Toward a Science of Consciousness 1998
David Chalmers
TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 1998
TUCSON, ARIZONA
APRIL 27 - MAY 2, 1998
This is the final call for registration for the third Tucson
conference on "Toward a Science of Consciousness". The conference
will take place from Monday April 27 to Saturday May 2, 1998, at the
Tucson Convention Center and Music Hall, sponsored by the University
of Arizona.
Included below is an outline of plenary sessions and speakers, a list
of concurrent sessions, and registration details. More details
(including information on pre-conference workshops, poster sessions,
abstracts, lodging, detailed schedule, and so on) can be found on the
conference web sites at:
http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/page.htm (general information)
http://www.zynet.co.uk/imprint/Tucson/ (abstracts, etc)
PROGRAM COMMITTEE: David Chalmers, Stuart Hameroff, Alfred Kaszniak,
Christof Koch, Marilyn Schlitz, Alwyn Scott, Petra Stoerig, Keith
Sutherland, Michael Winkelman
----------------------------------------------------------------------
PLENARY SESSIONS
Monday April 27
PL1: THE SELF
* G. Strawson: The self.
* M.S. Gazzaniga: The mind's past.
* J. Shear: Experiential clarification of `The problem of self'.
PL2: IMPLICIT PROCESSES
* A. Greenwald: Simple mental feats that require conscious cognition
(because unconscious cognition can't do them.)
* P. Merikle: Is there memory for events during anesthesia?
PL3: PATHWAYS OF VISUAL CONSCIOUSNESS
* D. Milner: Unconscious visual processing for action:
neuropsychological evidence.
* M. Goodale: Unconscious visual processing for action: evidence
from normal observers.
* M. Mishkin: On the neural basis of visual awareness.
Tuesday April 28
PL4: SLEEP AND DREAMING
* B. McNaughton, Neural ensembles in sleep and waking and the
reprocessing of recent experience
* J.A. Hobson: Neuropsychology of dreaming consciousness.
* S. LaBerge: Lucid dreaming: psychophysiological studies of
consciousness during REM sleep.
PL5: INTEGRATIVE PERSPECTIVES
* C. Koch: Visual awareness and the frontal lobes.
* M. Tye: Representation and consciousness.
PL6: COLOR AND CONSCIOUSNESS
* S. Palmer: Color, consciousness, and the isomorphism constraint
* C.L. Hardin: Color quality and color structure.
* M. Nida-Rumelin: Pseudonormal vision and color qualia
Wednesday April 29
PL7: TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY
* F. Vaughan: Essential dimensions of consciousness: Objective,
subjective and intersubjective.
* H. Hunt: Transpersonal and cognitive psychologies of consciousness:
A necessary and reciprocal dialogue.
* M. Schlitz: Transpersonal consciousness? Assessing the evidence.
PL8: EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BRAIN
* A. Kaszniak: Conscious experience and autonomic response to emotion
following frontal lobe damage.
* R.D. Lane: Subregions within the anterior cingulate cortex may
differentially participate in phenomenal and reflective conscious
awareness of emotion.
Thursday April 30
PL9: EVOLUTION AND FUNCTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS I
* S. Mithen: Handaxes: Some hard evidence regarding the evolution
of the mind and consciousness
* W. Calvin: Competing for consciousness: A Darwinian mechanism on
the timescale of thought and action.
* A.G. Cairns-Smith: If qualia evolved...
PL10: EVOLUTION AND FUNCTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS II
* R.L. Gregory: What do qualia do?
* N. Humphrey: The privatization of sensation
PL11: THE EXPLANATORY GAP
* J. Levine: Conceivability, possibility, and the explanatory gap
* C. McGinn: How not to solve the mind-body problem
* G. Rosenberg: On the intrinsic nature of the physical.
Friday May 1
PL12: CULTURE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
* A. Zajonc: Goethe and the science of consciousness: Toward a
scientist's phenomenology of mind.
* C. Laughlin: Biogenetic structural theory and the neurophenomenology
of consciousness.
* M. Winkelman: The fundamental properties of systems with
consciousness.
PL13: BLINDSIGHT
* P. Stoerig, A. Cowey, R. Goebel: Blindsight and its neuronal basis.
* R. Kentridge, C. Heywood, L. Weiskrantz: Attentional cueing in
blindsight
PL14: SPACE, TIME, AND CONSCIOUSNESS
* P. Hut: Exploring actuality, through experiment and experience.
* K. Yasue: Consciousness and photon dynamics in the brain.
* B. Hiley: Quantum theory, the implicate order, and the mind/matter
relationship
Saturday May 2
PL15: NEURAL CORRELATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
* B. Baars: Is a real psychoscope possible? Inferring when brain
scans show us conscious experiences.
* A. Revonsuo: How to take consciousness seriously in cognitive
neuroscience.
* J.B. Newman: Beyond pandemonium: the role of the reticular core
in unifying the stream of consciousness
PL16: AESTHETICS AND CONSCIOUSNESS
* C.W. Tyler: The structure of interpersonal consciousness in art.
* T. Grodal: Aesthetic feelings of subjectivity in film as blocked
action potentials.
* A. Bergesen: Artistic consciousness: the art faculty of mind.
---------------------------------------------------------------
CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Each session will have five speakers. For more details, see the
conference web site.
Monday April 27
C1: Qualia
C2: Neural correlates of consciousness
C3: Implicit cognition
C4: Time
C5: Isomorphism between phenomenology and neuroscience
C6: Crosscultural perspectives
Tuesday April 28
C7: Materialism and dualism
C8: The function of consciousness
C9: Attention and vision
C10: Quantum biology and consciousness
C11: Parapsychology
C12: Consciousness and literature
C13: Awareness, attention, and memory during sleep
Thursday April 30
C14: The concept of consciousness
C15: Computational and cognitive models
C16: Blindsight
C17: Evolution of consciousness
C18: Altered states of consciousness
C19: First-, second-, and third-person perspectives
C20: Unconscious influences on motivational/affective awareness
Friday May 1
C21: Unity of consciousness and the self
C22: Ethics
C23: Sleep and dreaming
C24: Consciousness and physical reality
C25: Emotion and volition
C26: Art, music, and consciousness
---------------------------------------------------------------
REGISTRATION FORM
Toward a Science of Consciousness 1998 81ULCON227
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Conference Fees
___ Registration fee (payment received after Feb 2) $325.00
___ Student registration fee (full-time students with ID) $150.00
Other Fees
___ Banquet, April 29, White Stallion Ranch $55.00
___ Guest at banquet (Name ___________________________) $55.00
Meal choice: ___ chicken ___ salmon ___ vegetarian
Pre-conference Workshops
Saturday, April 25
All day
___ Observing the Mind (C. Tart) $90.00
___ Dream Interpretation (D. Roomy) $90.00
Morning
___ Health, Healing and Consciousness (Kohatsu et al) $45.00
Afternoon
___ "Global workspace" capacity in the brain (B. Baars) $45.00
Sunday, April 26
Morning
___ Overview of Tucson III (V. Shamas) $45.00
___ Quantum Theory and Consciousness (P. Pylkkanen) $45.00
___ Exceptional Experience in Sports (White & Brown) $45.00
Afternoon
___ The Mammalian Visual System (C. Koch) $45.00
___ Consciousness and Lucid Dreaming (S. LaBerge) $45.00
___ Consciousness and the Binding Problem (A. Revonsuo) $45.00
Field Trips
___ Sabino Canyon $45.00
___ Tubac and San Xavier $45.00
Total $_____
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Jason Rosenberg
David Chalmers wrote:
>
> TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 1998
>
> TUCSON, ARIZONA
> APRIL 27 - MAY 2, 1998
>
I must say, this looks like a great conference. I
wish I had known about it sooner. Will there be a
published proceedings for the various papers? What
about proceedings for the past years?
It looks to me as though the participation is quite
inter-disciplinary, but not much from the traditional
AI crowd, i.e. computer scientists, etc. Is that
right? And if so, why?
Jason
cij...@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Jason Rosenberg <ja...@erdas.com> wrote:
>David Chalmers wrote:
>>
>> TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 1998
>>
>> TUCSON, ARIZONA
>> APRIL 27 - MAY 2, 1998
>>
>I must say, this looks like a great conference. I
>wish I had known about it sooner. Will there be a
>published proceedings for the various papers? What
>about proceedings for the past years?
Easy, look at the title: consciousNESS.
>It looks to me as though the participation is quite
>inter-disciplinary, but not much from the traditional
>AI crowd, i.e. computer scientists, etc. Is that
>right? And if so, why?
>Jason
I looks to me that it is not inter-disciplinary,
as at least several hundred of the directions of the world studying
aspects of the mind are missing...
Reading the topics might also bring enlightenment to the why, as the
aspect of enlightenment and all of the branches to do with it are not
exactly there in abundance... apart from many others.
And if thou wouldst consider the matter a bit deeper,
though mightst observe that the old "we are in the frontal cortex and
it is bigger than that of most other mammals, therefore we can lock
them into cages and abuse them" is not exactly congruent with the data
of the alive-mammal-apart-cutters.
If thou wouldst think even more long though mights arrive at the
suspicion that the upper part of the frontal cortex is not of the
conscious areas at all nor the front and that in both you can
basically park a brick or a biiiig tumor and the person might still be
around, which suspiciously does not make it the likely center for
consciousness.
Now of course a little rethinking is needed, for most neuros
preferably with the preset result that they are ever so much more
conscious and have ever so much more thinking I-perception than the
other mammals they abuse, so that they can go on abusing them and
eating them, ...
and my first guess would be that someone tries to get the neuros to
make up their melon where the centers who are conscious might be - if
they exist - and the shrinks to rethink their brain-screwing people
accordingly and the philosophers for little thingies like some
Christians being a bit miffed if the conscious mind is not some soul
going to Heaven, where maybe the dead partner you loved already is
waiting for you, but just a bunch of neurons of some areas in the
brain.
Here is a little riddle for you:
How would society restructure if it was proven beyond doubt that the
thinking and conscious centers we have are also there in mammals and
some of them also in many other animals?
To what extent would it make what people do to animals a crime the
same way or to at least the same percentage the similarity is there
as if they had been committed against the mammal "human"?
The moment you declare certain centers main suspicion areas for
conscious centers or declare them THE conscious areas, it might cause
some tiny, trivial alterations in a few unimportant areas...
Brian J Flanagan
Dear David Chalmers:
Thanks very much for your good work on Tucson III. I shall make every
effort to attend.
Thought the following might be of interest, which has to do with the
'quantum consciousness' business:
http://www.freeyellow.com/members/sentek/index.html
All the best,
Brian Flanagan
cij...@zedat.fu-berlin.de
To all the Al fans:
Have you read this book: Walter Tevis:"Mockingbird"
Brian J Flanagan
On Thu, 16 Apr 1998, C. L. Dbraca wrote:
> It is impossible to get away from these goddam pimps!!!
Cleo, you silly twat, what are you on about? Chalmers is one of the
finest intellects of our time. You ought to be grateful he spares a
thought for you at all. Piss off now, why don't you?
Hermital
On Sat 4/18/98 22:50 -0400 Jason Rosenberg wrote:
> David Chalmers wrote:
> >
> > TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 1998
> >
> > TUCSON, ARIZONA
> > APRIL 27 - MAY 2, 1998
>
> wish I had known about it sooner. Will there be a
> published proceedings for the various papers? What
> about proceedings for the past years?
>
http://www.zynet.co.uk/imprint/SPECIAL/tucson.html.
> It looks to me as though the participation is quite
> inter-disciplinary, but not much from the traditional
> AI crowd, i.e. computer scientists, etc. Is that
> right? And if so, why?
>
For an answer, ask this question in the comp.ai groups.
--
Alan
Spontaneous self-organization is to the life sciences
as perpetual motion machines are to physics.
Consciousness, Physics and the Holographic Paradigm:
http://www.livingston.net/hermital/intro.htm
Scot Mc Pherson
I think his question is relevant here too. There is a theory that suggests
that advanced computer systems could infact assume consciousness with the
right programming. And programs that are allowed to improve upon and
reprogram themselves could arguably become a sentient consciousness.
Remember that ultimately everything comes from the same star stuff that we
are made of. If you want more scientific terms, we constitute the same sub
atomic particles that exist throughout all of creation.
We are just a freak of nature that allowed the material that makes up our
constituency become a pattern in the way it does to create US, but not
impossible or WE wouldn't be here. This is paralleled by the fact that IA
Consciousness would be a freak of computing, but not impossible.
Scot
Hermital wrote in message <353A44...@livingston.net>...
>On Sat 4/18/98 22:50 -0400 Jason Rosenberg wrote:
>> David Chalmers wrote:
>> >
>> > TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 1998
>> >
>> > TUCSON, ARIZONA
>> > APRIL 27 - MAY 2, 1998
>>
Hermital
On Sun 4/19/98 15:23 -0400 Scot Mc Pherson wrote:
>
> I think his question is relevant here too.
Wherever "here" is. I admit that I did not see the comp.ai NGs listed
in the header when I wrote my response, but where are you reading this
and/or posting from?
> There is a theory that suggests
> that advanced computer systems could infact assume consciousness with the
> right programming. And programs that are allowed to improve upon and
> reprogram themselves could arguably become a sentient consciousness.
> Remember that ultimately everything comes from the same star stuff that we
> are made of. If you want more scientific terms, we constitute the same sub
> atomic particles that exist throughout all of creation.
>
We disagree on this point, but if you want to see the work product of
someone deeply involved in the subject of quantum consciousness, go to
http://www.hia.com/pcr/qmotion.html.
> We are just a freak of nature that allowed the material that makes up our
> constituency become a pattern in the way it does to create US, but not
> impossible or WE wouldn't be here. This is paralleled by the fact that IA
> Consciousness would be a freak of computing, but not impossible.
>
Bull tweedle, my good man. Bull tweedle. You are merely running off at
the mouth in the above paragraph.
Scot Mc Pherson
Scot Mc Pherson
I don't see how it is bull tweedle, there has yet to be a successful
sentient AI. They always loose their sense self of importance and suicide.
Jason Rosenberg
cij...@zedat.fu-berlin.de wrote:
>
> Jason Rosenberg <ja...@erdas.com> wrote:
>
> >I must say, this looks like a great conference. I
> >wish I had known about it sooner. Will there be a
> >published proceedings for the various papers? What
> >about proceedings for the past years?
>
>
Pardon? I don't think I understand your point. Perhaps
if there is a language problem on your end, you ought
to run your posts by one who understands English a
little better, if indeed your goal is to communicate
your point back to me, the poster.
> Reading the topics might also bring enlightenment to the why, as the
> aspect of enlightenment and all of the branches to do with it are not
> exactly there in abundance... apart from many others.
>
"Enlightenment to the why". Not sure what you mean there, are you
thinking in one language and transcribing to another? Can you
define "enlightenment" a little better. Are you talking about religious
elightenment (in which case I'm completely disinterested), or are you
talking about some sort of Zen-Buddhist-at-one-with-the-earth enlightenment
(in which case, I might at least listen to you a little longer). In
general, the term "enlightenment" is rather boring to me.
> And if thou wouldst consider the matter a bit deeper,
> though mightst observe that the old "we are in the frontal cortex and
> it is bigger than that of most other mammals, therefore we can lock
> them into cages and abuse them" is not exactly congruent with the data
> of the alive-mammal-apart-cutters.
Boring again. It would be ridiculous to ignore the wealth of evidence
available in the mammalian world. Again, I'm only guessing at your
meaning, picking up various queues here and there from your broken
sentences.
>
> Here is a little riddle for you:
>
> How would society restructure if it was proven beyond doubt that the
> thinking and conscious centers we have are also there in mammals and
> some of them also in many other animals?
I have no doubt that mammals have abundant consciousness, and I don't
think this is generally doubted, at least not by those who are
"enlightened." You may just be an innocent victim of a flawed
educational environment in which you feel it necessary to be crassly
arrogant and rebelious, and thusly making a bit of a fool out of
yourself. The world at large does not disagree with you about
animals.
> To what extent would it make what people do to animals a crime the
> same way or to at least the same percentage the similarity is there
> as if they had been committed against the mammal "human"?
>
There is no universal morality. We simply live in a world where we
humans have agreed to treat the killing of humans a crime and the
killing of animals not a crime. No big deal. No mystery there.
> The moment you declare certain centers main suspicion areas for
> conscious centers or declare them THE conscious areas, it might cause
> some tiny, trivial alterations in a few unimportant areas...
As far as I'm concerned, the entire nervous system is required for
any experiments regarding human consciousness. To try and take a small
piece of the brain and try to analyze it in isolation would be taking
things out of context. You might learn something interesting and
fascinating to be sure, but you must take into account the full
extent of the beast, with utmost importance on the perceptual
and motor system, for without these, no consciousness can be said
to exist in any real world.
cij...@zedat.fu-berlin.de
>> As far as I'm concerned, the entire nervous system is required for
>> any experiments regarding human consciousness.
Most experiments I know I do not need the other systems, except if
you want to restructure stuff transiting to the old perceptions &
older settings.
It's sort of the ultimate game, isn't it?
I met few other players who have the balance and control to alter
stuff in the conscious sectors, and I keep hearing of many who die
each year who blundered it...
But the survivors & advanced players are some of the most fascinating
minds I encoutered in my life.
>For a more comprehensive view of consciousness, per se,
What is "per se"
Or let me put it that way: Are some of the motoric areas conscious or
not?
Mountain Man
Jason Rosenberg <ja...@erdas.com> wrote:
>>> I must say, this looks like a great conference. I
>>> wish I had known about it sooner. Will there be a
>>> published proceedings for the various papers? What
>>> about proceedings for the past years?
