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Standards in Artificial Intelligence

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Arthur T. Murray

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Sep 10, 2003, 2:22:11 PM9/10/03
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A webpage of proposed Standards in Artificial Intelligence is at
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/standard.html -- updated today.

David B. Held

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Sep 10, 2003, 2:23:19 PM9/10/03
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"Arthur T. Murray" <uj...@victoria.tc.ca> wrote in message
news:3f5f...@news.victoria.tc.ca...

> A webpage of proposed Standards in Artificial Intelligence
> is at http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/standard.html --
> updated today.

Besides not having anything to do with C++, you should
stop posting your notices here because you are a crank.
You claim to have a "theory of mind", but fail to recognize
two important criteria for a successful theory: explanation
and prediction. That is, a good theory should *explain
observed phenomena*, and *predict non-trivial
phenomena*. From what I have skimmed of your "theory",
it does neither (though I suppose you think that it does
well by way of explanation).

In one section, you define a core set of concepts (like
'true', 'false', etc.), and give them numerical indexes.
Then you invite programmers to add to this core by using
indexes above a suitable threshold, as if we were defining
ports on a server. When I saw this, and many other things
on your site, I laughed. This is such a naive and simplistic
view of intelligence that you surely cannot be expected
to be taken seriously.

I dare say one of the most advanced AI projects in
existence is Cog. The philosophy behind Cog is that
an AI needs a body. You say more or less the same
thing. However, the second part of the philosophy behind
Cog is that a simple working robot is infinitely better
than an imaginary non-working robot. That's the part
you've missed. Cog is designed by some of the field's
brightest engineers, and funded by one of the last
strongholds of AI research. And as far as success
goes, Cog is a child among children. You expect to
create a fully developed adult intelligence from scratch,
entirely in software, using nothing more than the
volunteer labor of gullible programmers and your own
musings. This is pure comedy.

At one point, you address programmers who might
have access to a 64-bit architecture. Pardon me, but
given things like the "Hard Problem of Consciousness",
the size of some programmer's hardware is completely
irrelevant. These kinds of musings are forgivable when
coming from an idealistic young high school student
who is just learning about AI for the first time. But the
prolific nature of the work implies that you have been
at this for quite some time.

Until such time as you can A) show that your theory
predicts an intelligence phenomenon that is both novel
and later confirmed by experiment or observation of
neurological patients, or B) produce an artifact that is
at least as intelligent as current projects, I must conclude
that your "fibre theory" is just so much wishful rambling.

The level of detail you provide clearly shows that you
have no real understanding of what it takes to build a
successful AI, let alone something that can even
compete with the state of the art. The parts that you
think are detailed, such as your cute ASCII diagrams,
gloss over circuits that researchers have spent their
entire lives studying, which you leave as "an exercise
for the programmer". This is not only ludicrous, but
insulting to the work being done by legitimate
researchers, not to mention it insults the intelligence
of anyone expected to buy your "theory".

Like many cranks and crackpots, you recognize that
you need to insert a few scholarly references here and
there to add an air of legitimacy to your flights of fancy.
However, a close inspection of your links shows that
you almost certainly have not read and understood
most of them, or A) you would provide links *into* the
sites, rather than *to* the sites (proper bibliographies
don't say: "Joe mentioned this in the book he published
in '92" and leave it at that), or B) you wouldn't focus
on the irrelevant details you do.

A simple comparison of your model with something
a little more respectable, such as the ACT-R program
at Carnegie-Mellon, shows stark contrasts. Whereas
your "model" is a big set of ASCII diagrams and some
aimless wanderings on whatever pops into your head
when you're at the keyboard, the "models" link (note
the plural) on the ACT-R page takes you to what...?
To a bibliography of papers, each of which addresses
some REAL PROBLEM and proposes a DETAILED
MODEL to explain the brain's solution for it. Your
model doesn't address any real problems, because
it's too vague to actually be realized.

And that brings us to the final point. Your model has
components, but the components are at the wrong
level of detail. You recognize the obvious fact that
the sensory modalities must be handled by
specialized hardware, but then you seem to think that
the rest of the brain is a "tabula rasa". To see why
that is utterly wrong, you should take a look at Pinker's
latest text by the same name (The Blank Slate).
The reason the ACT-R model is a *collection* of
models, rather than a single model, is very simple.
All of the best research indicates that the brain is
not a general-purpose computer, but rather a
collection of special-purpose devices, each of which
by itself probably cannot be called "intelligent".

