimpositions.
"Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
> That is a purely metaphysical issue, and utterly irrelevant to the topic.
Oh no, not metaphysical at all. It's an engineering description
of the crystal oscillators which combine to produce "square waves."
> The topic is neurons, and whether they are analog or digital.
When the topic is neurons then the topic is neurons. If you employ
highspeed recordings you'll find neurons charging before they fire.
> Besides - neurons do *not* construct their digital signals out of
> superponated sine harmonics!
Maybe not, however they do behave as charge capacitors.
> Stay in your own league - whatever it may be, it obviously is neither
> neuroscience nor electronics.
I would not suppose that anybody here is in the correct league.
>> We don't have computers operating from Dirac spike-functions.
>> Last I checked it still requires about 35<->50 electrons to set a bit.
> ..which makes it digital.
Which makes it a statistical -wave- function.
> The entire universe, on a quantummechanical level, is digital, BTW.
> There is such a thing as a minimum unit of distance, for example.
> Electrons do not move smoothly, but are "clocked" and every "cycle"
> they move a discrete distance.
Still: particle<->wave duality, which is where I hang my hat.
Electrons move statistically; they are not "clocked" specifically and
have many "cycles" concurrently. They do not all move the same
"discrete distance"; they carry their own independent proper times.
>> When binary is defined in terms of pendulum motion...
> If my aunt would have had a dick, it would have been my uncle.
We have already heard your story about the reversible proboscis.
- regards
- jb
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Almost Forbidden Thoughts
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1339
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-
World Go News from the American Go Association
July 30, 2007; Volume 8, #56
[ ... ]
RESPONSES TO "SAVING GO": "Smarter computers will make the
world a better place by being better able to meet human needs,"
writes Kirk Martinez in response to Paul Celmer’s suggestion that
go programmers stop ("A Modest Proposal to Programmers" 7/26 EJ).
"It is not the end (solving go) that is valuable, but what we learn
along the way." Martinez adds that "The algorithms developed
over the last fifty years in the pursuit of a good chess-playing
program have resulted in advances in the fields of chemical
modeling, data mining, and economics to name a few." Finally,
he notes, "Just because a game is solved doesn't mean it can
no longer be a source of achievement or beauty. Being theoretically
solved and actually knowing how to play well are very different things."
Phil Wall says that "Isn't it the doing that's important? I might never
win a tournament in my life, and I might remain the worst player
in my Saturday afternoon go circle in Champaign, Illinois, but I
still play every Saturday that I'm able to, and I still love doing so.
Go is dead, long live go!" Along the same lines, Russ Williams
points out that "No one thinks human athletes are devalued because
a car can move faster or a forklift can pick up more weight."
Adds David Oshel, "The fascination with go programming lies precisely
in the fact that no one knows HOW the game will be solved; no one
knows yet what ‘stronger’ and ‘weaker’ means, or why the 9x9 players
can throw random moves onto the board and still win. Do they win
because human players are flummoxed by irrational moves, or because
the 9x9 players are revealing unsuspected aspects of the game? Game
playing programs are research into the nature of the minds who play go,
and that is certainly a worthy thing!" Finally, Dennis Hardman writes that
"In the end, we'd never be able to stop energetic and inspired
programmers from trying to understand the mysteries of go to the extent
needed to allow the machine to win against the pro. And their effort,
while initially annoying perhaps, will only serve to highlight the beauty
and appeal of the game. Because, ultimately, I'd rather play YOU - a
feeling, alert, fallible, friendly human being - rather than a machine,
even if that machine is better than you. I'd rather study a game played
to two great professionals, than a game played by a bucket of bolts.
Knowing these great human players are shackled by the same physical
limits that I am is what makes their accomplishments so amazing,
so interesting, so compelling."
Text material published in the AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL may be
reproduced by any recipient: please credit the AGEJ as the source.
Dirt At Your Face
random selected absurdity-free polling?
- <jazze...@hotmail.com> typed:
Frank de Groot
> of the crystal oscillators which combine to produce "square waves."
Just as irrelevant to the issue as the reed used to produce flutes.