For the years of 1994 and 1996 have a look through:
http://magna.com.au/~prfbrown/tasoc.html
Pete Brown
--------------------------------------------------------------------
BoomerangOutPost: Mountain Man Graphics, Newport Beach, {OZ}
Thematic Threading: Publications of Peace and Of Great Souls
Webulous Coordinates: http://magna.com.au/~prfbrown/beenthar.html
QuoteForTheDay: "Been there before" : Banjo Patterson 1888
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Hermital
On Sun 4/19/98 21:15 -0400 Jason Rosenberg wrote:
>
> As far as I'm concerned, the entire nervous system is required for
> piece of the brain and try to analyze it in isolation would be taking
> things out of context. You might learn something interesting and
> fascinating to be sure, but you must take into account the full
> extent of the beast, with utmost importance on the perceptual
> and motor system, for without these, no consciousness can be said
> to exist in any real world.
Sadly, the above paragraph begins at the human level and ends with
consciousness in general; however, it addresses only phenomenological
consciousness and makes no mention of ontological consciousness.
For a more comprehensive view of consciousness, per se, and a new
perspective concerning Descartes' Mind/Body problem, go to
http://www.livingston.net/hermital/etiology.htm.
Hermital
On Sun 4/19/98 20:13 GMT cij...@zedat.fu-berlin.de wrote:
>
> >For a more comprehensive view of consciousness, per se,
Per se: by, of, or in itself.
> Or let me put it that way: Are some of the motoric areas conscious or
> not?
IMHO, everything -- everything -- is to some degree conscious within the
objective, all-pervasive, quantifiable, immanent, transcendent physical
energy of the continuum of consciousness. See further
http://www.livingston.net/hermital/csenergy.htm.
As for the conscious aspects of the human form, see
http://www.livingston.net/hermital/antenna.htm.
--
Alan
Within the sub-light-speed spacetime continuum of our synergistic
material universe, higher order information produced in the
transcendent continuum of conscious energies devolves and directs
both the organization and the evolution of lower order aggregations
of energy called matter.
cij...@zedat.fu-berlin.de
>Per se: by, of, or in itself.
that the different conscious areas are so diffrent already in a human,
and birds to me seem very different again, that I did not get the "per
se" bit from that point of vies.
For me that is like calling, rainbows, apples and a computer all the
same thing and declaring that to be different from other things.
Sort of too hazy. ;-)
>> Or let me put it that way: Are some of the motoric areas conscious or
>> not?
>IMHO, everything -- everything -- is to some degree conscious within the
>objective, all-pervasive, quantifiable, immanent, transcendent physical
>energy of the continuum of consciousness. See further
>http://www.livingston.net/hermital/csenergy.htm.
>As for the conscious aspects of the human form, see
>http://www.livingston.net/hermital/antenna.htm.
To lazy to see there, know enough of brain to know that there are
areas that are definitely not conscious.
And your answer about the motoric ones showes me that your own
self-perception is even less clear than mine of that; might ask some
autist for that question if I ever happen to meet one who wants all in
the same place and can talk, or wait until he himself is off-line a
run a few tests to find out... Not that that question is so impoartant
anyway; I guess that is more interesting for the Al front. ;-)
>Within the sub-light-speed
Why sublight?
There is something odd about that term, as if who made it does not
understand well about what is.
>spacetime continuum of our synergistic
>material universe, ...
Same
Lyle Bateman
Scot Mc Pherson wrote:
> I think his question is relevant here too. There is a theory that suggests
> that advanced computer systems could infact assume consciousness with the
> right programming. And programs that are allowed to improve upon and
> reprogram themselves could arguably become a sentient consciousness.
> Remember that ultimately everything comes from the same star stuff that we
> are made of. If you want more scientific terms, we constitute the same sub
> atomic particles that exist throughout all of creation.
Its a matter of a lot more than just programming, I'd have to say. Hardware
design is critical here. With the type of architecture currently popular in
the computer industry, conciousness will never happen. Expert systems maybe,
but conciousness no. The reason is that todays industrial computers are
nothing more than big calculators. They crunch numbers, and thats all they
do.
The human brain (my assumption here is that the brain is the root of human
conciousness, but that is by no means certain) is constructed in a vastly
different way than most current computers. Neural nets provide something of
an analogy between computer architecture and brain design, however the
complexity level differs by many orders of magnitude.
Perhaps the biggest problem with trying to design a concious computer right
now is that no one knows 1) what conciousness is, exactly; 2) how widespread
or isolated it is, or; 3) what physical (or non-physical for that matter)
process makes humans concious. Until these questions are answered fully, the
notion of designing a concious computer seems like little more than a
trial-and-error crap shoot.
Just my 2c worth.
Cheers,
Lyle
--
Sincerely,
Lyle W. Bateman
System Consultant
PECC Ltd.
NOTE: My views are my own, and do not represent the views
of my employer, unless explicitly stated.
mod...@concentric.net
>Its a matter of a lot more than just programming, I'd have to say. Hardware
>design is critical here. With the type of architecture currently popular in
>the computer industry, conciousness will never happen. Expert systems maybe,
>but conciousness no. The reason is that todays industrial computers are
>nothing more than big calculators. They crunch numbers, and thats all they
>do.
>
>The human brain (my assumption here is that the brain is the root of human
>conciousness, but that is by no means certain) is constructed in a vastly
>different way than most current computers. Neural nets provide something of
>an analogy between computer architecture and brain design, however the
>complexity level differs by many orders of magnitude.
In the sense that you seem to mean it, your statement that hardware
design is critical is wrong.
Hardware design is important in a lot of practical ways. A design must
provide devices and channels for information to come into the system and
out of it... sensors and effectors, in biological or robotic terms.
Hardware design also determines how fast computations can proceed, and
how much information can be stored and manipulated... all very important
to the practicality of solving any particular computational problem.
But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
things that can be computed, given that we are comparing designs that
are capable of elementary computation at all. Anything any computing
machine can do, all computing machines can do, given enough time and
physical capacity. Architecture affects practical issues of
performance, but makes absolutely no difference to what is possible if
we provide enough capacity and don't care how long it takes.
The difference between any computing machine and any other computing
machine is only a matter of programming. A finite program running on
either of the machines would suffice to emulate the operation of the
other, so that exactly the same programs could run on either one.
Bill Modlin
Neil Rickert
mod...@concentric.net writes:
>In <353EFFF7...@linkserve.com.ng>, Lyle Bateman <lbat...@linkserve.com.ng> writes:
>>Its a matter of a lot more than just programming, I'd have to say. Hardware
>>design is critical here. With the type of architecture currently popular in
>>the computer industry, conciousness will never happen.
I have to agree with Lyle here.
>In the sense that you seem to mean it, your statement that hardware
>design is critical is wrong.
And thus I disagree with Bill.
>Hardware design is important in a lot of practical ways. A design must
>provide devices and channels for information to come into the system and
>out of it... sensors and effectors, in biological or robotic terms.
>Hardware design also determines how fast computations can proceed, and
>how much information can be stored and manipulated... all very important
>to the practicality of solving any particular computational problem.
>But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
>things that can be computed,
To the extent that that is true, computation is irrelevant to
cognition. You could do all of the same computation on a Turing
machine with no devices and channels at all. And since there are no
channels, the Turing machine would have no world to cognize.
mod...@concentric.net
In <6hodma$o...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>[ so I disagree with Bill ]
No you don't.
>mod...@concentric.net writes:
>>Hardware design is important in a lot of practical ways. A design must
>>provide devices and channels for information to come into the system and
>>out of it... sensors and effectors, in biological or robotic terms.
>>Hardware design also determines how fast computations can proceed, and
>>how much information can be stored and manipulated... all very important
>>to the practicality of solving any particular computational problem.
>
>>But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
>>things that can be computed,
>
>To the extent that that is true, computation is irrelevant to
>cognition. You could do all of the same computation on a Turing
>machine with no devices and channels at all. And since there are no
>channels, the Turing machine would have no world to cognize.
You aren't disagreeing with me here, that is a totally separate point.
This whole business is hard enough to talk about sensibly without people
inventing extra problems that don't exist.
The person to whom I was responding seemed to think that different
architectures would allow different types of computation. That isn't
true. All computing architectures can compute the same things, which
you know perfectly well.
That has NOTHING to do with the need for an interface to the world, or
whether computation can generate cognition. All I'm saying, which I
know you agree with, is that IF you want to do a computation, any
computing architecture can in principle do it. That let's us factor out
worries about whether we are using digital or analog or dedicated neural
net chips, and concentrate on questions that matter.
The original statement was that our modern computers could not be
conscious because they are just big number-crunchers, followed by
suggestions that a different (non-number crunching) computer
architecture might still be able to be conscious. That's false. If any
computer archictecture can do the job, all of them can, in principle.
And if a number-crunching computer can't do the job, then NO computer,
regardless of architecture can do the job. Period. We don't have to
worry about the architecture to talk about this question.
Bill
Neil Rickert
mod...@concentric.net writes:
>In <6hodma$o...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>[ so I disagree with Bill ]
>No you don't.
Yes I do.
>>mod...@concentric.net writes:
>>>Hardware design is important in a lot of practical ways. A design must
>>>provide devices and channels for information to come into the system and
>>>out of it... sensors and effectors, in biological or robotic terms.
>>>Hardware design also determines how fast computations can proceed, and
>>>how much information can be stored and manipulated... all very important
>>>to the practicality of solving any particular computational problem.
>>>But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
>>>things that can be computed,
>>To the extent that that is true, computation is irrelevant to
>>cognition. You could do all of the same computation on a Turing
>>machine with no devices and channels at all. And since there are no
>>channels, the Turing machine would have no world to cognize.
>You aren't disagreeing with me here, that is a totally separate point.
>The person to whom I was responding seemed to think that different
>architectures would allow different types of computation. That isn't
>true.
Of course it is true. I can do all kinds of things on my pentium
with 32 Meg of memory and 4G of disk space that were impossible on
the Z80 system I owned in 1980 (with 64K of memory and two 100K
floppy drives).
> All computing architectures can compute the same things, which
>you know perfectly well.
But the original comment was about what can be computed in practice. It
was not an in-principle argument. And what can be computed in practice
can be very sensitive to aspects of the hardware.
cij...@zedat.fu-berlin.de
>Perhaps the biggest problem with trying to design a concious computer right
>now is that no one knows 1) what conciousness is, exactly; 2) how widespread
>or isolated it is, or; 3) what physical (or non-physical for that matter)
>process makes humans concious. Until these questions are answered fully, the
>notion of designing a concious computer seems like little more than a
>trial-and-error crap shoot.
Maybe no one of YOUR branch.
In mine they do not have the answers to all three questions to the
last detail, either, though.
And in my branch it is not custom to share data the way you do.
We share in other ways.
And we call a lot different or not at all and show directly from brain
to brain, and the data there could not be expressed in words I know
of. But some of it has to do with the answers to your questions.
But it is very complicated to learn to perceive that way; it can take
many days to many months.
>Just my 2c worth.
Similar. Only 2 Pfennige. :-)
Phil Roberts, Jr.
Neil Rickert wrote:
>
>
> >The person to whom I was responding seemed to think that different
> >architectures would allow different types of computation. That isn't
> >true.
>
> Of course it is true. I can do all kinds of things on my pentium
> with 32 Meg of memory and 4G of disk space that were impossible on
> the Z80 system I owned in 1980 (with 64K of memory and two 100K
> floppy drives).
>
God I loved my Kapro II. I could almost sit down and right the
bios from heart. Of course, at a mighty 2 K of bios and a
mighty 5 K of operating system that was within the
realm of possiblity. What really blew me away was the fact that
its stark simplicity actually made it operate faster at 2 megs
than an XT (12 megs, I think) with a hard drive. Am I the only
person who thinks an ounce of simplicity is worth a pound of
versitility? Nope. I was quite surprised to learn that Arthur
C. Clark was still using his II well into the IBM p. c. era.
Gosh! Does this mean I'm almost as smart as him?
--
Phil Roberts, Jr.
Feelings of Worthlessness and So-Called Cognitive Science
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5476
Brian J Flanagan
On 23 Apr 1998 mod...@concentric.net wrote:
> In <353EFFF7...@linkserve.com.ng>, Lyle Bateman <lbat...@linkserve.com.ng> writes:
>
> >
> >The human brain (my assumption here is that the brain is the root of human
> >conciousness, but that is by no means certain) is constructed in a vastly
> >different way than most current computers.
BJ: And may devolve upon a more *complete* physics.
Neural nets provide something of
> >an analogy between computer architecture and brain design, however the
> >complexity level differs by many orders of magnitude.
BJ: Mere complexity is not the critical issue.
> Hardware design is important in a lot of practical ways. A design must
> provide devices and channels for information to come into the system and
> out of it... sensors and effectors, in biological or robotic terms.
BJ: Right.
> But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
> things that can be computed,
Architecture affects practical issues of
> performance, but makes absolutely no difference to what is possible if
> we provide enough capacity and don't care how long it takes.
BJ: No, this is only a silly dogma spawned by AI types.
> The difference between any computing machine and any other computing
> machine is only a matter of programming.
BJ: More of same. The architecture has crucially to do with what kinds of
sensory input can be operated upon.
Brian J Flanagan
On 23 Apr 1998 mod...@concentric.net wrote:
> In <6hodma$o...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> >To the extent that that is true, computation is irrelevant to
> >cognition.
BJ: And you have determined this ... how?
>
> The original statement was that our modern computers could not be
> conscious because they are just big number-crunchers, followed by
> suggestions that a different (non-number crunching) computer
> architecture might still be able to be conscious. That's false. If any
> computer archictecture can do the job, all of them can, in principle.
BJ: What principle are you invoking?
> And if a number-crunching computer can't do the job, then NO computer,
> regardless of architecture can do the job. Period.
BJ: Wonderful finality, that--but perhaps it is only a question of what
one means by 'computer'.
mod...@concentric.net
In <Pine.SV4.3.91.98042...@sleepy.giant.net>, Brian J Flanagan <bfla...@sleepy.giant.net> writes:
>
>
>On 23 Apr 1998 mod...@concentric.net wrote:
>
>> provide devices and channels for information to come into the system and
>> out of it... sensors and effectors, in biological or robotic terms.
>BJ: Right.
>> But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
>> things that can be computed,
>
> Architecture affects practical issues of
>> performance, but makes absolutely no difference to what is possible if
>> we provide enough capacity and don't care how long it takes.
>BJ: No, this is only a silly dogma spawned by AI types.
It's not an "AI" idea. It's one of those things that is basic to the
notion of computing. A guy called Church formalized it quite a while
ago, but it is pretty obvious for discrete digital computing (once
you've realized that no discrete architecture can transcend a Turing
Machine), and more subtly obvious for all machines of any type.
>> The difference between any computing machine and any other computing
>> machine is only a matter of programming.
>BJ: More of same. The architecture has crucially to do with what kinds of
>sensory input can be operated upon.
I don't know how you mean this.
It could be the same point I made in the paragraph you quoted and agreed
with above... that hardware is needed to provide sensory input to (and
effector output from) a computer system. It's true in that sense, that
a computer can't operate on input that it doesn't have. But then
why post it as a disagreement?
It could be an assertion about practical performance issues. We
probably do in practice need some highly parallel architecture to keep
up with the sheer volume of data involved in a realistic modelling of a
world reported through a full sensory interface, and architectures which
implement primitives directly related to the functions we need are
faster than those which have to build up to them from a different set.
But if you really mean to say that the architecture used for the
computing itself makes a difference to what can be computed, given the
necessary input and ignoring performance... then I respectfully suggest
that's incorrect.
"Computing" is generating functions as combinations of other functions
given as primitives. Any computing architecture capable of a few very
basic operations can compute the primitives of any other, and thus can
go on to compute any function computable by the other.
At least according to Church and me. <g>
Bill Modlin
Neil Rickert
mod...@concentric.net writes:
>But if you really mean to say that the architecture used for the
>computing itself makes a difference to what can be computed, given the
>necessary input and ignoring performance... then I respectfully suggest
>that's incorrect.
The important points that you are missing are:
We are not given the necessary output. We have to fetch our
own input, and make our own decisions as to what input to
use.
We have to make do with whatever performance we have. It it
took a year to make the decision whether to eat that morsel
of food, we should soon starve to death.
M.C.Harrison
Brian J Flanagan wrote:
>
> > >To the extent that that is true, computation is irrelevant to
> > >cognition.
> BJ: And you have determined this ... how?
Um, not an expert on this myself, but...
Isn't there a mathematical proof by someone that a syntactically derived
system is capable only of certain things, and is inevitably stumped by a
particular set of problems when confronted with them?
The Chinese room, thing.
You know, when an englishman is replying to chinese questions according
to a set of books that define how to answer, as each question is put
under the door, the englishman refers to a book which tells him the
answer to give back. Can this englishman be said to understand chinese?
> > suggestions that a different (non-number crunching) computer
> > architecture might still be able to be conscious. That's false. If any
> > computer archictecture can do the job, all of them can, in principle.
> BJ: What principle are you invoking?
I'll take a stab at this. In principle, my elderly computer was
perfectly capable of producing the same answer to a given question as my
spanking new PII, except that it takes quite a lot longer to get to the
answer.
This is not a completely satisfactory answer, because win95 checks to
see what cpu I've got and won't run on an 8088, but the principle
appears reasonable.
> > And if a number-crunching computer can't do the job, then NO computer,
> > regardless of architecture can do the job. Period.
> BJ: Wonderful finality, that--but perhaps it is only a question of what
> one means by 'computer'.
Ones which use syntax and serial processing seem to be poor candidates
for an AI computer. Imitating intelligence, maybe.
And if a rock can be sentient, it would be better to let the computer
decide for itself what to think, rather than putting in a program which
permits no thoughts except those written in stone and coerced using
error correction. Else, what you see is what the programmer told it to
say, not what it is saying. This changes but little if the program can
evolve, it's still a program rather than AI.
mod...@concentric.net
I'm not missing those points. I'm explicitly talking about computation,
to which they are irrelevant. They may have a lot to do with whether a
computation is useful or effective, and we need to consider them in
talking about what is needed for consciousness and intelligence... but
they have NOTHING at all to do with whether different architectures can
compute different functions.