Thus, to understand human cognition, it is necessary
to understand the processes whereby the brain
solves a *PARTICULAR* problem, and not how it
might operate on a global scale. The point being
that the byzantine nature of the brain might not make
analysis on a global scale a useful or fruitful avenue
of research. And indeed, trying to read someone's
mind by looking at an MRI or EEG is like trying to
predict the stock market by looking at the
arrangement of rocks on the beach.

Until you can provide a single model of the precision
and quality of current cognitive science models, for
a concrete problem which can be tested and
measured, I must conclude that you are a crackpot
of the highest order. Don't waste further bandwidth
in this newsgroup or others with your announcements
until you revise your model to something that can be
taken seriously (read: explains observed phenomena
and makes novel predictions).

Dave

Arthur T. Murray

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Sep 12, 2003, 1:52:30 PM9/12/03
to
"David B. Held" wrote on Wed, 10 Sep 2003:
> "Arthur T. Murray" <uj...@victoria.tc.ca> wrote in message
> news:3f5f...@news.victoria.tc.ca...
>> A webpage of proposed Standards in Artificial Intelligence
>> is at http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/standard.html --
>> updated today.

> [...] In one section, you define a core set of concepts (like


> 'true', 'false', etc.), and give them numerical indexes.

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/variable.html#nen -- yes.

> Then you invite programmers to add to this core by using
> indexes above a suitable threshold, as if we were defining

> ports on a server. [...]

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/newcept.html#analysis explains
that Newconcept calls the English vocabulary (enVocab) module
to form an English lexical node for any new word detected
by the Audition module in the stream of user input.

> [...] At one point, you address programmers who might


> have access to a 64-bit architecture. Pardon me, but
> given things like the "Hard Problem of Consciousness",
> the size of some programmer's hardware is completely

> irrelevant. [...]

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/standard.html#hardware (q.v.)
explains that not "the size of some programmer's hardware" counts
but rather the amount of memory available to the artificial Mind.

The Mentifex AI Mind project is extremely serious and ambitious.
Free-lance coders are morking on it in C++ and other languages:

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/cpp.html -- C++ with starter code;
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/java.html -- see Mind.JAVA 1 and 2;
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/lisp.html -- Lisp AI Weblog;
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/perl.html -- first Perl module;
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/prolog.html -- Prolog AI Weblog;
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/python.html -- Python AI Weblog;
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/ruby.html -- Ruby AI Blog (OO AI);
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/scheme.html -- Scheme AI Weblog;
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/vb.html -- see "Mind.VB #001" link.

AI Mind project news pervades the blogosphere, e.g. at
http://www.alpha-geek.com/2003/09/11/perl_ai.html -- etc.

The Mentifex Seed AI engenders a new species of mind at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mindjava -- Mind2.Java --
and at other sites popping up _passim_ on the Web.

AI has been solved in theory and in primitive, free AI source code.
Please watch each new species of AI Mind germinate and proliferate.

A.T. Murray
--
http://www.kurzweilai.net/mindx/profile.php?id=26 - Mind-eXchange;
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595654371/ -- AI Textbook;
http://www.sl4.org/archive/0205/3829.html -- review by Dr. Ben G.
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/307824.307853 -- ACM SIGPLAN Notices.

White Wolf

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Sep 12, 2003, 1:02:13 PM9/12/03
to
Stop these off topic posting to comp.lang.c++ or prepare to look for a new
service provider.


ar...@hpcvplnx.cv.hp.com

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Sep 12, 2003, 5:51:30 PM9/12/03
to
In comp.lang.java.programmer White Wolf <wo...@freemail.hu> wrote:
> Stop these off topic posting to comp.lang.c++ or prepare to look for a new
> service provider.

Seems on topic to every group posted to to me. Also an interesting
project. But I guess you had to actually read his post to figure
that out, Mr. Net-Cop.

--arne

White Wolf

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Sep 13, 2003, 6:25:32 PM9/13/03
to

Look at the subject. Look at the content of the posted site. Then look at
the charter of this newsgroup:

"First of all, please keep in mind that comp.lang.c++ is a group for
discussion
of general issues of the C++ programming language, as defined by the
ANSI/ISO
language standard. "

If all that is not enough the list of the newsgroups he cross-posted to
should indicate that the topicality is questionable.