> When the topic is neurons then the topic is neurons. If you employ
> highspeed recordings you'll find neurons charging before they fire.
Utterly irrelevant to the issue of the brain being digital or analog.
The brain works with 0 and 1 exclusively.
That's called "digital", little friend.
> Maybe not, however they do behave as charge capacitors.
Who gives a shit. Inside a digital CPU are resistors and capacitors too.
As well as in RAM. Point is, a digital CPU, in spite of the fact that it
contains analog components, is "digital".
> I would not suppose that anybody here is in the correct league.
Silly. Why would a normal person talk about things he doesn't know about?
I talk about things I know about because I like the truth.
You talk because you like conflict.
> Electrons move statistically;
Wrong.
The imperfect statistical models are unable to predict speed & position
simultaneously, that does not mean that the latest empirical findings are
wrong.
Experimental results are about REALITY, models are fantasies or at best
crude approximations.
> they are not "clocked" specifically and
> have many "cycles" concurrently. They do not all move the same
> "discrete distance"; they carry their own independent proper times.
Bla bla bla.
I tell you something very cool - the latest findings in quantummechanics and
you say: "no no no not true njanjanja".
Instead, do some research and then come back to apologize.
Little internet kiddies like you should not spend so much tme in front of
the computer anyway.
Frank de Groot
> Wow. Someone who cites a worship site to win an argument.
No, I used first arguments to make my point, but you deliberately ignored
them and kept citing obscure, irrelevant stuff from your textbook.
I then proceeded to find out why you were so obnoxious, and I discovered
that you're a delusional schizophrenic with known "issues" in the field of
religious mania and a record of attracting angry folks with the exact same
complaint as I have about you.
Frank de Groot
> win a tournament in my life, and I might remain the worst player
> in my Saturday afternoon go circle in Champaign, Illinois, but I
> still play every Saturday that I'm able to, and I still love doing so.
> Go is dead, long live go!" Along the same lines, Russ Williams
> points out that "No one thinks human athletes are devalued because
> a car can move faster or a forklift can pick up more weight."
Phil Wall is right, of course.
Say there is some guru who has reached Nirvana.
In his presence, why would that preclude me from attempting the same goal?
-
>>>> The issue concerns whether what you call "square waves" is
>>>> comprised of a substructure of analog wave superimpositions.
>> "Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
>>> That is a purely metaphysical issue, and utterly irrelevant to the topic.
>> Oh no, not metaphysical at all. It's an engineering description
>> of the crystal oscillators which combine to produce "square waves."
"Frank de Groot" <fr...@moyogo.com> wrote:
> Just as irrelevant to the issue as the reed used to produce flutes.
I reminded you that it's an engineering description, not a
metaphysical theory. That's how "square waves" are generated.
I won this point. You lost this point. ( 1-0 )
>> When the topic is neurons then the topic is neurons. If you employ
>> highspeed recordings you'll find neurons charging before they fire.
> Utterly irrelevant to the issue of the brain being digital or analog.
> The brain works with 0 and 1 exclusively.
Complete bullshit. Zero was invented by the Hindus.
I won this point. You lost this point. ( 2-0 )
> That's called "digital", little friend.
Nope. That's called "binary."
I won this point. You lost this point. ( 3-0 )
>> Maybe not, however they do behave as charge capacitors.
> Who gives a shit. Inside a digital CPU are resistors and capacitors
> too. As well as in RAM. Point is, a digital CPU, in spite of the fact
> that it contains analog components, is "digital".
The digital electronics are generated by analog crystal oscillators.
I won this point. You lost this point. ( 4-0 )
>> I would not suppose that anybody here is in the correct league.
> Silly. Why would a normal person talk about things he doesn't know
> about? I talk about things I know about because I like the truth.
> You talk because you like conflict.
I have a higher standard for "knowledge" (meaning correct behavior).
I won this point. You lost this point. ( 5-0 )
>> Electrons move statistically;
> Wrong.
My knowledge is correct. My behavior is also correct.