Computation is transforming data according to some functional
relationship. What we call a computing architecture is a set of
primitive functions plus some means of combining them to make up other
functions not defined as primitives in the architecture. It turns out
that any of many very simple sets of primitives is enough to allow
combinations implementing any other computable function. We call an
architecture capable of at least such a set of primitives "Turing
complete", and any such machine can compute any function any other such
machine can compute, given enough resources. This is analogous to the
notion of a "Boolean complete" set of primitive boolean operators such
as (AND OR NOT) or (NAND). Given a boolean-complete set of boolean
operators you can generate all possible boolean functions, and given a
Turing-complete set of computing primitives, you can compute all
possible computable functions.
I'm finding it frustrating that you keep posting that you disagree, when
I know that you understand this point because you've made it clearly
yourself, several times. Why disagree when I say the same thing?
Bill Modlin
Neil Rickert
mod...@concentric.net writes:
>In <6hqde2$p...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>mod...@concentric.net writes:
>>>But if you really mean to say that the architecture used for the
>>>computing itself makes a difference to what can be computed, given the
>>>necessary input and ignoring performance... then I respectfully suggest
>>>that's incorrect.
>>The important points that you are missing are:
>> We are not given the necessary output. We have to fetch our
>> own input, and make our own decisions as to what input to
>> use.
>> We have to make do with whatever performance we have. It it
>> took a year to make the decision whether to eat that morsel
>> of food, we should soon starve to death.
>I'm not missing those points. I'm explicitly talking about computation,
>to which they are irrelevant.
Fair enough.
In that case I am now in a position to assert definitively that
computation, as you are using the term, is completely irrelevant to
cognition and to intelligence.
>Computation is transforming data according to some functional
>relationship.
I once would have thought so. But that guy Modlin has just persuaded
me otherwise. He has persuaded me that 'computation' is a pointless
game of mechanically manipulating meaningless symbols according to a
completely arbitrary set of pointless rules. I will have to take his
word for it. After all, what right do I have to argue as to what is
computation? I'm only a mathematician.
> What we call a computing architecture is a set of
>primitive functions plus some means of combining them to make up other
>functions not defined as primitives in the architecture.
That sounds more like the definition of a function algebra.
>I'm finding it frustrating that you keep posting that you disagree, when
>I know that you understand this point because you've made it clearly
>yourself, several times. Why disagree when I say the same thing?
Perhaps the reason I keep posting that I disagree, is that I
disagree.
mod...@concentric.net
In <6hqj4a$p...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
[responding to my attempts to distinguish "computation" from the
input/output activities which supply data for computation]
>Perhaps the reason I keep posting that I disagree, is that I
>disagree.
Ok Neil. Please. What is it that you disagree with?
What is your definition of computation?
Under your rules, is a Turing machine capable of computation?
Under your definitions, if I load a program and some data into a PC,
and start the program running, can the PC compute some function of that
data without using any further I/O?
I do understand that you consider interfaces with the outside world to
be much more important to cognition than any computation which may be
involved. But I also thought that you agreed that somehow there was
some computation involved in figuring out what to do with the data you
get through sensors, and deciding what other information to go looking
for, and all that sort of stuff.
I've seen you tell others that it didn't matter whether the interior
processing was done with neural nets or an analog computer or a digital
computer, that all of them could do the same things.
When I say just that, you tell me you disagree, and get sarcastic about
it. Why?
Can you explain? Help me out here?
Bill Modlin
Neil Rickert
mod...@concentric.net writes:
>In <6hqj4a$p...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> [responding to my attempts to distinguish "computation" from the
> input/output activities which supply data for computation]
>>Perhaps the reason I keep posting that I disagree, is that I
>>disagree.
>Ok Neil. Please. What is it that you disagree with?
>What is your definition of computation?
A computation is a set of causal operation which take place in the
world, and which have a certain kind of mathematical description.
>Under your rules, is a Turing machine capable of computation?
No. It is capable of formal computation, but not of computation,
where formal computation is a mathematical idealization of
computation.
It is worth pointing out here that mathematicians carefully
distinguish between pure mathematics and applied mathematics. Most
mathematicians particularly value pure mathematics, and I count
myself amongst that 'most'. Generally, pure mathematics comes higher
in the pecking order than applied mathematics.
The Turing machine has always been considered part of pure
mathematics.
Computation has always been considered something done in applied
mathematics.
>Under your definitions, if I load a program and some data into a PC,
>and start the program running, can the PC compute some function of that
>data without using any further I/O?
That's a tricky question. Even though there is no further I/O, there
are still causal operations going on in the machine, and presumably
these could be probed with suitable measuring instrumentation. If
you are talking about those causal operations, then you can make a
case that computation is still taking place.
>I do understand that you consider interfaces with the outside world to
>be much more important to cognition than any computation which may be
>involved.
Let's talk about the computer on my desk, instead of cognition,
although the same points apply.
When a computation is being carried out on my computer, a series of
causal operations is taking place, using electrical signals and other
kinds of physical operations. There is also a symbol manipulating
game used in our theories of computation to describe what is
happening. Whether we should say that the symbol manipulation game
is actually going on is itself a tricky question. I prefer to say
that the symbol manipulation game is part of a description language,
rather than part of the computation.
If somebody should come up with a completely different symbol
manipulation game to describe what is happening in my computer, that
would not change what the computer is doing. The exact same causal
actions would be going on. And if a computer is sufficiently
complex, it is very likely that there are alternative symbol
manipulation games that could be used to describe the processing.
When I am using the computer for ordinary things (like writing this
message), I care only about the causal operations. The particular
choice of symbol manipulation game which somebody might choose to in
their description language is completely irrelevant to the
computation that is going on, as far as I am concerned as a user of
the computer.
It seems to me that you are emphasizing only the symbol manipulation
game, and ignoring the causal operations which I consider to be at
the heart of computation. I prefer to think of the symbol
manipulation game as a story involving purely theoretical entities.
In that sense it is comparable to scientific use of massless charges,
frictionless motion, and other such theoretical entities. We value
these theoretical entities because of the way we can use them in our
predictive theories. But we don't actually believe they are more
than convenient fictions.
> But I also thought that you agreed that somehow there was
>some computation involved in figuring out what to do with the data you
>get through sensors, and deciding what other information to go looking
>for, and all that sort of stuff.
Sure there is. But that computation consists of causal operations,
rather than the symbol manipulating game we might use to describe
those operations.
>I've seen you tell others that it didn't matter whether the interior
>processing was done with neural nets or an analog computer or a digital
>computer, that all of them could do the same things.
That's not quite what I have said. Given a particular computation
considered as a sequence of causal operations done in real time, it
does not matter what particular additional machinery was used to
implement those causal operations. But it does very much matter
whether a particular piece of hardware is capable of carrying out the
required causal operations within the allowable time frame.
Wim Van Dijck
On 23 Apr 1998 17:00:42 -0500, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
wrote:
>mod...@concentric.net writes:
>>In <353EFFF7...@linkserve.com.ng>, Lyle Bateman <lbat...@linkserve.com.ng> writes:
>
>>>Its a matter of a lot more than just programming, I'd have to say. Hardware
>>>design is critical here. With the type of architecture currently popular in
>>>the computer industry, conciousness will never happen.
>
>I have to agree with Lyle here.
Me too
>>In the sense that you seem to mean it, your statement that hardware
>>design is critical is wrong.
>
>And thus I disagree with Bill.
Indeed
>>Hardware design is important in a lot of practical ways. A design must
>>provide devices and channels for information to come into the system and
>>out of it... sensors and effectors, in biological or robotic terms.
>>Hardware design also determines how fast computations can proceed, and
>>how much information can be stored and manipulated... all very important
>>to the practicality of solving any particular computational problem.
>
>>But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
>>things that can be computed,
>
>To the extent that that is true, computation is irrelevant to
>cognition.
I once heard a quite strond argument during some introductory AI
classes: computer hardware (neural nets not included) work in
algoritms. Conscious minds, such as ours, use procedures (or whatever
you want to call it) that are not algoritm based. Computers CAN only
use algoritms (at least nowadays) so based on this principle, a
computer will never gain consciousness, no matter how big or fast it
is.
Greetings.
Wim.
In this world, all you need is honesty and sincerity.
If you can fake those two, you're set for life.
---- Groucho Marx
Phil Roberts, Jr.
Wim Van Dijck wrote:
>
> I once heard a quite strond argument during some introductory AI
> classes: computer hardware (neural nets not included) work in
> algoritms. Conscious minds, such as ours, use procedures (or whatever
> you want to call it) that are not algoritm based. Computers CAN only
> use algoritms (at least nowadays) so based on this principle, a
> computer will never gain consciousness, no matter how big or fast it
> is.
>
I would simply say that computers follow algorhythms and minds cognize
algorhythms and, to the extent an algorythm has been cognized, are
therefore "_free_" to utilize or follow the algorhythm or not.
I would add, much at my peril in this particular newsgroup, that the
latter function probably also entails "standing outside the system"
(Lucas) or 'being able to "see" what is going on' (Roberts).
Stephen Harris
mod...@concentric.net wrote:
> It's not an "AI" idea. It's one of those things that is basic to the
> notion of computing. A guy called Church formalized it quite a while
> ago, but it is pretty obvious for discrete digital computing (once
> you've realized that no discrete architecture can transcend a Turing
> Machine), and more subtly obvious for all machines of any type.
Dennett maintains that 'Turing has proven- and this is probably
his greatest contribution- that his Universal Turing machine can
compute any function that any computer, with any architecture,
can compute'.
This is a common error in rendering the Church-Turing thesis.
A UTM can compute what is computable for any Turing machine.
Thesis M:"Whatever can be calculated by a machine (working on
finite data in accordance with a finite program of instructions)
is Turing-machine-computable.
Thesis M itself admits of two interpretations, according to
whether the phrase 'can be calculated by a machine' is taken
in the narrow sense of 'can be calculated by a machine that
conforms to the physical laws(if not to the resource constants)
of the actual world', or in a wide sense that abstracts from the
issue of whether or not the notional machine in question could
exist in the real world. The narrow version of thesis M is an
empirical proposition whose truth-value is unknown. The wide
version of thesis M is known to be false. Various notional
machines have been described which can calculate functions
that are not Turing-machine-computable(for example, Abramson,
da Costa and Doria, Doyle, Hogarth, Pour-El and Richards,
Scarpellini, Siegelman and Sontag, Stannett, Stewart, Copeland
and Sylvan is a survey)."
So "no discrete architecture can transcend a Turing Machine".
I assume that this alludes to the 'narrow sense' above.
This is a stronger assertion not contained in the CT thesis.
You probably consider it an implication; but this implication
is not proven and does not refute architectural considerations.
I am not sure what "and more subtly obvious for all machines
of any type" means. If this is meant to apply to the 'wider
sense' above, there are counter-examples.
Regards,
Stephen
mod...@concentric.net
In <6hqseq$q...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
[modlin] What is your definition of computation?
>A computation is a set of causal operation which take place in the
>world, and which have a certain kind of mathematical description.
[modlin] Under your rules, is a Turing machine capable of computation?
>No. It is capable of formal computation, but not of computation,
>where formal computation is a mathematical idealization of
>computation.
Interesting. Your conflation of "computation" with notions of
physically realized causality is something I've not encountered
before... none of the classic works on computability uses it that way,
and indeed I can't think of a single author who would balk at saying
that a Turing machine computes. Computation is an abstraction,
inherently distinct from the engineering practicalities of a device
which might instantiate it.
I think I'll just stop talking to you about this... it would be too
annoyingly clumsy to adopt your idiosyncratic usage just for that
purpose. Unfortunate.
Bill Modlin
Neil Rickert
mod...@concentric.net writes:
>In <6hqseq$q...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>[modlin] What is your definition of computation?
>>A computation is a set of causal operation which take place in the
>>world, and which have a certain kind of mathematical description.
>[modlin] Under your rules, is a Turing machine capable of computation?
>>No. It is capable of formal computation, but not of computation,
>>where formal computation is a mathematical idealization of
>>computation.
>Interesting. Your conflation of "computation" with notions of
>physically realized causality is something I've not encountered
>before... none of the classic works on computability uses it that way,
>and indeed I can't think of a single author who would balk at saying
>that a Turing machine computes.
I don't think I am conflating anything. Many big corporations have
been purchasing expensive computers for decades, because of the causal
operations that they perform.
I would use 'computability' in the same way as the works you refer
to. You have to remember that mathematics ain't real life.
Mathematicians work with idealized models of real life. The Turing
machine is an idealized model of computation. The mathematical
theory of computation is a theory of this idealized model, just as
the mathematics of the real numbers is about an idealization of the
decimal measurements we make.
In a context of talking about the mathematical theory of computation,
I would also have no problem with saying that a Turing machine
computes. But in that case the context reminds us that we are
actually talking about a mathematical idealization of computation.
> Computation is an abstraction,
>inherently distinct from the engineering practicalities of a device
>which might instantiate it.
Well if that is right, then there is something terribly wrong with
the idea that cognition is computation. To make that claim, you
would either have to say:
there is a little man inside having abstract thoughts, and doing
abstract computation, and that is what creates human cognition;
or
God is having abstract computational thoughts, and that creates
human cognition.
In the first case, you haven't explained anything, for you had to
hyupothesize the little man inside. In the second case you have a
severe case of substance dualism.
mod...@concentric.net
In <6hrkup$q...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>mod...@concentric.net writes:
>>In <6hqseq$q...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
>>[modlin] What is your definition of computation?
>
>>>A computation is a set of causal operation which take place in the
>>>world, and which have a certain kind of mathematical description.
>
>>[modlin] Under your rules, is a Turing machine capable of computation?
>
>>>No. It is capable of formal computation, but not of computation,
>>>where formal computation is a mathematical idealization of
>>>computation.
>
>>Interesting. Your conflation of "computation" with notions of
>>physically realized causality is something I've not encountered
>>before... none of the classic works on computability uses it that way,
>>and indeed I can't think of a single author who would balk at saying
>>that a Turing machine computes.
>
>I don't think I am conflating anything. Many big corporations have
>been purchasing expensive computers for decades, because of the causal
>operations that they perform.
(Before responding, let me offer an apology for saying I wouldn't talk
to you about this any more. I was frustrated. But now after a few
hours sleep I wish I hadn't said it. <g>)
Anyway. The "causal operations" which make computers worth money to
a business are outside the computers themselves. A corporation would
not care if the internal mechanisms of the computer used entirely
different sets of causal operations to accomplish its computations, or
even if it worked by some mystical acausal magic... so long the
external results have a proper functional relationship to things of
interest to them.
Thats where I see your words as conflating ideas which would be more
usefully separated: you seem to me to be trying to use the external
mapping of computational results to motivate arguments about the
internal mechanisms of computation. The two are related only
indirectly, through practical engineering issues of performance.
>I would use 'computability' in the same way as the works you refer
>to. You have to remember that mathematics ain't real life.
>Mathematicians work with idealized models of real life. The Turing
>machine is an idealized model of computation. The mathematical
>theory of computation is a theory of this idealized model, just as
>the mathematics of the real numbers is about an idealization of the
>decimal measurements we make.
>
>In a context of talking about the mathematical theory of computation,
>I would also have no problem with saying that a Turing machine
>computes. But in that case the context reminds us that we are
>actually talking about a mathematical idealization of computation.
But when I as a programmer try to design a procedure to accomplish some
useful computation, I'm looking at as a mathematical idealization. I'm
certainly not concerned with the causal details of NAND gates etched in
silicon. I work in terms of an idealized machine, an abstract language
virtual "computing device" such as that defined by the C language, and I
seldom care how that abstraction might be physically realized.
The normal working environment for anyone concerned with computation is
an "idealized model of real life", linked only at its periphery with
anything actually real. The word computation is never used in the sense
you are contrasting with the mathematical, in reference to some process
intimately wedded to its particular realization.
Which is what I meant by the following:
>> Computation is an abstraction,
>>inherently distinct from the engineering practicalities of a device
>>which might instantiate it.
You reacted to the above statement by saying this is incompatible with
the notion that cognition is computation, and doing some handwaving
about it implying an homunculus or substance dualism. I'll try to
respond to those remarks in a separate posting. For the moment, I'm
more interested in whether or not we can get past our disagreement about
the relationship between computation and causality, without worrying
about its implications for cognition.
Your turn.
Bill Modlin
Mdg
Wim Van Dijck wrote in message <3541fe96...@news.rug.ac.be>...
>I once heard a quite strond argument during some introductory AI
>classes: computer hardware (neural nets not included) work in
>algoritms. Conscious minds, such as ours, use procedures (or whatever
>you want to call it) that are not algoritm based. Computers CAN only
>use algoritms (at least nowadays) so based on this principle, a
>computer will never gain consciousness, no matter how big or fast it
>is.
>
What about simulation? Using algorithms you can simulate the behavior of
the human brain, or of a neural net. The sophistication is an emergent
quality, not apparent at the finer scale of processing. The processing
involved would be immense, and the system would have to be far more
sophisticated then the one being simulated (modeled?) (emulated?) to be
effective. I heard a phrase, "Any computer can emulate any other
computer", I suspect it's true. Once again though some emulation's would
require far more processing power than than the original computer being
emulated.
Leads me to a question I always wondered about, say we hit the point where
we can actually map a human brain to a fine enough detail that we can
simulate it's behavior on a computer. Will the simulation be conscious?
Mdg
Word...@rocketmail.com
In article <6hq7pl$8...@examiner.concentric.net>,
mod...@concentric.net wrote:
>
> In <Pine.SV4.3.91.98042...@sleepy.giant.net>, Brian J Flanagan <bfla...@sleepy.giant.net> writes:
> >
>
> >> But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
> >> things that can be computed,
BJ: What do the elements of your theory of computation correspond to in the
natural world?
> >
> > Architecture affects practical issues of
> >> performance, but makes absolutely no difference to what is possible if
> >> we provide enough capacity and don't care how long it takes.
>
> >BJ: No, this is only a silly dogma spawned by AI types.
>
> It's not an "AI" idea. It's one of those things that is basic to the
> notion of computing. A guy called Church formalized it quite a while
> ago, but it is pretty obvious for discrete digital computing (once
> you've realized that no discrete architecture can transcend a Turing
> Machine), and more subtly obvious for all machines of any type.
BJ: Church the logician, I presume. The formalist stance can be traced back to
antiquity, but this viewpoint has achieved the status of a modern dogma at the
hands of AI enthusiasts. To what do the elements of our experience correspond
in a formal theory (T)?
>
> >> The difference between any computing machine and any other computing
> >> machine is only a matter of programming.
>
> >BJ: More of same. The architecture has crucially to do with what kinds of
> >sensory input can be operated upon.
>
> I don't know how you mean this.
>
BJ: Sorry, that wasn't very clear, was it?
>
> It could be an assertion about practical performance issues. We
> probably do in practice need some highly parallel architecture to keep
> up with the sheer volume of data involved in a realistic modelling of a
> world reported through a full sensory interface, and architectures which
> implement primitives directly related to the functions we need are
> faster than those which have to build up to them from a different set.
BJ: Good!
> But if you really mean to say that the architecture used for the
> computing itself makes a difference to what can be computed, given the
> necessary input and ignoring performance... then I respectfully suggest
> that's incorrect.
BJ: How does one compute the color 'red' as experienced?
> "Computing" is generating functions as combinations of other functions
> given as primitives. Any computing architecture capable of a few very
> basic operations can compute the primitives of any other, and thus can
> go on to compute any function computable by the other.
BJ: Primitives are what we operate upon, yes? I.e., they are the arguments of
our elementary functions?
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
Brian J Flanagan
On 24 Apr 1998 mod...@concentric.net wrote:
> In <6hqseq$q...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
> [modlin] What is your definition of computation?
>
> >A computation is a set of causal operation which take place in the
> >world, and which have a certain kind of mathematical description.
>
> [modlin] Under your rules, is a Turing machine capable of computation?
>
> >No. It is capable of formal computation, but not of computation,
> >where formal computation is a mathematical idealization of
> >computation.
>
> Interesting. Your conflation of "computation" with notions of
> physically realized causality is something I've not encountered
> before...
BJ: Leibniz argued for a similar view, but he has largely been ignored.
Can you carry out a computation in a (natural or artificial) system which
does not respect physical causality? How do you account for Wigner's
'unreasonable efficacy' of mathematics with respect to the 'real',
'physical' world? Is it not perhaps 'because' our theories are abstracted
from that world?
Computation is an abstraction, inherently distinct from the engineering
practicalities of a device > which might instantiate it.
BJ: Can you name a computation which exists apart from a set of hardware
or wetware?
Eugene Leitl
My argument towards equivalence between cognition (or any other
physical process) is emulation.
I.e. if we consider cognition to be a large-scale behaviour of a given
physical structure (ion channels, lipid bilayers, cytoskeleton, etc.),
then by simulating the low-level processes sufficiently accurately I
would be able to reproduce also the high-level behaviour, in this
particular case, cognition.
In fact I am doing exactly this, investigating intricacies of
biomolecules: proteins and lipid bilayers on a vanilla PC, and not
even resorting to quantum weirdness: newtonian paradigm sufficies
here. In fact there are researchers who use compartmental neuron
models with some success, which shows that the molecular level is
actually not relevant -- you can do it at a much higher level.
Before you say that simulation of a thing and the thing itself are not
equivalent: very true, but cognition is one of the cases where
emulation and the process itself are equivalent. A computer simulating
playing chess, _plays chess_, after all.
Regards,
Eugene
Dr: OSAMA
mod...@concentric.net wrote:
>
> In <6hqde2$p...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> >mod...@concentric.net writes:
> >
> >>But if you really mean to say that the architecture used for the
> >>computing itself makes a difference to what can be computed, given the
> >>necessary input and ignoring performance... then I respectfully suggest
> >>that's incorrect.
> >
> >
> > We are not given the necessary output. We have to fetch our
> > own input, and make our own decisions as to what input to
> > use.
> >
> > We have to make do with whatever performance we have. It it
> > took a year to make the decision whether to eat that morsel
> > of food, we should soon starve to death.
>
> I'm not missing those points. I'm explicitly talking about computation,
> computation is useful or effective, and we need to consider them in
> talking about what is needed for consciousness and intelligence... but
> they have NOTHING at all to do with whether different architectures can
> compute different functions.
>
> primitive functions plus some means of combining them to make up other
> that any of many very simple sets of primitives is enough to allow
> combinations implementing any other computable function. We call an
> architecture capable of at least such a set of primitives "Turing
> complete", and any such machine can compute any function any other such
> machine can compute, given enough resources. This is analogous to the
> notion of a "Boolean complete" set of primitive boolean operators such
> as (AND OR NOT) or (NAND). Given a boolean-complete set of boolean
> operators you can generate all possible boolean functions, and given a
> Turing-complete set of computing primitives, you can compute all
> possible computable functions.
>
> I know that you understand this point because you've made it clearly
> yourself, several times. Why disagree when I say the same thing?
>
ffdsff
Bob Houston
Mgd is right! Simulation is the way to approach AI.
We live in an analog world. Converting analog to digital samples is not
simulation of the brain activity. In order to properly program the
interacting partial differential equations necessary to simulate the
instantaneous response of brain functions, it is necessary to use an
analog computer. Digital inputs can be used to change the function
coefficients, much as the neuron synapses use them. Every probe in the
brain (by Robert Heath in the '70s) produced recordings similar to EEG
signals: analog traces, not digital. It has been done in the laboratory
before.
Now all you AI researchers have to do is to develop a stable million
channel analog computer to simulate a cat's consciousness.
Bob
Neil Rickert
mod...@concentric.net writes:
>In <6hrkup$q...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>mod...@concentric.net writes:
>>>[modlin] What is your definition of computation?
>>>>A computation is a set of causal operation which take place in the
>>>>world, and which have a certain kind of mathematical description.
>>>[modlin] Under your rules, is a Turing machine capable of computation?
>>>>No. It is capable of formal computation, but not of computation,
>>>>where formal computation is a mathematical idealization of
>>>>computation.
>>>Interesting. Your conflation of "computation" with notions of
>>>physically realized causality is something I've not encountered
>>>before... none of the classic works on computability uses it that way,
>>>and indeed I can't think of a single author who would balk at saying
>>>that a Turing machine computes.
>>I don't think I am conflating anything. Many big corporations have
>>been purchasing expensive computers for decades, because of the causal
>>operations that they perform.
>(Before responding, let me offer an apology for saying I wouldn't talk
>to you about this any more. I was frustrated. But now after a few
>hours sleep I wish I hadn't said it. <g>)
I was not offended by the comment. Of course you have a right to
decide what you will discuss, although perhaps it is unwise to
publicly declare how you will use that right.
>Anyway. The "causal operations" which make computers worth money to
>a business are outside the computers themselves.
No, I disagree. They are in the computer.
> A corporation would
>not care if the internal mechanisms of the computer used entirely
>different sets of causal operations to accomplish its computations,
That is about right, provided that the computation was actually
accomplished, including suitable external causal effects.
> , or
>even if it worked by some mystical acausal magic...
I think you don't know much about corporations.
>Thats where I see your words as conflating ideas which would be more
>usefully separated: you seem to me to be trying to use the external
>mapping of computational results to motivate arguments about the
>internal mechanisms of computation. The two are related only
>indirectly, through practical engineering issues of performance.
There could be no external results unless there were internal causal
operations.
You seem to have entirely missed a point I made. Namely, there might
be a completely different way of describing the internal operations
of a computer, such that under this different internal description the
computer is executing a completely different algorithm. If it is
the abstract computation that matters, then I am suggesting that the
abstract computation being performed is not determined by what happens
in the machine, in the sense that there are completely different
ways of assigning algorithmic descriptions to what happens physically.
>>I would use 'computability' in the same way as the works you refer
>>to. You have to remember that mathematics ain't real life.
>>Mathematicians work with idealized models of real life. The Turing
>>machine is an idealized model of computation. The mathematical
>>theory of computation is a theory of this idealized model, just as
>>the mathematics of the real numbers is about an idealization of the
>>decimal measurements we make.
>>In a context of talking about the mathematical theory of computation,
>>I would also have no problem with saying that a Turing machine
>>computes. But in that case the context reminds us that we are
>>actually talking about a mathematical idealization of computation.
>But when I as a programmer try to design a procedure to accomplish some
>useful computation, I'm looking at as a mathematical idealization. I'm
>certainly not concerned with the causal details of NAND gates etched in
>silicon. I work in terms of an idealized machine, an abstract language
>virtual "computing device" such as that defined by the C language, and I
>seldom care how that abstraction might be physically realized.
I think you are looking at this wrongly. Instead of thinking of
yourself programming an abstract machine, you should be thinking of
what you are doing as using a specification language to specifify the
causal operations of the machine at a relatively high level (at a
level well above NAND gates). In fact, most computer programs contain
parts which are machine specific. There is a cottage industry involved
in porting software from one hardware platform to another. If we
were really dealing with mathematical idealizations, there should be
no need for such porting.
>The normal working environment for anyone concerned with computation is
>an "idealized model of real life", linked only at its periphery with
>anything actually real.
When I program, I have to concern my self with the bit size of
integers; with the precision of floating point numbers; with the best
way of representing decimal data in this particular machine; with
converting between the machine byte order of data and the network
byte order; with whether files are organized as a stream of bytes or
a sequence of records; with whether file locking protocols apply to a
region of bytes within a file, to physical stored record block, or to
the whole file; with whether output data is immediately transmitted
or is held in a buffer for delayed processing. None of these things
would matter if I were working with an idealized abstract
computation.
> The word computation is never used in the sense
>you are contrasting with the mathematical, in reference to some process
>intimately wedded to its particular realization.
I think you are deceiving yourself.
mod...@concentric.net
In <6htajh$r...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
[snip]
>You seem to have entirely missed a point I made. Namely, there might
>be a completely different way of describing the internal operations
>of a computer, such that under this different internal description the
>computer is executing a completely different algorithm. If it is
>the abstract computation that matters, then I am suggesting that the
>abstract computation being performed is not determined by what happens
>in the machine, in the sense that there are completely different
>ways of assigning algorithmic descriptions to what happens physically.
Let's focus on this point very closely.
Consider a very simple computer. It's called an "OR gate". It has
two external inputs, and one external output.
The function it computes is "logical OR". If either of the inputs is
active, the output is active. If both inputs are inactive, the output
is inactive.
I say that the function it computes is determined by whatever is inside
the black box of the computer, and will remain the same no matter how
you choose to describe it. The function will remain the same even if
can find no use for it, or if you think it is computing NOT(NOT A AND
NOT B). It does what it does, regardless.
If you agree, then I'll add more inputs, and complicate the function a
little. I'll claim that nothing has changed, that the function being
computed is still dependent on what is inside the box, not on your
description. I'll claim that this holds regardless of how complex we
make that internally-computed function.
What do you say?
Bill
Jim Balter
mod...@concentric.net wrote:
>
> In <6hqseq$q...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
> [modlin] What is your definition of computation?
>
> >A computation is a set of causal operation which take place in the
> >world, and which have a certain kind of mathematical description.
>
> [modlin] Under your rules, is a Turing machine capable of computation?
>
> >No. It is capable of formal computation, but not of computation,
> >where formal computation is a mathematical idealization of
> >computation.
>
> Interesting. Your conflation of "computation" with notions of
> physically realized causality is something I've not encountered
> before... none of the classic works on computability uses it that way,
> and indeed I can't think of a single author who would balk at saying
> inherently distinct from the engineering practicalities of a device
> which might instantiate it.
>
> annoyingly clumsy to adopt your idiosyncratic usage just for that
> purpose. Unfortunate.
Every time I check in here, I find you guys having the same silly
parochial disagreements about who is being more clumsy or idiosyncratic
(and "a Turing machine computes" is strikingly clumsy -- your professed
ignorance concerning the universe of authors cannot be construed as
*support* for using the phrase; a Turing machine is a *description* of a
computation).
For an *informed* discussion of the issues of computation, cognition,
instantiation, and their relationship, I refer you once again to
http://ling.ucsc.edu/~chalmers/papers/computation.html
(and I will mention, once again for those who confuse people with their
ideas, that this recommendation is not an endorsement of Chalmer's
anti-materialism).
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
Wim Van Dijck wrote:
> I once heard a quite strond argument during some introductory AI
> classes: computer hardware (neural nets not included) work in
> algoritms. Conscious minds, such as ours, use procedures (or whatever
> you want to call it) that are not algoritm based. Computers CAN only
> use algoritms (at least nowadays) so based on this principle, a
> computer will never gain consciousness, no matter how big or fast it
> is.
If this is a strong argument, I hate to think what a weak one would be.
This "argument" fails to support the critical claim that conscious
minds are not algorithm-based and fails to show that algorithm-based
methods cannot achieve something achieved in some other way.
It even contains its own refutation: neural nets are commonly simulated.
OTOH, "computer hardware" includes things like photosensors
that perform important functions that their simulations don't.
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
M.C.Harrison wrote:
>
> Brian J Flanagan wrote:
> >
> > > >To the extent that that is true, computation is irrelevant to
> > > >cognition.
>
> Um, not an expert on this myself, but...
>
> Isn't there a mathematical proof by someone that a syntactically derived
> system is capable only of certain things, and is inevitably stumped by a
> particular set of problems when confronted with them?
>
> The Chinese room, thing.
>
> You know, when an englishman is replying to chinese questions according
> to a set of books that define how to answer, as each question is put
> under the door, the englishman refers to a book which tells him the
> answer to give back. Can this englishman be said to understand chinese?
Would it matter, in terms of how you remember or write about this
in the future, if I were to point out that "someone" (Godel)
proved something quite different from your description, and that
this is a quite different matter from Searle's Chinese Room?
I.e., your lack of expertise is in fact manifested by being wrong
on every significant point?
Note that the claim that the English speaker (Searle is not an
"englishman") does not understand Chinese is not something that
is supposed to *follow* from some proof, but rather is a claim Searle
makes that he expects his readers to agree with, and most do, even if
only for the sake of argument. What Searle holds *follows* from the
claim that the English speaker does not understand Chinese, is that
a computer cannot understand Chinese merely by virtue of following
instructions from a book. (The standard "systems response" to this
is that the Chinese Room, as a system, might "understand" Chinese,
whatever that unformalized notion might mean, even if the English
speaker does not.) Searle does not make any claim that the computer
or Chinese Room is "capable only of certain things"; his position is that, even though the computer's *behavior* is identical to a human's,
and thus is not stumped by anything a human would not be stumped by,
the computer nonetheless lacks understanding. This is quite different
from Roger Penrose's position -- he does think that something is lacking, and that Godel's theorems can be used to show this, but his
argument is anything but a "mathematical proof", and his work has
been strongly and ably refuted by numerous respected theorists, including Penrose's own mathematical tutor, Solomon Feferman (although
these refutations seem to have little influence on what people *believe* about what has or has not been shown).
> > > suggestions that a different (non-number crunching) computer
> > > architecture might still be able to be conscious. That's false. If any
> > > computer archictecture can do the job, all of them can, in principle.
> > BJ: What principle are you invoking?
>
> I'll take a stab at this. In principle, my elderly computer was
> perfectly capable of producing the same answer to a given question as my
> spanking new PII, except that it takes quite a lot longer to get to the
> answer.
There are at least two problems with this: one is that many problems
are defined in terms of real-world time constraints; a machine that is
too slow to respond before the next clock tick will follow a different
execution path (like printing "interrupt timeout" and stopping).
While this may be of no interest to certain sorts of isolated mathematical theorists, it is of critical importance to the sciences
of computation, cognition, and everything else of any significance to
the topic at hand. Another problem is that no real world machine is
computationally equivalent to a universal computing machine, due to
their finite memory resources. These finite resources put severe limits
on the classes of problems they can solve.
> This is not a completely satisfactory answer, because win95 checks to
> see what cpu I've got and won't run on an 8088,
That's a bit like saying that my Chinese book checks my nationality
and and won't let an American read it -- that's not quite how it works.
> but the principle
> appears reasonable.
The principle Bill Modlin invoked was the Church-Turing thesis.
The principle you invoked was that your old Von Neumann machine
was "in principle" as powerful as your new Von Neumann machine,
only slower. With such a standard of reason, anything is likely to
appear reasonable.
> > > And if a number-crunching computer can't do the job, then NO computer,
> > > regardless of architecture can do the job. Period.
> > BJ: Wonderful finality, that--but perhaps it is only a question of what
> > one means by 'computer'.
>
> Ones which use syntax and serial processing seem to be poor candidates
> for an AI computer. Imitating intelligence, maybe.
>
> And if a rock can be sentient, it would be better to let the computer
> decide for itself what to think, rather than putting in a program which
> permits no thoughts except those written in stone and coerced using
> error correction. Else, what you see is what the programmer told it to
> say, not what it is saying. This changes but little if the program can
> evolve, it's still a program rather than AI.
It might be well to factor your own lack of expertise into your faith in your own analysis.
--
<J Q B>
Stephen Harris
> >Anyway. The "causal operations" which make computers worth money to
>
> No, I disagree. They are in the computer.(NR)
This question is off the beaten track, but this looks like an
opportune moment to sneak it in.
I was reading about those mainframes which calculate many digits
of pi. Maybe a billion digits in nine hours, anyway a lot.
I think I recall reading that the output will differ slightly
from one model computer running the pi algorithm to another.
Even I think if two of the same make and model are used.
I am not sure for the reason behind this. Suppes has said
something about: If a system has two or more degrees of
freedom the system will be subject to sensitivity to initial
conditions. So I am thinking in the pi calculation situation
that due to random electronic or magnetic eddies perhaps
from impurities in the components, this causes the divergence
in the output of pi.
I have read something about this but am not sure I understood it,
so would like clarification. I think Turing may have made a
comment about this to a schoolteacher. He studied dynamic systems
in 1951.
So I wonder if some AI system, emulating a human, experienced
an internal random fluctuation, might this cause an output if
it happened at the right moment that could drastically differ
from an expected human output? Say in answering a question.
I have also heard about the need for a randomness generator for
an AI system. Is this already inherent in the physical system?