I won this point. You lost this point. ( 6-0 )
> The imperfect statistical models are unable to predict speed & position
> simultaneously, that does not mean that the latest empirical findings are
> wrong.
We were not discussing the uncertainty principle.
> Experimental results are about REALITY, models are fantasies or at best
> crude approximations.
The reality is statistical.
I won this point. You lost this point. ( 7-0 )
>> ... they are not "clocked" specifically and have many "cycles"
>> concurrently. They do not all move the same "discrete distance";
>> they carry their own independent proper times.
> I tell you something very cool - the latest findings in quantummechanics
> and you say: "no no no not true njanjanja".
> Instead, do some research and then come back to apologize.
I have yet to be informed by you. Others speak similar words.
> Little internet kiddies like you should not spend so much tme in
> front of the computer anyway.
I help handicapped people. You haven't the capability to do so.
Frank de Groot
> metaphysical theory. That's how "square waves" are generated.
> I won this point. You lost this point. ( 1-0 )
Bullshit.
It is irrelevant how some square waves used to be generated in outdated
equipment.
Fact is that brains work with zero's and ones, and that they do not generate
their square waves using a method used in outdated electronic equipment.
Regardless, even if the brains used an outdated electronic method to
generate digital signals, the signals still are digital.
Which makes this 2-0 for me, because I won the point, and I wont the
argument over the winning of the point.
Case closed. (I know you know you are bullshitting, but not everyone else
knows so I defende myself here and awarded me one point)
> Complete bullshit. Zero was invented by the Hindus.
> I won this point. You lost this point. ( 2-0 )
Who invented the zero does not affect the digitalness of the brain.
4-0 for me (one point for winning the point, and one point for winning the
argument.
Case closed on this one too - viz. above.
> Nope. That's called "binary."
> I won this point. You lost this point. ( 3-0 )
Binary IS "digital" - 6-0 for me.
> The digital electronics are generated by analog crystal oscillators.
> I won this point. You lost this point. ( 4-0 )
Liar. Human brains are not artificial analog electronics, they are evolved
digital organics.
8-0 for me.
> I have a higher standard for "knowledge" (meaning correct behavior).
> I won this point. You lost this point. ( 5-0 )
Wrong behavior <> knowledge, and besides this is irrelevant to the point.
16-0 for me.
> My knowledge is correct. My behavior is also correct.
> I won this point. You lost this point. ( 6-0 )
32-0 for me for you saying "njanjanja" twice in a row.
> The reality is statistical.
Wrong.
64-0
> I help handicapped people. You haven't the capability to do so.
You admit being mentally handicapped?
Good.
I award you one point for that: 63-0 for me.
Lawson English
> "Lawson English" <LEng...@cox.net> wrote
>
>> Wow. Someone who cites a worship site to win an argument.
>
>
> No, I used first arguments to make my point, but you deliberately ignored
> them and kept citing obscure, irrelevant stuff from your textbook.
Blink.
>
> I then proceeded to find out why you were so obnoxious, and I discovered
> that you're a delusional schizophrenic with known "issues" in the field of
> religious mania and a record of attracting angry folks with the exact same
> complaint as I have about you.
>
>
Double-blink.
Hans-Georg Michna
>Hans-Georg Michna wrote:
>> On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:58:13 -0700, Lawson English wrote:
>>> I've no doubt tht someday, some artificially created intelligence
>>> thingie will learn to play Go, but I'm not worried about it for several
>>> decades, at the very least.
>> Chess players always said that too, not very long ago.
>Go isn't as easily described using current computer AI theory as Chess
>has been and the AI people aren't giving as definite a figure for when
>GO will be cracked by AI.
I reacted to the "several decades".
Hans-Georg
--
No mail, please.
T Mark Hall
Groot <fr...@moyogo.com> writes
>Little internet kiddies like you should not spend so much tme in front of
>the computer anyway.
>
>
noise" since you are just so full of wind.
--
T Mark Hall
Honorary Vice-president, British Go Association
http://www.gogod.co.uk/index.htm
http://www.gogod.co.uk/NewInGo/NewInGo.htm