I think I have read about the equivalency of CAs NNs indeterministic
turing machines to turing machines. They can all be simulated
because they are all 'computable'. Is this right?
Also I read a comment(not sure of its reliability) that connectionist
models challenge the idea that turing machines are the only type
of physically realizable computer. I'm not sure I worded that
right so answer what it is supposed to mean. :-)
Finally, about analog chips. Apparently, high frequency discrete
responses will not sufficiently model analog human brain processes.
Is that right? I see this analog issue coming up frequently. It
seems to me that I have seen noise mentioned as a problem.
Best Regards,
Stephen
Neil Rickert
mod...@concentric.net writes:
>In <6htajh$r...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> [snip]
>>You seem to have entirely missed a point I made. Namely, there might
>>be a completely different way of describing the internal operations
>>of a computer, such that under this different internal description the
>>computer is executing a completely different algorithm. If it is
>>the abstract computation that matters, then I am suggesting that the
>>abstract computation being performed is not determined by what happens
>>in the machine, in the sense that there are completely different
>>ways of assigning algorithmic descriptions to what happens physically.
>Let's focus on this point very closely.
>Consider a very simple computer. It's called an "OR gate". It has
>two external inputs, and one external output.
Is this an abstract Turing OR gate (if there is such a thing).
Let's instead consider a real OR gate. To keep it simple, lets suppose it
uses CMOS with a +5v voltage supply. What it does, is it produces a voltage
output depending on two voltage inputs.
>The function it computes is "logical OR". If either of the inputs is
>active, the output is active. If both inputs are inactive, the output
>is inactive.
You are quite mistaken. Of course it computes AND. We assign TRUE
to voltages near 0, and FALSE to voltages near +5v. Using this
assignment of TRUE and FALSE to generate a truth table, you can
easily see that it computes AND. But, of course, we are
oversimplifying. We are ignoring one of its inputs, the input
connected directly to the power supply. If we take that input as
part of the data being processed, then it is computing a rather more
complex function.
>I say that the function it computes is determined by whatever is inside
>the black box of the computer, and will remain the same no matter how
>you choose to describe it.
And I say that what it computes depends on how we describe it. I
have just demonstrated this by describing it such that it computes
AND. Nevertheless the causal operations remain unaffected by the
choice of description.
Hermital
On Sat 4/25/98 22:45 +0200 --dchirst wrote:
>
> If anyone is seriously interested in this question, we've been
> discussing it at MSN (on a somewhat higher level, I think) for at last
> three months.
>
> --
> dchirst
> logic forum
> http://forums.msn.com/philosophy
>
Could you please be a bit more specific. I was
unable to find the forum of which you speak.
--
Alan
Consciousness, Physics and the Holographic Paradigm:
http://www.livingston.net/hermital/intro.htm
Stephen Harris
Hermital wrote:
>
> On Sat 4/25/98 22:45 +0200 --dchirst wrote:
> >
> > If anyone is seriously interested in this question, we've been
> > discussing it at MSN (on a somewhat higher level, I think) for at last
> > three months.
> >
> > --
> > dchirst
> > logic forum
> > http://forums.msn.com/philosophy
> >
> Could you please be a bit more specific. I was
> unable to find the forum of which you speak
I found it ok. The problem is that I think you need
to be an MSN subscriber. It prompts you for a username
when you try to log on to the logic subforum.
cij...@zedat.fu-berlin.de
>What about simulation? Using algorithms you can simulate the behavior of
>the human brain, or of a neural net.
I do not think so, at least not in any foreseeable time.
And there is not THE behaviour of the human brain. The sectors are
different and run programs some of which are of times maybe tends or
even hundreds of millions of years apart.
And the neural nets tend to have different cells with different
functions, I want to see how you simulate that...
>Leads me to a question I always wondered about, say we hit the point where
>we can actually map a human brain to a fine enough detail that we can
>simulate it's behavior on a computer. Will the simulation be conscious?
There are several sectors conscious and a big bunch of them not.
You talk about nets as if the cells had no purpose, but they have.
And if you look at the different ones, and all the illnesses that
might come, how do you want to make them?
And what for?
There is only one system that might be O.K. for use, and that one is
not really conscious, though it can think. And I am not sure that it
would be good.
The real trick is to compare all the conscious systems of all who are,
and then maybe to find something in between, or to breed different.
But if you make something more intelligent than you are how do you
know that you are not just some illogical disturbing element
disturbing Earth for it, that logic says should be removed ?
And who tells you that there are not already better systems developed?
Another trick might be to send a request when we are far enough and
wait a looong time for answers before setting out to build something
more intelligent than we are in a time where thousands starve each day
because they do not have one dollar a day for food.
Hermital
Thanks, Stephen. I went to MSN to register and discovered that one
needs Windows95 and a 28.8 modem. I'm running Windows 3x with a 14.4.
8^(
Thanks again. I appreciate your help.
dchirst
Word...@rocketmail.com
In article <13633.51191....@liposome.genebee.msu.su>,
Eugene Leitl <eug...@liposome.genebee.msu.su> wrote:
> I.e. if we consider cognition to be a large-scale behaviour of a given
> physical structure (ion channels, lipid bilayers, cytoskeleton, etc.),
> then by simulating the low-level processes sufficiently accurately I
> would be able to reproduce also the high-level behaviour, in this
> particular case, cognition.
BJ: And so far as the experiential aspect of cognition?
>
> In fact I am doing exactly this, investigating intricacies of
> biomolecules: proteins and lipid bilayers on a vanilla PC, and not
> even resorting to quantum weirdness: newtonian paradigm suffices
> here.
BJ: How well can you model molecules with Newtonian mechanics?
In fact there are researchers who use compartmental neuron
> models with some success, which shows that the molecular level is
> actually not relevant -- you can do it at a much higher level.
BJ: Could you tighten up the argument here?
> Before you say that simulation of a thing and the thing itself are not
> equivalent: very true, but cognition is one of the cases where
> emulation and the process itself are equivalent. A computer simulating
> playing chess, _plays chess_, after all.
BJ: Does the computer see the chess board?
Gary Forbis
Jim Balter wrote:
> For an *informed* discussion of the issues of computation, cognition,
> instantiation, and their relationship, I refer you once again to
>
> http://ling.ucsc.edu/~chalmers/papers/computation.html
>
> (and I will mention, once again for those who confuse people with their
> ideas, that this recommendation is not an endorsement of Chalmer's
> anti-materialism).
I like the paper's discussion concerning phenomenal properties under
"3.2 The organizational invariance of mental properties." The final sentence
in this section: "If all this works, it establishes that most mental properties
are
organizational invariants: any two systems that share their fine-grained causal
topology will share their mental properties, modulo the contribution of the
environment"
states a truism that hinders the notion that his thought experiment is a
reductio ad
adsurdum. Until we attempt the actual experiments we cannot know the level of
specification required to maintain behavioral invarriance. He can be completely
right about his notion of implementation (and I think he is) and yet have missed
the boat concerning phonomenalogy simply because we lack the empirical evidence
to assert the right level of CSA description required.
In the whole, seeing these ideas develop over the years is very interesting.
--
--gary
for...@accessone.com
http://www.accessone.com/~forbis
Wim Van Dijck
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 14:22:21 -0700, Jim Balter <j...@sandpiper.com>
wrote:
>Wim Van Dijck wrote:
>> I once heard a quite strond argument during some introductory AI
>> classes: computer hardware (neural nets not included) work in
>> algoritms. Conscious minds, such as ours, use procedures (or whatever
>> you want to call it) that are not algoritm based. Computers CAN only
>> use algoritms (at least nowadays) so based on this principle, a
>> computer will never gain consciousness, no matter how big or fast it
>> is.
>
>If this is a strong argument, I hate to think what a weak one would be.
>This "argument" fails to support the critical claim that conscious
>minds are not algorithm-based and fails to show that algorithm-based
>methods cannot achieve something achieved in some other way.
>It even contains its own refutation: neural nets are commonly simulated.
>
I am aware of the fact that I didn't give background for this
argument. I am indeed to blaim for not looking this up.
I was mainly interested how this argument would be responded to,
since I am not very sure about all this myself yet.
I have already read some interesting responses, though.
BTW, I left out neural nets on purpose. I don't feel informed enough
about them to start discussing about that too, although it is my wish
to be so in the future.
>OTOH, "computer hardware" includes things like photosensors
>that perform important functions that their simulations don't.
>
This is not very clear to me. Could you be a bit more specific?
In this world, all you need is honesty and sincerity.
If you can fake those two, you're set for life.
---- Groucho Marx
Mark Aaron Wille
> > I once heard a quite strond argument during some introductory AI
> > classes: computer hardware (neural nets not included) work in
> > algoritms. Conscious minds, such as ours, use procedures (or whatever
> > you want to call it) that are not algoritm based. Computers CAN only
> > use algoritms (at least nowadays) so based on this principle, a
> > computer will never gain consciousness, no matter how big or fast it
> > is.
I think these "procedures" you speak of are what psychologists called
heuristics.
cheers ... -Mark
mwi...@uiuc.edu
www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/mwille
c...@tdi.net
In article <6hqde2$p...@ux.cs.niu.edu>,
ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) wrote:
>
> mod...@concentric.net writes:
>
> >But if you really mean to say that the architecture used for the
> >computing itself makes a difference to what can be computed, given the
> >necessary input and ignoring performance... then I respectfully suggest
> >that's incorrect.
>
> The important points that you are missing are:
>
> We are not given the necessary output. We have to fetch our
> own input, and make our own decisions as to what input to
> use.
>
> We have to make do with whatever performance we have. It it
> took a year to make the decision whether to eat that morsel
> of food, we should soon starve to death.
>
>
What about blind people?
What about deaf people?
Where do these "handicaps" hinder intelegence? I doubt that they do, though
this is my opinion and not based on any research. There has to be more than
just the architecture. More than the type of imputs/outputs.
I don't have answers, only questions.
Oliver Sparrow
mod...@concentric.net wrote:
"" Computation is transforming data according to some functional
"" relationship. What we call a computing architecture is a set of
"" primitive functions plus some means of combining them to make up other
"" functions not defined as primitives in the architecture. It turns out
"" that any of many very simple sets of primitives is enough to allow
"" combinations implementing any other computable function.
Quite right. Whenever we can conceive of a problem in a certain way, then
it can be reduced to atoms made of these primitives. Many other problems,
which we cannot conceive of in this way, are not susceptible to this
reduction. We tend to assume that he fault lies in our inability to
formulate the problem in a way open to algorithmatisation. I wonder if this
is valid?
Consider a structure which is being 'computed' in the above sense,
generated by steps which - even if they are not formally algorithmic - are
at least in principle open to being understood in those terms. Assume that
you are omniscient about this structure: you know everything that is
happening at the highest level of emergence and, if the structure is aware,
you have the cognitive machinery to 'know' the quale-level implications of
this directly. You have a video feed into this awareness: what it senses,
you sense along with it. Thus, you can say why - in high order, emergent
terms of reference - hypothetical gate N is conduction, true, low or
whatever. The simulated (or actual) fruit bat is thirsty.
Run your 'video' from state A to state B, perhaps quantizing events against
the clock driving your hypothetical underlying gate/ primitive structure.
Thus we have K successive, evolutionary steps in the theoretical
architecture that underpins the high order, emergent state which is mostly
driving the process. (Cognition differs from computing in that the OS is,
perhaps, the last thing to emerge, not the primordial slime from which all
else is enabled. Consciousness is the name that we give to aspects of this
OS.)
These K steps of the system (if we exclude ghosts in the machine) record
the entire process by which state A became state B. Whether they capture
*why* this transformation occurred depends on what you mean by 'why'. That
is, the procedure is, definitionally, encoded by the state 1 of the K steps
(pace quantum uncertainty. I assume states are being recorded in hysteretic
macroscopic systems, such as neural structures; and I am assuming A and B
to be close in time and state space).
If we ask ourselves why A became B, we evoke Bill's sea of gates (Modlin,
not a crack at a well known OS) for their connectivity and properties, but
we must also evoke State 1, which is the "program" that makes this sea flip
and flop to situation B. How is this "program" to be understood? Well, we
can ask what it does and we can ask how it came to be. Both of these
approaches are susceptible to two kinds of answer. The first is cast in
terms of the phenomenology of the gates: State 1 is the way that it is
because of State 0 that preceded it; and the interaction which that
precursor state had with the sea of gates.
The second looks at the transform A -> B. State 1 exists because it is the
instantiation of A. State K exists because it is the instantiation of B. A
became B by way of all sorts of plumbing, but the rational for the
transform was generated at the level of qualia and the rationale that is
woven together at this level. Both of these approaches are true in systems
with emergence in them. Which is truer?
Perhaps this is question is an artefact of human projection. However, it is
clearly the case that a descriptive schema is also a space. If we believe
that 'everything can be reduced to logical operations' then we believe that
the space spanned by logical operations encapsules all that is and can be.
This may confuse two things. Logical relations - such as identity and
non-identity, inclusion and exclusion from sets - says nothing about what
is included and excluded. To say that
[{set of} Prime numbers {includes} three],
gives us a perfectly splendid little logical operation which, however,
tells us nothing about either of the entities which it links. Doubtless
both of these could be expressed in logical terms, but only by evoking
other entities which are linked by logical terms.
So here we have a naming engine (the fruit bat, perhaps, able to call some
things 'nummy' and others 'gak') which can, perhaps, be reduced to gate
status when doing so; and we have algorithms which can - perhaps - be
adduced to understand why and how fruitbats that are thirsty seek out
sources of 'nummy', expressing what happens as sea-of-gates theoretical
transformations under whatever actually happens in mens fruitbat. But can
the sea of gates create - in their own terms, NANDing and NORing like
knitting crones at the foot of the guillotine - the entities named?
This is what lies at the heart of this issue: the nature of the module, the
semi-self contained epiphenomenon within a loosely coupled system. It is as
true of a chunk of processing in a mouse's head as a person in a social
system. Is the module 'nothing but' its actual (or hypothetical logical)
underpinings, or does it have something irreducible about it? Asking this
from the perspective of the classifier, one can say: "Is the full nature of
the module expressible in terms of the most parsimonious model that we can
have that fully captures the properties of its component parts?" That is,
can we find "mouse" - actually, not in theory - in the minimal language of
description that we can use to describe the physical makeup of the mouse?
Is "mouse" latent in "atom"?
This is a degree unsatisfactory, because (1) it is a projection by the
observer on what is the case and (2) it begs the question that 'mouse' is a
unitary thing and not a distributed chain of loosely connected primitives,
bundled into one physical package. However, logical operations imply
classification. As we have seen, there is what is done and what it is done
to. Whilst what is done may be plucked from Platonic heaven (is, is not,
include, don't include, put together, do not, the all-important 'if') that
one which it is done may not.
______________________________________
Oliver Sparrow
Ton Maas
In article <6hsgmb$lf5$1...@hirame.wwa.com>,
"Mdg" <M...@nospam.com> wrote:
>Leads me to a question I always wondered about, say we hit the point where
>we can actually map a human brain to a fine enough detail that we can
>simulate it's behavior on a computer. Will the simulation be conscious?
According to neurophysiologists Varela & Maturana consciousness is
restricted to autopoietic systems - which by definition produce their own
organization by an evolutionary process not unlike "tinkering". Seems like
the conscious computer will have to invent itself from scrap in order to
ever attain consciousness :-)
Ton
Patrick Juola
Unfortunately, this definition is immediately and trivially incorrect.
Individual humans do not evolve; evolution is a process restricted to
populations. An individual human (which I assume is conscious) is
largely a copy of prior humans -- and so a sufficiently detailed copy
of a human organism should also be conscious, by a similar process.
-kitten
Jim Carr
ton...@xs4all.nl (Ton Maas) writes:
}
} "Mdg" <M...@nospam.com> wrote:
} >Leads me to a question I always wondered about, say we hit the point where
} >we can actually map a human brain to a fine enough detail that we can
} >simulate it's behavior on a computer. Will the simulation be conscious?
}
} According to neurophysiologists Varela & Maturana consciousness is
} restricted to autopoietic systems - which by definition produce their own
} organization by an evolutionary process not unlike "tinkering". Seems like
} the conscious computer will have to invent itself from scrap in order to
} ever attain consciousness :-)
pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
>
>Unfortunately, this definition is immediately and trivially incorrect.
>Individual humans do not evolve; evolution is a process restricted to
>populations. An individual human (which I assume is conscious) is
>largely a copy of prior humans -- and so a sufficiently detailed copy
>of a human organism should also be conscious, by a similar process.
Largely, but part of that "copy" is a brain that is a work in progress
whose structure is not wholly dictated by genetics. Although not
evolution in the strict sense of evolutionary biology, the brain
does change and adapt. A 'sufficiently detailed copy' would have to
include those rules that allow the 'tinkering' the previous posted
noted was important.
--
James A. Carr <j...@scri.fsu.edu> | Commercial e-mail is _NOT_
http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/ | desired to this or any address
Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst. | that resolves to my account
Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306 | for any reason at any time.
Patrick Juola
In article <6i1us6$qpi$1...@news.fsu.edu> j...@ibms48.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
>
>ton...@xs4all.nl (Ton Maas) writes:
>}
>} "Mdg" <M...@nospam.com> wrote:
>} >Leads me to a question I always wondered about, say we hit the point where
>} >we can actually map a human brain to a fine enough detail that we can
>} >simulate it's behavior on a computer. Will the simulation be conscious?
>}
>} According to neurophysiologists Varela & Maturana consciousness is
>} restricted to autopoietic systems - which by definition produce their own
>} organization by an evolutionary process not unlike "tinkering". Seems like
>} the conscious computer will have to invent itself from scrap in order to
>} ever attain consciousness :-)
>
>pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
>>
>>Unfortunately, this definition is immediately and trivially incorrect.
>>Individual humans do not evolve; evolution is a process restricted to
>>populations. An individual human (which I assume is conscious) is
>>largely a copy of prior humans -- and so a sufficiently detailed copy
>>of a human organism should also be conscious, by a similar process.
>
> Largely, but part of that "copy" is a brain that is a work in progress
> whose structure is not wholly dictated by genetics. Although not
> evolution in the strict sense of evolutionary biology, the brain
> does change and adapt. A 'sufficiently detailed copy' would have to
> include those rules that allow the 'tinkering' the previous posted
> noted was important.
But that's part of the "fine enough detail" described above. Hell,
Hebbian adaptation has been known about for at least fifty years;
the idea that neural architecture changes in fine details is the
central focus behind the modern "neural network" paradigm. So are you
suggesting that we've had conscious computers since 1986?
-kitten
Jim Carr
j...@ibms48.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
|
| ton...@xs4all.nl (Ton Maas) writes:
| } According to neurophysiologists Varela & Maturana consciousness is
| } restricted to autopoietic systems - which by definition produce their own
| } organization by an evolutionary process not unlike "tinkering". Seems like
| } the conscious computer will have to invent itself from scrap in order to
| } ever attain consciousness :-)
|
| pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
| >Unfortunately, this definition is immediately and trivially incorrect.
| >Individual humans do not evolve; evolution is a process restricted to
| >populations. An individual human (which I assume is conscious) is
| >largely a copy of prior humans -- and so a sufficiently detailed copy
| >of a human organism should also be conscious, by a similar process.
|
| Largely, but part of that "copy" is a brain that is a work in progress
| whose structure is not wholly dictated by genetics. Although not
| evolution in the strict sense of evolutionary biology, the brain
| does change and adapt. A 'sufficiently detailed copy' would have to
| include those rules that allow the 'tinkering' the previous posted
| noted was important.
pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
>
>But that's part of the "fine enough detail" described above.
It was not clear to me if you were agreeing or disagreeing with
the previous thoughts. It seemed like you were doing both.
>So are you suggesting that we've had conscious computers since 1986?
Although I did know a mind reading card reader well before that, no
computer comes close the the complexity required duplicate the self
organizing processor that is the brain.
Oliver Sparrow
ton...@xs4all.nl (Ton Maas) wrote:
"" According to neurophysiologists Varela & Maturana consciousness is
"" restricted to autopoietic systems - which by definition produce their
own
"" organization by an evolutionary process not unlike "tinkering".
I do not disagree with the sentiment, but how can they possibly make this
statement as anything more than a hypothesis?
______________________________________
Oliver Sparrow
Patrick Juola
In article <6i218h$s8c$1...@news.fsu.edu> j...@ibms48.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
>j...@ibms48.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
>|
>| ton...@xs4all.nl (Ton Maas) writes:
>| } restricted to autopoietic systems - which by definition produce their own
>| } the conscious computer will have to invent itself from scrap in order to
>| } ever attain consciousness :-)
>|
>| pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
>| >Unfortunately, this definition is immediately and trivially incorrect.
>| >Individual humans do not evolve; evolution is a process restricted to
>| >populations. An individual human (which I assume is conscious) is
>| >largely a copy of prior humans -- and so a sufficiently detailed copy
>| >of a human organism should also be conscious, by a similar process.
>|
>| Largely, but part of that "copy" is a brain that is a work in progress
>| whose structure is not wholly dictated by genetics. Although not
>| evolution in the strict sense of evolutionary biology, the brain
>| does change and adapt. A 'sufficiently detailed copy' would have to
>| include those rules that allow the 'tinkering' the previous posted
>| noted was important.
>
>pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
>>
>>But that's part of the "fine enough detail" described above.
>
> It was not clear to me if you were agreeing or disagreeing with
> the previous thoughts. It seemed like you were doing both.
Oh, I'm disagreeing, vehemently. We *have* evolving computers, we
*have* computers (or at least multi-cpu networks) with greater storage
capacity and comparable complexity to the human brain, and that's
not produced anything that appears in any way conscious. The
argument that "evolving systems," "tinker-able systems" or any
such is just another attempt to insert a ghost-in-the-machine through
a process that the writer doesn't understand, even though many other
scientists may understand quite weill.
There's no particular difference between "an evolved system" and
"a copy of an evolved system" -- so the idea that a machine will
need to invent itself in order to become consious is bluntly,
beyond ridicule, the more so as humans are presumed consious and
*don't* invent themselves. And if the key is simply structural
adaptability, then there's nothing particularly new or interesting
in the idea, especially as it's been tried and found wanting.
One might as well suggest that energy dissapation is the key to
consciousness. Certainly every conscious system that we are aware
of does so. However, designing computers to make sure that they
use power doesn't seem to make them any more intelligent.
-kitten
Jerry Hull
On 27 Apr 1998 13:40:35 GMT, pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick
Juola) wrote:
>Oh, I'm disagreeing, vehemently. We *have* evolving computers, we
>*have* computers (or at least multi-cpu networks) with greater storage
>capacity and comparable complexity to the human brain, and that's
>not produced anything that appears in any way conscious. The
>argument that "evolving systems," "tinker-able systems" or any
>such is just another attempt to insert a ghost-in-the-machine through
>a process that the writer doesn't understand, even though many other
>scientists may understand quite weill.
I think you mean "Kurt Weill" (my 3 cents).
--
Jer
"If you meet the buddha, kill the buddha."
Lin-chi (dead)
Neil Rickert
c...@tdi.net writes:
>I have been thinking about this as well. Some things I have considered are:
> What about blind people?
> What about deaf people?
>Where do these "handicaps" hinder intelegence? I doubt that they do, though
>this is my opinion and not based on any research.
I would think there is not much doubt that these *hinder*
intelligence. It does not follow that people with these disabilities
are unintelligent.
Patrick Juola
In article <6i274e$u...@ux.cs.niu.edu> ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>c...@tdi.net writes:
>
>>I have been thinking about this as well. Some things I have considered are:
>> What about blind people?
>> What about deaf people?
>>Where do these "handicaps" hinder intelegence? I doubt that they do, though
>>this is my opinion and not based on any research.
>
>I would think there is not much doubt that these *hinder* intelligence.
I disagree with your statement as presented -- I think there's a
tremendous amount of doubt. It's certainly a valid psychological
hypothesis, but no more so than the hypothesis that IQ measures
"capacity" for intelligence instead of intelligence itself or
many other underdefined and underexplored statements about
intelligence.
-kitten
Neil Rickert
pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
>In article <6i274e$u...@ux.cs.niu.edu> ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>c...@tdi.net writes:
>>>I have been thinking about this as well. Some things I have considered are:
>>> What about blind people?
>>> What about deaf people?
>>>Where do these "handicaps" hinder intelegence? I doubt that they do, though
>>>this is my opinion and not based on any research.
>>I would think there is not much doubt that these *hinder* intelligence.
>[snip]
>I disagree with your statement as presented -- I think there's a
>tremendous amount of doubt.
I suspect you are mainly disagreeing with me over the meaning of
'hinder'. Deaf and blind children given special schooling
appropriate to their special circumstances can do rather well.
Without that special schooling they do quite poorly. I would think
this already demonstrates that their disability is a serious
hindrance.
Sergio Navega
Patrick Juola wrote:
>
> In article <6i274e$u...@ux.cs.niu.edu> ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> >c...@tdi.net writes:
> >
> >>I have been thinking about this as well. Some things I have considered are:
> >> What about blind people?
> >> What about deaf people?
> >>Where do these "handicaps" hinder intelegence? I doubt that they do, though
> >>this is my opinion and not based on any research.
> >
> >I would think there is not much doubt that these *hinder* intelligence.
> [snip]
>
> I disagree with your statement as presented -- I think there's a
> hypothesis, but no more so than the hypothesis that IQ measures
> "capacity" for intelligence instead of intelligence itself or
> many other underdefined and underexplored statements about
> intelligence.
>
> -kitten
This happens to be my current most intriguing doubt. In which ways are the
reasoning of native blind people impaired by this deficiency? Does it manifests
only on vison related (spatial) reasonings or is it a more wide problem? Or
not at all?
My reason to be interested in this is obvious: PCs are blind, so they may
suffer similar problems, in our attempts of making intelligent systems.
Regards,
Sergio Navega.
Patrick Juola
In article <6i29j4$1...@ux.cs.niu.edu> ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
>>In article <6i274e$u...@ux.cs.niu.edu> ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>>c...@tdi.net writes:
>
>>>>I have been thinking about this as well. Some things I have considered are:
>>>> What about blind people?
>>>> What about deaf people?
>>>>Where do these "handicaps" hinder intelegence? I doubt that they do, though
>>>>this is my opinion and not based on any research.
>
>>>I would think there is not much doubt that these *hinder* intelligence.
>>[snip]
>
>>I disagree with your statement as presented -- I think there's a
>>tremendous amount of doubt.
>
>'hinder'. Deaf and blind children given special schooling
>appropriate to their special circumstances can do rather well.
>Without that special schooling they do quite poorly.
Quite poorly on what measure? There's little-if-any evidence that
blind children acquire language any more slowly than sighted
children, nor that deaf children acquire signed language more
slowly than hearing ones. So whatever measure of intelligence
you're using must exclude language acquisition -- which makes it
a somewhat odd measure.
If you're suggesting that intelligence is measured only and
exclusively by the performance of children in standard schools, then
there is significant evidence to support your conclusion -- but
you're also using an extremely atypical definition of how intelligence
is measured.
-kitten
Neil Rickert
pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
>In article <6i29j4$1...@ux.cs.niu.edu> ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
>>>In article <6i274e$u...@ux.cs.niu.edu> ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>>>c...@tdi.net writes:
>>>>>I have been thinking about this as well. Some things I have considered are:
>>>>> What about blind people?
>>>>> What about deaf people?
>>>>>Where do these "handicaps" hinder intelegence? I doubt that they do, though
>>>>>this is my opinion and not based on any research.
>>>>I would think there is not much doubt that these *hinder* intelligence.
>>>[snip]
>>>I disagree with your statement as presented -- I think there's a
>>>tremendous amount of doubt.
>>I suspect you are mainly disagreeing with me over the meaning of
>>'hinder'. Deaf and blind children given special schooling
>>appropriate to their special circumstances can do rather well.
>>Without that special schooling they do quite poorly.
>Quite poorly on what measure? There's little-if-any evidence that
>blind children acquire language any more slowly than sighted
>children, nor that deaf children acquire signed language more
>slowly than hearing ones. So whatever measure of intelligence
>you're using must exclude language acquisition -- which makes it
>a somewhat odd measure.
No, I am not excluding language. However, I am not making language
the one test of all intelligence. The ability to find one's way
about town in a strange city also requires intelligence, and this is
a far more difficult task for blind people that for normal people.
Anyone familiar with the meaning of 'hinder' would surely agree that
this hinders the intelligence of blind people.
>If you're suggesting that intelligence is measured only and
>exclusively by the performance of children in standard schools, then
>there is significant evidence to support your conclusion -- but
>you're also using an extremely atypical definition of how intelligence
>is measured.
I have not said anything about how intelligence is measured. As I
thought I made clear in my first comment on this, I am not suggesting
that blind and deaf people are unintelligent. Unfortunately, that
appears to be how you are misinterpreting me.
Patrick Juola
In article <3544AD...@ibm.net> Sergio Navega <sna...@ibm.net> writes:
>Patrick Juola wrote:
>>
>> In article <6i274e$u...@ux.cs.niu.edu> ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>> >c...@tdi.net writes:
>> >
>> >>I have been thinking about this as well. Some things I have considered are:
>> >> What about blind people?
>> >> What about deaf people?
>> >>Where do these "handicaps" hinder intelegence? I doubt that they do, though
>> >>this is my opinion and not based on any research.
>> >
>> >I would think there is not much doubt that these *hinder* intelligence.
>> [snip]
>>
>> I disagree with your statement as presented -- I think there's a
>> hypothesis, but no more so than the hypothesis that IQ measures
>> "capacity" for intelligence instead of intelligence itself or
>> many other underdefined and underexplored statements about
>> intelligence.
>
>reasoning of native blind people impaired by this deficiency? Does it manifests
>only on vison related (spatial) reasonings or is it a more wide problem? Or
>not at all?
How would you examine this claim? It's not instantly clear to me
which tasks involve vision and which don't, particularly given the
correlations that appear among normals in various sorts of IQ tests.
Given that we (read : the scientific community) can't come to any
meaningful conclusion on the subject of gender bias in intelligence
metrics, it's not clear that we can achieve such conclusions about
visual-bias.
There are, however, several things that *are* well-documented.
Different people have different learning styles; for instance, some
people have better memory for and learn better from aural presentation,
some from visual, some from tactile. I don't think that any of us would
like to make the statement that a person with a preference for tactile
presentation is "less intelligent" than an identical person sitting in
a different classroom where s/he receives more appropriate teaching. I
assume that an unfortunate soul with a visual handicap and a preference
for visual presentation would either learn more slowly, or develop some
form of compensation. But I also don't see this as reflecting in any
meaningful way on "intelligence," any more than a strawberry allergy
makes a person a priori a bad cook -- although it does probably
affect the dishes that person would choose to prepare.
-kitten
Sergio Navega
Patrick Juola wrote:
> [to Neil Rickert]
> >> I disagree with your statement as presented -- I think there's a
> >> tremendous amount of doubt. It's certainly a valid psychological
> >> hypothesis, but no more so than the hypothesis that IQ measures
> >> "capacity" for intelligence instead of intelligence itself or
> >> many other underdefined and underexplored statements about
> >> intelligence.
> >This happens to be my current most intriguing doubt. In which ways are the
> >reasoning of native blind people impaired by this deficiency? Does it manifests
> >only on vison related (spatial) reasonings or is it a more wide problem? Or
> >not at all?
>
> How would you examine this claim? It's not instantly clear to me
> which tasks involve vision and which don't, particularly given the
> correlations that appear among normals in various sorts of IQ tests.
> Given that we (read : the scientific community) can't come to any
> meaningful conclusion on the subject of gender bias in intelligence
> metrics, it's not clear that we can achieve such conclusions about
> visual-bias.
I agree. That's really unfortunate. If it were easy to pinpoint differences in
intelligence between blind and normal people we could understand better
how this intelligence emerges at all. On the other hand, given that blindness
appears to not mean very much in this respect, we can conclude that vision
seems to don't carry nothing special in terms of "information entry" that
helps intelligence in any way. I will let my point clearer on the following
paragraph.
>
> There are, however, several things that *are* well-documented.
> Different people have different learning styles; for instance, some
> people have better memory for and learn better from aural presentation,
> some from visual, some from tactile. I don't think that any of us would
> like to make the statement that a person with a preference for tactile
> presentation is "less intelligent" than an identical person sitting in
> a different classroom where s/he receives more appropriate teaching. I
> assume that an unfortunate soul with a visual handicap and a preference
> for visual presentation would either learn more slowly, or develop some
> form of compensation. But I also don't see this as reflecting in any
> meaningful way on "intelligence," any more than a strawberry allergy
> makes a person a priori a bad cook -- although it does probably
> affect the dishes that person would choose to prepare.
>
Yes, I heard about this with the reading of those "neurolinguistic" books that
try to capitalize on this subject. At least this benefit we can ascribe to those
books: they managed to introduce this subject to the general public.
Now, for some time I've been struggling with Neil Rickert on the necessity
of sensory inputs for the emergence of intelligence. It took me some time to get
used to this, because this represents a serious threat to the conventional
symbolicist approaches to AI, where no sensory inputs are needed in principle.
I agreed with him about the importance of percepts to provide the brain
with "data" that can be conveniently transformed into patterns and then
into something else. What we're talking now seems to suggest that one
specific kind of sense (vision) is not necessary to raise general intelligence.
This conducts us to evaluate the possibility of intelligence flourishing from
touch and audition, in a larger scale, and taste and smell, in a small scale.
The independence of vision in this case leads us to conclude that the patterns
provided by the remaining senses is enough to develop reasonable levels of
intelligence. Now, it's time to wander.
Am I going too far in thinking that, maybe, any kind of pattern perception
mechanism could eventually raise intelligence? And that this mechanism could
be feeded with purely textual (symbolic) data, provided that processed by a
competent algorithm? Could intelligence emerge from this single perception,
a flux of ASCII characters coming from a keyboard? Ok, this is nuts enough,
just trying to save purely symbolic methods.
Regards,
Sergio Navega.
Stephen Harris
Oliver Sparrow wrote:
>
> ton...@xs4all.nl (Ton Maas) wrote:
>
> "" According to neurophysiologists Varela & Maturana consciousness is
> "" restricted to autopoietic systems - which by definition produce their
> own
> "" organization by an evolutionary process not unlike "tinkering".
>
> statement as anything more than a hypothesis?
I have some thoughts. One of the problems with AI is not knowing
what consciousness or the unconscious is. The problem of figuring
out how consciousness evolved over a few million years even with
humanity as a model seems very difficult.
There is no model for life of a magnetic nature which might
reside say on memory on a hard disk. Passing the Turing test
does not also insure that a mind, an awareness, a consciousness
is internally created. The Turing test compares outputs.
The internal electronic/magnetic configuration of a computer
which can pass the Turing test may have nothing to do with
the internal states required for memory to experience the
spark of awareness/consciousness...the idea of mapping human
brain functions which are embedded in protein to a ferro-magnetic
(non-protein) core, and that these will be in just the right
coordinates, as well as being the *needed* functions to create
Alife, seem even less likely than a bolt of lightning creating
Frankenstein's monster. Supposing that magnetic life is possible,
the chances of stumbling across the correct configuration(s) would
seem to be a few out of a nearly infinite number of configurations.
To recap. A program which can answer "hello Hal" with "hello Oliver"
does not evidence that this program has created the requirements
for a magnetic mind to come into existence. And we have no
knowledge about how to create life say for the interior of a sun,
or any peculiar environments for that matter.
Regards,
Stephen
Anders N Weinstein
In article <6hqseq$q...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <ric...@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>When a computation is being carried out on my computer, a series of
>causal operations is taking place, using electrical signals and other
>kinds of physical operations. There is also a symbol manipulating
>game used in our theories of computation to describe what is
>happening. Whether we should say that the symbol manipulation game
>is actually going on is itself a tricky question.
If I were to produce a few quite concrete symbol tokens, say on punched
cards, and move them around in accordance with certain pattern-governed
transfomrations, I presume there would be no question that I was
manipulating some symbols in the physical world. (Or would there? From
what you say, I'm actually not sure what *you* think on this).
If a waiter inscribes signs (digits) using bits of graphite on paper while
totalling the bill, there would be no question that there is symbol
manipulation going on in the physical world, would there? For he is
certainly inscribing symbols and following rules.
But now, if we automate the process, and use a machine to manipulate
punched cards in accordance with rules, then, similarly I think we can
say there is concrete symbol manipulation going on in the machine in
the physical world. And an electrical computer is not any different in
this respect.
>When I am using the computer for ordinary things (like writing this
>message), I care only about the causal operations. The particular
>choice of symbol manipulation game which somebody might choose to in
>their description language is completely irrelevant to the
>computation that is going on, as far as I am concerned as a user of
>the computer.
Sure as an outside user you don't care, but if something goes wrong,
it can make a difference whether we lay blame to faulty hardware or
a bug in the programming. But identifying the latter requires
identifying a "symbol manipulation game".
>It seems to me that you are emphasizing only the symbol manipulation
>game, and ignoring the causal operations which I consider to be at
>the heart of computation. I prefer to think of the symbol
>manipulation game as a story involving purely theoretical entities.
Why not think of symbols as concrete physical entities, described in a
certain vocabulary? Wittgenstein liked to emphasize that what
interested him was always words taken in a concrete sense, not some
ethereal abstractions; however, he (and others, like Saussure) compared
talking about language in terms of significance to talking about chess
pieces in terms of their role in the game. That is, actual chess pieces
are physical objects, and playing chess in the paradigmatic cases
requires physically moving them around in accordance with the rules.
Similarly, public language symbols are physical objects, and speaking a
language involves moving them around in what is, in a broad sense,
accordance with certain tacit norms.
That is to say: a chess move has a double aspect: it is both a physical
transtion, and a move in a game. The fact that we can abstract its
socio-functional properties and consider them separately, should not
show that the real chess game is an ethereal abstraction outside of
the physical world. Similarly, real symbols, signposts, say, are
physical objects with socio-functional properties that determine them
as meaningful.
It is true that two concrete marks objects that are physically
cotypical might nonetheless play different functional roles if caught
up in different languages (games). Still, there can be perfectly good
facts of a broadly social kind about which game a sign is produced in.
So there are usually facts about which symbol it is, at least for
public symbols. For example, it is a fact that the things on the road
signs outside my office are symbols of English and not Chinese.
It *is* trickier to develop an idea of *natural* computation, in the
absence of direct relation to human practices, I will agree with that.
But it does not seem impossible. Saying that a physical event in the
brain is part of one rather than another symbol manipulation game might
be comparable saying the heart is a natural pump and not a noise-making
device, something grounded in a teleological analysis of the system in
question.
>predictive theories. But we don't actually believe they are more
>than convenient fictions.
Does this apply to the symbol in a public language, do you think?
If not (as I hope), then mightn't it also be wrong for manipulations
in a conventional computer?
>Sure there is. But that computation consists of causal operations,
>rather than the symbol manipulating game we might use to describe
>those operations.
But playing a symbol manipulation game with physical tokens *is*
a causal operation.
Jim Balter
Mark Aaron Wille wrote:
>
> > > I once heard a quite strond argument during some introductory AI
> > > classes: computer hardware (neural nets not included) work in
> > > algoritms. Conscious minds, such as ours, use procedures (or whatever
> > > you want to call it) that are not algoritm based. Computers CAN only
> > > use algoritms (at least nowadays) so based on this principle, a
> > > computer will never gain consciousness, no matter how big or fast it
> > > is.
>
> I think these "procedures" you speak of are what psychologists called
> heuristics.
Digital computers also employ heuristics. There is a claim here that
what minds do is not algorithm-based. While there may be strong arguments for that, merely *stating it* is not one. And as I also
pointed out, even if minds don't use algorithms and computers only
use algorithms, the conclusion that computers will never gain
consciousness does not follow. Especially when the arguments that
minds are not algorithm-based generally rest upon an ambiguity
between algorithm-based and being algorithmically achievable, which is
precisely the gap that would have to be closed in order to reach the
conclusion.
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
Wim Van Dijck wrote:
>
> On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 14:22:21 -0700, Jim Balter <j...@sandpiper.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> I once heard a quite strond argument during some introductory AI
> >> classes: computer hardware (neural nets not included) work in
> >> algoritms. Conscious minds, such as ours, use procedures (or whatever
> >> you want to call it) that are not algoritm based. Computers CAN only
> >> use algoritms (at least nowadays) so based on this principle, a
> >> computer will never gain consciousness, no matter how big or fast it
> >> is.
> >
> >This "argument" fails to support the critical claim that conscious
> >minds are not algorithm-based and fails to show that algorithm-based
> >methods cannot achieve something achieved in some other way.
> >It even contains its own refutation: neural nets are commonly simulated.
> >
>
> I am aware of the fact that I didn't give background for this
> argument. I am indeed to blaim for not looking this up.
So you believe that there is a strong argument but you can't give it?
Sounds like religion to me.
> I was mainly interested how this argument would be responded to,
> since I am not very sure about all this myself yet.
Well, I pointed out that no argument was given that minds are
not algorithm-based, and that even if it were stipulated that they
aren't, the conclusion that digital computers will never gain
consciousness doesn't follow. What more needs to be said, other
than digging out some references on rhetoric that might better prepare
people to distinguish strong arguments from weak ones.
> I have already read some interesting responses, though.
> BTW, I left out neural nets on purpose. I don't feel informed enough
> about them to start discussing about that too, although it is my wish
> to be so in the future.
Since NN's are not considered to be algorithm-based, but are simulatable
algorithmically, they are a handy refutation for the argument (but not
necessarily the conclusion, which could well be true despite the poor
argument given to support it).
> >OTOH, "computer hardware" includes things like photosensors
> >that perform important functions that their simulations don't.
> >
> This is not very clear to me. Could you be a bit more specific?
An implementation of a moon rover algorithm cannot rove the moon with
only simulated inputs; it needs real transducers to do the real job.
(Some people argue that, analogously, no implementation of an algorithm
can be conscious without having real inputs, generally by studiously
avoiding the quality that David Chalmers refers to as "organizational invariance" -- simulations of chess players play chess
(organizationally invariant), whereas simulations of paper shredders
don't shred paper (not organizationally invariant).)
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
Oliver Sparrow wrote:
>
> ton...@xs4all.nl (Ton Maas) wrote:
>
> "" According to neurophysiologists Varela & Maturana consciousness is
> "" restricted to autopoietic systems - which by definition produce their
> own
> "" organization by an evolutionary process not unlike "tinkering".
>
> I do not disagree with the sentiment, but how can they possibly make this
> statement as anything more than a hypothesis?
By being well-known and published in a relevant field, of course. :-)
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
mod...@concentric.net wrote:
>
> In <6htajh$r...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> [snip]
>
> >You seem to have entirely missed a point I made. Namely, there might
> >be a completely different way of describing the internal operations
> >of a computer, such that under this different internal description the
> >computer is executing a completely different algorithm. If it is
> >the abstract computation that matters, then I am suggesting that the
> >abstract computation being performed is not determined by what happens
> >in the machine, in the sense that there are completely different
> >ways of assigning algorithmic descriptions to what happens physically.
>
> Let's focus on this point very closely.
>
> Consider a very simple computer. It's called an "OR gate". It has
> two external inputs, and one external output.
>
> The function it computes is "logical OR". If either of the inputs is
> active, the output is active. If both inputs are inactive, the output
> is inactive.
>
> I say that the function it computes is determined by whatever is inside
> the black box of the computer, and will remain the same no matter how
> you choose to describe it. The function will remain the same even if
> can find no use for it, or if you think it is computing NOT(NOT A AND
> NOT B). It does what it does, regardless.
>
> If you agree, then I'll add more inputs, and complicate the function a
> little. I'll claim that nothing has changed, that the function being
> computed is still dependent on what is inside the box, not on your
> description. I'll claim that this holds regardless of how complex we
> make that internally-computed function.
>
> What do you say?
I quote from David Chalmers'
http://ling.ucsc.edu/~chalmers/papers/computation.html
where years ago he considered and analyzed the issues that you guys keep
fumbling around with:
=====
Can a given system implement more than one computation? Yes. Any system implementing
some complex computation will simultaneously be implementing many simpler computations - not just
1-state and 2-state FSAs, but computations of some complexity. This is no flaw in the current account; it
is precisely what we should expect. The system on my desk is currently implementing all kinds of
computations, from EMACS to a clock program, and various sub-computations of these. In general,
there is no canonical mapping from a physical object to "the" computation it is performing. We might
say that within every physical system, there are numerous computational systems. To this very limited
extent, the notion of implementation is "interest-relative". Once again, however, there is no threat of
vacuity. The question of whether a given system implements a given computation is still entirely
objective. What counts is that a given system does not implement every computation, or to put the
point differently, that most given computations are only implemented by a very limited class of physical
systems. This is what is required for a substantial foundation for AI and cognitive science, and it is what
the account I have given provides.
=====
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
Stephen Harris wrote:
>
> > >Anyway. The "causal operations" which make computers worth money to
> > >a business are outside the computers themselves.(modlin)
> >
> > No, I disagree. They are in the computer.(NR)
>
> This question is off the beaten track, but this looks like an
> opportune moment to sneak it in.
>
> I was reading about those mainframes which calculate many digits
> of pi. Maybe a billion digits in nine hours, anyway a lot.
>
> I think I recall reading that the output will differ slightly
> from one model computer running the pi algorithm to another.
> Even I think if two of the same make and model are used.
Since your recollection might be incorrect, or what you read might have
been mistaken, a reference is in order. There are statistical calculation methods, such as determinations of whether a
number is prime, or whether a point is a member of the Mandelbrot set,
that have a finite chance of producing the wrong result, but the
parameters are usually cranked up so that that chance is vanishingly
small. If two different machines are yielding different values for
pi, at least one of them is wrong. But "output" might refer to something else, such as intermediate results that aren't part of the
final value.
> I am not sure for the reason behind this. Suppes has said
> something about: If a system has two or more degrees of
> freedom the system will be subject to sensitivity to initial
> conditions. So I am thinking in the pi calculation situation
> that due to random electronic or magnetic eddies perhaps
> from impurities in the components, this causes the divergence
> in the output of pi.
The calculation of pi is not chaotic, and so is not sensitive to
initial conditions. Random electronic or magnetic eddies happen,
but clever engineers set thresholds high enough to keep those from
affecting results.
> I have read something about this but am not sure I understood it,
> so would like clarification.
Since you are making the vague claim about something you *think* you
*recall*, you are the one who needs to provide the clarification.
> I think Turing may have made a
> comment about this to a schoolteacher.
About the value of pi being sensitive to initial conditions?
You think that you recall that you might have read this, eh?
> He studied dynamic systems
> in 1951.
>
> So I wonder if some AI system, emulating a human, experienced
> an internal random fluctuation, might this cause an output if
> it happened at the right moment that could drastically differ
> from an expected human output? Say in answering a question.
Since humans themselves are subject to "internal random fluctuations",
how would we know? This question would only make sense if "a human"
were completely and precisely specified. Of course, this is not the
case. Not only does "a human" not have a precise formal description,
but even if it did, its inputs, including the molecules in the food
it eats and the light, cosmic, and other rays impinging upon it, are
not formally specified. Can any of these cause "drastic differences"
in the humans' outputs? Ask the survivors of Hiroshima.
> I have also heard about the need for a randomness generator for
> an AI system. Is this already inherent in the physical system?
Engineers try hard to make sure that randomness in the physical system
is not reflected at the logical level.
> I think I have read about the equivalency of CAs NNs indeterministic
> turing machines to turing machines. They can all be simulated
> because they are all 'computable'. Is this right?
Every indeterministic turing machine is equivalent to some deterministic
turing machine "because" that has been proven. You can show that
something is computable by showing that it is equivalent to some turing
machine -- that follows from accepting the Church-Turing Thesis that
Turing machines capture our notion of "computable" (it's "merely" a
thesis because the word "computable" is not itself formally defined).
You can show that some class of things, such as nondeterministic turing
machines, are all equivalent to turing machines by clever use of logic
and mathematics -- the result is a "theorem".
> Also I read a comment(not sure of its reliability) that connectionist
> models challenge the idea that turing machines are the only type
> of physically realizable computer. I'm not sure I worded that
> right so answer what it is supposed to mean. :-)
Turing machines are not physically realizable. von Neumann machines
are physically realizable, but no one ever doubted that they are not
the only type. I can't figure out what possibly unreliable comment
involving connectionist models, turing machines, and physical
realization you mean to refer to, if any.
> Finally, about analog chips. Apparently, high frequency discrete
> responses will not sufficiently model analog human brain processes.
Sufficiently for what? Note that any *description* can only be provided
to a finite precision; thus, if digital simulation is in some sense not
sufficient to model some analog process, no one could consistently
communicate that fact, and so it would be a moot point -- making
digital simulation sufficient after all.
> Is that right?
Probably not.
> I see this analog issue coming up frequently. It
> seems to me that I have seen noise mentioned as a problem.
Yes, there's a lot of noise mentioned. Definitely a problem.
--
<J Q B>
Neil Rickert
Sergio Navega <sna...@ibm.net> writes:
>Now, for some time I've been struggling with Neil Rickert on the necessity
>of sensory inputs for the emergence of intelligence. It took me some time to get
>used to this, because this represents a serious threat to the conventional
>symbolicist approaches to AI, where no sensory inputs are needed in principle.
>I agreed with him about the importance of percepts to provide the brain
>with "data" that can be conveniently transformed into patterns and then
>into something else. What we're talking now seems to suggest that one
>specific kind of sense (vision) is not necessary to raise general intelligence.
Right. It is being an effective information seeker that matters.
The mathematician is particularly effective at picking up one type of
information, and the stage magician is particularly effective at
another type of information. In some sense we choose in information
niche in which we concentrate. The deaf or blind person has a more
restricted range of information niches available, but there is still
plenty of scope for intelligence.
>This conducts us to evaluate the possibility of intelligence flourishing from
>touch and audition, in a larger scale, and taste and smell, in a small scale.
>The independence of vision in this case leads us to conclude that the patterns
>provided by the remaining senses is enough to develop reasonable levels of
>intelligence. Now, it's time to wander.
I expect that it is particulary valuable to be able to receive input
from several sensory modalities, and integrate those inputs in
solving a particular task.
Jim Balter
Neil Rickert wrote:
>
> mod...@concentric.net writes:
>
> >In <6htajh$r...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> > [snip]
>
> >>You seem to have entirely missed a point I made. Namely, there might
> >>be a completely different way of describing the internal operations
> >>of a computer, such that under this different internal description the
> >>computer is executing a completely different algorithm. If it is
> >>the abstract computation that matters, then I am suggesting that the
> >>abstract computation being performed is not determined by what happens
> >>in the machine, in the sense that there are completely different
> >>ways of assigning algorithmic descriptions to what happens physically.
>
> >Let's focus on this point very closely.
>
> >Consider a very simple computer. It's called an "OR gate". It has
> >two external inputs, and one external output.
>
>
> Let's instead consider a real OR gate. To keep it simple, lets suppose it
> uses CMOS with a +5v voltage supply. What it does, is it produces a voltage
> output depending on two voltage inputs.
>
> >The function it computes is "logical OR". If either of the inputs is
> >active, the output is active. If both inputs are inactive, the output
> >is inactive.
>
> to voltages near 0, and FALSE to voltages near +5v. Using this
> assignment of TRUE and FALSE to generate a truth table, you can
> easily see that it computes AND. But, of course, we are
> oversimplifying. We are ignoring one of its inputs, the input
> connected directly to the power supply. If we take that input as
> part of the data being processed, then it is computing a rather more
> complex function.
>
> >I say that the function it computes is determined by whatever is inside
> >the black box of the computer, and will remain the same no matter how
> >you choose to describe it.
>
> have just demonstrated this by describing it such that it computes
> AND. Nevertheless the causal operations remain unaffected by the
> choice of description.
As Chalmers has pointed out, an implementation can
compute more than one function, but that doesn't mean that it computes
*every* function and that we can simply arbitrarily pick one as
*the* function being computed or that, just because the molecules
were in a particular state at a particular moment, that the system can
be said to be implementing an computation that goes through that state.
An implementation only computes a finite number of functions, and
through our interest we select one or a small number of them as *the*
function(s) being computed. Discovering that other functions are also
being computed doesn't alter this. This is a common problem with false
dichotomies in philosophical discussions -- just because one branch of
the dichotomy is shown to be false (e.g., "a machine objectively
computes a single function"), that does not mean that the other branch
must be true (e.g., "what a machine computes is arbitrarily
subjective").
--
<J Q B>
Neil Rickert
ande...@pitt.edu (Anders N Weinstein) writes:
>In article <6hqseq$q...@ux.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <ric...@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>>When a computation is being carried out on my computer, a series of
>>causal operations is taking place, using electrical signals and other
>>kinds of physical operations. There is also a symbol manipulating
>>game used in our theories of computation to describe what is
>>happening. Whether we should say that the symbol manipulation game
>>is actually going on is itself a tricky question.
>If I were to produce a few quite concrete symbol tokens, say on punched
>cards, and move them around in accordance with certain pattern-governed
>transfomrations, I presume there would be no question that I was
>manipulating some symbols in the physical world. (Or would there? From
>what you say, I'm actually not sure what *you* think on this).
That's difficult. I think it depends on your intentions. You might
actually be moving the cards around for a completely different
purpose (practicing for a card trick, say), and it just happens by
coincidence that the movements are in accordance with these pattern
governed transformation. This is why I said it was a tricky
question. However, that was not the main point I was making.
>>When I am using the computer for ordinary things (like writing this
>>message), I care only about the causal operations. The particular
>>choice of symbol manipulation game which somebody might choose to in
>>their description language is completely irrelevant to the
>>computation that is going on, as far as I am concerned as a user of
>>the computer.
>Sure as an outside user you don't care, but if something goes wrong,
>it can make a difference whether we lay blame to faulty hardware or
>a bug in the programming. But identifying the latter requires
>identifying a "symbol manipulation game".
Okay. But when you identify it as a programming bug, you have
already chosen to go by the source program as a description of what
is happening. If you did not have that source code, it might be more
difficult. You might instead have specifications of what the program
is supposed to do, and then you might have a basis for saying there
is a programming bug because the system does not have the specified
causal behavior.
Here is a problem behind my arguments. There are all sorts of logic
gates in a digital computer. You could make the case that every
input to a logic gate is a concrete symbol within the computer.
However, when we describe the action of the computer in terms of a
computer program, we only account for a fraction of those logic
inputs. We disregard the rest as involved with internal control
functions (refreshing memory, for example) which are not directly
related to the computer program. Nevertheless, if those other logic
inputs are not properly handled, we get the wrong answer. If there
was a suspicion of a hardware bug, the engineer would have to be
concerned with all logic inputs, and not only the ones that the
computer program accounts for.
Now what if we took a completely different subset of the logic
inputs, and managed to design an algorithm which is properly
described by the particular logic inputs we have selected. Could the
computer be equally said to be running this alternative algorithm?
If so, then there is no fact of the matter as to which program is
being executed. However, if "computation" has to do with a series of
causal operations, rather than a symbol manipulation game, the same
problem would not arise.
Lyle Bateman
mod...@concentric.net wrote:
> In the sense that you seem to mean it, your statement that hardware
> design is critical is wrong.
>
> Hardware design is important in a lot of practical ways. A design must
> provide devices and channels for information to come into the system and
> out of it... sensors and effectors, in biological or robotic terms.
> Hardware design also determines how fast computations can proceed, and
> how much information can be stored and manipulated... all very important
> to the practicality of solving any particular computational problem.
>
> But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
> things that can be computed, given that we are comparing designs that
> are capable of elementary computation at all. Anything any computing
> machine can do, all computing machines can do, given enough time and
> physical capacity. Architecture affects practical issues of
> performance, but makes absolutely no difference to what is possible if
> we provide enough capacity and don't care how long it takes.
>
> The difference between any computing machine and any other computing
> machine is only a matter of programming. A finite program running on
> either of the machines would suffice to emulate the operation of the
> other, so that exactly the same programs could run on either one.
>
> Bill Modlin
Sorry Bill, I gotta disagree here. Beyond the issue of data size and cpapcity of a
particular arch, the computer that is my brain operates in fundementally different ways than
the computer that I'm typing this reply on. My brain is *not* a number cruncher, and does
such tasks extremely poorly and slowly, if at all. There are some calculations which, not
matter how much time was involved, a human computer could not do - take a look at some of
the weather data processing going on now, or calculations involving various quantum effects
over a large system. Conversely, there are things I can do that you cannot teach an
existing electronic computer to do (such as understand plain English and respond in an
intelligent (OK, a topical) fashion).
The difference, I believe, is architecture. My brain is organized in a fundementally
different way from any current computer system. It is not a single processor, or even a
multi-processor machine such as a Cray or and Origin. It is a system of billions
(trillions?) of nodes which interconnect in many different ways, and it is through the
interaction of nodes, not the processing of the nodes themselves, that brain function
occurs, IMO.
Cheers,
lyle
--
Sincerely,
Lyle W. Bateman
System Consultant
PECC Ltd.
NOTE: My views are my own, and do not represent the views
of my employer, unless explicitly stated.
Keeva Speyer
Wim Van Dijck wrote:
>
> On 23 Apr 1998 17:00:42 -0500, ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
> wrote:
>
> >mod...@concentric.net writes:
> >>In <353EFFF7...@linkserve.com.ng>, Lyle Bateman <lbat...@linkserve.com.ng> writes:
> >
> >>>Its a matter of a lot more than just programming, I'd have to say. Hardware
> >>>design is critical here. With the type of architecture currently popular in
> >>>the computer industry, conciousness will never happen.
> >
> >I have to agree with Lyle here.
> Me too
Me too, software has shown to be very good at emulating all sorts of
types of hardware afterall.
>
> >>In the sense that you seem to mean it, your statement that hardware
> >>design is critical is wrong.
> >
> Indeed
>
> >>Hardware design is important in a lot of practical ways. A design must
> >>provide devices and channels for information to come into the system and
> >>out of it... sensors and effectors, in biological or robotic terms.
> >>Hardware design also determines how fast computations can proceed, and
> >>how much information can be stored and manipulated... all very important
> >>to the practicality of solving any particular computational problem.
> >
> >>But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
> >>things that can be computed,
> >
> >cognition.
Except ofcourse that you seem to need a hell of a lot if it to make
cogniton possible.
>
> I once heard a quite strond argument during some introductory AI
> classes: computer hardware (neural nets not included) work in
> algoritms. Conscious minds, such as ours, use procedures (or whatever
> you want to call it) that are not algoritm based. Computers CAN only
> use algoritms (at least nowadays) so based on this principle, a
> computer will never gain consciousness, no matter how big or fast it
> is.
Your assuming that consiousness can't be emulated/created via an
algorithm. Your also assuming our minds aren't actually one big
algorith. Also neural nets as far as I know are usually software based
on normal hardware, ie. work on an algorithm. Anyway isn't an algorithm
just a system that takes input, follows a series of steps and usually
creates output. It is arguable that the neural links in our minds are
the steps. Therefore our mind may be one big algorithm.
>
> Greetings.
> Wim.
>
> In this world, all you need is honesty and sincerity.
> If you can fake those two, you're set for life.
> ---- Groucho Marx
Keeva Speyer
c...@tdi.net wrote:
>
> In article <6hqde2$p...@ux.cs.niu.edu>,> > >But if you really mean to say that the architecture used for the
> > >computing itself makes a difference to what can be computed, given the
> > >necessary input and ignoring performance... then I respectfully suggest
> > >that's incorrect.
> >
> > The important points that you are missing are:
> >
> > We are not given the necessary output. We have to fetch our
> > own input, and make our own decisions as to what input to
> > use.
That is a rather questionable point. It seems to be that all we do is
based on past imput (nature) and what we are born with (nuture). Of
couse one can't exist without the other. Therefore we are only fetching
input based on previous input are aren't being spontanous at all. (You
can [I think incorrectly] argue heisenburg here but that is be side the
point. There is no reason for our actions to be spontanous. Therefore we
are given all the necessary input.
> >
> > We have to make do with whatever performance we have. It it
> > took a year to make the decision whether to eat that morsel
> > of food, we should soon starve to death.
Only parcially true, people can become better thinkers through reading a
book on critical thinking or learning the principals of logic. Though it
is true that the human mind is no where near powerful enough to consider
everything it does to any large extent, it ends up relying on example,
memory and a host of shortcut to a large extent. So too would a general
AI system for a long time to come because of processing contraints (and
possibly the nature of the problem).
> >
> >
> I have been thinking about this as well. Some things I have considered are:
> What about blind people?
> What about deaf people?
> Where do these "handicaps" hinder intelegence? I doubt that they do, though
> this is my opinion and not based on any research. There has to be more than
> just the architecture. More than the type of imputs/outputs.
> I don't have answers, only questions.
It seems to be when one makes an intelligent decision it is based on
two things, the data (inc. memory) and the analysis (inc. creativity).
The analysis is largely learnt through out life either explicitly or
just the result of our thinking patterns.
Therefore as blind and deaf people have less input it would seem they
'cetris paribus' they are at a disadvantage. Though of course because of
their state they may think about things more and so have an advantage or
whatever.
Keeva Speyer
Lyle Bateman wrote:
>
>
> Sorry Bill, I gotta disagree here. Beyond the issue of data size and cpapcity of a
> particular arch, the computer that is my brain operates in fundementally different ways than
> the computer that I'm typing this reply on. My brain is *not* a number cruncher, and does
> such tasks extremely poorly and slowly, if at all.
> There are some calculations which, not
> matter how much time was involved, a human computer could not do - take a look at some of
> the weather data processing going on now, or calculations involving various quantum effects
> over a large system.
True, so without tools to extend our ability there seems to be some
limits in our architecture. What are they? We have limited mathematical
ability, our memory isn't perfect, we aren't totally logical, we rarely
throughly think things through, etc.
You could have proved your point more easily though by pointing out that
a simple calculator can't understand english even if a mike was
attached.
However that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about
binary computers (not calculator or human brains). Binary computers can
emulated interconnecting nodes, are extremely flexible, have a perfect
memory etc. They aren't powerful enough but that isn't necessarily a
long term barrier, esp. once if quantum computing comes online (which
will still be digital computing).
So from the above I see no reason a binary computer can't become
intelligent because of its architecture.
>Conversely, there are things I can do that you cannot teach an
> existing electronic computer to do (such as understand plain English and respond in an
> intelligent (OK, a topical) fashion).
Not yet, that is what AI is all about.
>
> The difference, I believe, is architecture. My brain is organized in a fundementally
> different way from any current computer system. It is not a single processor, or even a
> multi-processor machine such as a Cray or and Origin. It is a system of billions
> (trillions?) of nodes which interconnect in many different ways, and it is through the
> interaction of nodes, not the processing of the nodes themselves, that brain function
> occurs, IMO.
Nodes can be simulated on a computer eg. neural networks. I do agree
that the architecture has to be flexible enough and powerful enough, but
it seems to me that while maybe not optimum binary computers are
certianly flexible enough (though no where near powerful enough yet).
Cheers,
Keeva.
Keeva Speyer
At 19:01 28/04/98 -0500, you wrote:
>On Mon 4/27/98 21:22 +1000 Keeva Speyer wrote:
>> Wim Van Dijck wrote:
>>
>> > classes: computer hardware (neural nets not included) work in
>> > algoritms. Conscious minds, such as ours, use procedures (or whatever
>> > you want to call it) that are not algoritm based. Computers CAN only
>> > use algoritms (at least nowadays) so based on this principle, a
>> > computer will never gain consciousness, no matter how big or fast it
>> > is.
>
>> Your assuming that consiousness can't be emulated/created via an
>> algorithm.
>
The assumption is highly questionable (and in my mind 99% probably
untrue).
>
>> Your also assuming our minds aren't actually one big
>> algorith.
>
>Yes, he is.
The assumption is highly questionable (and in my mind 90% probably
untrue).
>
>> Also neural nets as far as I know are usually software based
>> on normal hardware, ie. work on an algorithm.
>
>OK.
This would tend to sugest that the general architecture of the mind can
be emulated.
>
>> Anyway isn't an algorithm
>> just a system that takes input, follows a series of steps and usually
>> creates output. It is arguable that the neural links in our minds are
>> the steps.
>
>The question a series of steps raises is: From what to what?
From the nerve impluse that lead from the input to the finial state
attained as a result of the input (or the contribution to the continual
process if you don't like a final state).
Therefore our mind may be one big algorithm.
>
>> Therefore our mind may be one big algorithm.
>>
>Doubtful. Very doubtful. See further
I'm not sure it is either but it seems quite possible. What briefly are
your problems with it?
Cheers,
Keeva.
Oliver Sparrow
Stephen Harris <mulc...@pacbell.net> wrote:
"" A program which can answer "hello Hal" with "hello Oliver"
"" does not evidence that this program has created the requirements
"" for a magnetic mind to come into existence.
That is rather the point of much of the discussion on this usegroup.
1: Do you need awareness to get useful spontaneous information management?
2: If you do, then can you expect to generate awareness on current
engineering platforms?
3: If not, why not? How could we re-approach said platforms to overcome
this putative blocks?
4: If so, then what is it that you need to do. Specifically, how does one
set about generating the concommitants of awareness when you do not
know what these are?
5: Might there be an indirect route, which is to permit awareness to arise
spontaeously from a sufficiently complex and predisposed architecture,
as it appears to do in biological systems?
6: Back to (1). If you do not need awareness, but only the seeming of it,
then what are the specific characteristics of awareness that you would
like to access? (This is not much - never - discussed in this group but
lies at the heart of most practical applications.)
"" And we have no
"" knowledge about how to create life say for the interior of a sun,
Even Longley is unlikely to disagree with this observation.
______________________________________
Oliver Sparrow
Ton Maas
In article <6i21sj$2j$1...@news.ox.ac.uk>,
pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) wrote:
>Oh, I'm disagreeing, vehemently. We *have* evolving computers, we
>*have* computers (or at least multi-cpu networks) with greater storage
>capacity and comparable complexity to the human brain, and that's
>not produced anything that appears in any way conscious. The
>argument that "evolving systems," "tinker-able systems" or any
>such is just another attempt to insert a ghost-in-the-machine through
>a process that the writer doesn't understand, even though many other
>scientists may understand quite weill.
Well, I'm not convinced we have "evolving" computers which comply with
Varela & Maturana's definition of autopoiesis. After all, in man-made,
digital computers the distinction between hardware and software is clean
cut, but in biological organisms this is a much more complex matter. Modern
day emphasis on genes as informational carriers of the "blueprint" of
organisms, for instance, is still largely unaware of the implications of
research done by D'Arcy Thompson (who showed that evolution is actually
saturated with patterns that are highly constant between species - such as
a nose above a mouth and an eye and an ear on eiter side - and which are
analogously coded rather than digitally) and the late William Bateson (who
removed limbs from embryos and grafted them back on in opposite positions,
where they grew into their "proper" shape), which have rather far-reaching
implications for the relation between genes and actual organisms. IMHO we
are approaching the limits of an "old" paradigm, with its notion of
information as storeable and quantifiable rather than defined in-process
(as "a difference which makes a difference").
Ton Maas
Patrick Juola
I'm afraid, Mr. Maas, that you're at least twenty years behind the
coal face. The distinction between software and hardware isn't particularly
clean-cut and hasn't been since the first emulator was written in the
Sixties; most modern computers are now designed first in simulation and
built only when many designs have been tested and abandoned in software
alone. Furthermore, even the simulation itself usually relies heavily
on randomized tinkering -- check out the literature on "superoptimization"
in GCC as a particularly understandable example. In these applications,
the computer was simply asked to run random bits of machine code, and
the shortest/fastest that performed particular (usefu) operations were
"remembered" by the superoptimizer and incorporated into later
compilations. (Rather like in the old x86s where the fastest way to
clear a register was to XOR it with itself instead of using the CLR
instruction.)
Similarly, the role of other, non-gene areas of information transmission
is a major area of research, although it hasn't gotten the funding or
press of the HGP for rather obvious political reasons -- the HGP being
the 90's equivalent of the Apollo project.
But this is largely arguing over irrelevancies. The *relevant* question,
which still hasn't been addressed, is why the origin of an organism
should be relevant to its conscousness -- and in particular why a
"tinkerable" organism should be conscious when an exact-duplicate-by-design
isn't. At which point, "ghost in the machine" is the kindest way I can
put it.
-kitten
Sergio Navega
Neil Rickert wrote:
>
> Sergio Navega <sna...@ibm.net> writes:
> [discussing blind people]
> >This conducts us to evaluate the possibility of intelligence flourishing from
> >touch and audition, in a larger scale, and taste and smell, in a small scale.
> >The independence of vision in this case leads us to conclude that the patterns
> >provided by the remaining senses is enough to develop reasonable levels of
> >intelligence. Now, it's time to wander.
>
> I expect that it is particulary valuable to be able to receive input
> from several sensory modalities, and integrate those inputs in
> solving a particular task.
Now let me bend just a bit our discussions. There's one thing that's bothering
me and this is my suspicion that perceiving only is not enough for the complete
cicle of learning. It's necessary to actuate over the world to complement it.
Let me clarify this.
Say we are a newborn baby. Through our vision (blurred, at first) we start to
detect information that, in the course of the following months, will turn out
to be patterns. Some time later, we will be able to detect and follow with
our eyes things that move around us, like a mobile that hangs over our cradle.
My suspicion is that if the baby stayed within this circumstance (passive
pattern detection) it will not develop intelligence. It is necessary for him to
*actuate* over the world with his hands, feet, mouth to gain another perception.
I am trying to associate this process of experimentation with one of
"disambiguation". When the baby receives the visual information of a colorful
ball, he ends up with a lot of "high level" patterns, produced by the visual
cortex. He does not know, in principle, which of these patterns are the ones
that must be stored as representative of the event he is facing.
He *must* grab the ball and turn it in front of his eyes, throw it away, kick
on the floor, to see what happens with the patterns he is analysing. He is doing
*experiments* to disambiguate the received patterns. The results of these
experimentations may well be the occurrence of lots of other patterns, but some
of them will be similar to the ones he already know. This may be the necessary
step for the correct determination of which patterns must be stored as a real
representation of his world.
Unfortunately, I don't have enough knowledge to support these assertions.
It seems that I cannot postpone the acquisition of Gleitman's Psychology
book anymore.
Regards,
Sergio Navega.
Gary Forbis
Jim Balter wrote:
> An implementation of a moon rover algorithm cannot rove the moon with
> only simulated inputs; it needs real transducers to do the real job.
> (Some people argue that, analogously, no implementation of an algorithm
> can be conscious without having real inputs, generally by studiously
> avoiding the quality that David Chalmers refers to as "organizational invariance" -- simulations of chess players play chess
> (organizationally invariant), whereas simulations of paper shredders
> don't shred paper (not organizationally invariant).)
I don't think the question is if being conscious is more like shredding paper or like playing chess.
I think the input needs to be real as does the device to which they are inputs. The inputs needn't
be generated by way of eyes, ears, etc. but could be simulation of the same. I'm not sure
how "organizational invarience" is maintained if it is not, that is how can I be said to have
the phenomenallogical experience of a chair unless there is some relationship between the inputs
as simulated and those I recieve from the chair naturally? If you cut off my hands then you
have to stimulate the nerve bundle as if my hands were still there. I think its organizational
invarience all the way down.
--
--gary
for...@accessone.com
http://www.accessone.com/~forbis