This newsgroup (and I am afraid all languag newsgroups are such) is not
created as a place for discussion of specific programming problems,
especially not if the post is cross-posted to unrelated newsgroups.

Discussion of specific C++ solutions would be topical, but not a genral
discussion for several languages. For that comp.programming etc. should be
used.

--
WW aka Attila


Buster

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Sep 13, 2003, 6:33:43 PM9/13/03
to
"White Wolf" <wo...@freemail.hu> wrote

> Look at the subject. Look at the content of the posted site. Then look at
> the charter of this newsgroup:
>
> "First of all, please keep in mind that comp.lang.c++ is a group for
> discussion
> of general issues of the C++ programming language, as defined by the
> ANSI/ISO
> language standard. "

Whoa, actually quoting the charter now. I didn't think you'd go that far.

Regards, Buster


White Wolf

unread,
Sep 13, 2003, 6:57:22 PM9/13/03
to

I did not go anywhere. I was here, in this newsgroup. The topic went far.

--
WW aka Attila


Arthur T. Murray

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Sep 14, 2003, 12:18:27 PM9/14/03
to
stefan <lin...@freenet.de> wrote on Sat, 13 Sep 2003:
[...]

>> > A webpage of proposed Standards in Artificial Intelligence
>> > is at http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/standard.html --
[...]
> Some of these [pages] sides are old. Arthur T. Murray may have
> less time to read through the doc mountains and update the old
> stuff on some [pages] sides. But as you can see, step by step
> he does this.

Yes, thank you, Stefan. The Mentifex AI Mind project is running
out of time, and funding, but somehow not motivation -- luckily,
the process of communicating Open Source AI memes is enjoyable.

Now in 2003 it is time to turn the AI Mind project over to many
computer scientists who program in various languages listed at
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/java.html under "See also..."

A redundant package of the most important Mentifex AI files is
being established at various 'Net domains in isolation from
other Mentifex AI sites so as to ensure memetic survivability.

Weblogs have advanced from Jorn Barger's lone voice crying in
http://www.robotwisdom.com -- the wilderness -- to a torrent.

Early in 2003 I decided to move into weblogs to promote AI4U
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595654371/ AI textbook.

In mid-2003 the realization struck me that all the Mentifex
webpages devoted to artificial intelligence programming in
more than twenty programming languages could be re-designed
and modified into much more appealing weblogs such as the
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/lisp.html "Lisp AI Blog."

Therefore at multiple, redundant Web domains, "XYZ AI Blogs"
for each "XYZ" programming language are linking locally to
a complete set of the AI Mind documents and AI source code
necessary for "Re-interpretation of Mind.Forth and AI4U Mind
Theory in Java using object oriented technigues" e.g., from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mindjava -- an AI offshoot.

The power of weblogs is unparalleled, Eugene. Miya himself
will obey das Unbestimmtheitsprinzip of Werner Heisenberg
whereby to observe a phenomenon is to change the phenomenon.
With respect to the mini-galaxy of Proglang-XYZ AI Weblogs,
webloggers of language XYZ who start coding DIY AI Steps
and post the source on their own weblogs will do as J$ at
http://www.alpha-geek.com/2003/09/11/perl_ai.html has done.

Arthur

http://www.sl4.org/archive/0205/3829.html -- Goertzel on Mentifex;
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/307824.307853 -- ACM SIGPLAN: Mind.Forth

David B. Held

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Sep 13, 2003, 3:30:52 AM9/13/03
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"Arthur T. Murray" <uj...@victoria.tc.ca> wrote in message
news:3f61...@news.victoria.tc.ca...

> "David B. Held" wrote on Wed, 10 Sep 2003:
> [...]
> > In one section, you define a core set of concepts (like
> > 'true', 'false', etc.), and give them numerical indexes.
>
> http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/variable.html#nen -- yes.

Brittle. Language-specific. Non-scalable. You are trying
to build something "intelligent", aren't you?

> > Then you invite programmers to add to this core by using
> > indexes above a suitable threshold, as if we were defining
> > ports on a server. [...]
>
> http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/newcept.html#analysis
> explains that Newconcept calls the English vocabulary
> (enVocab) module to form an English lexical node for any
> new word detected by the Audition module in the stream of
> user input.

Besides the fact that the "enVocab" module is embarrassingly
underspecified, the notion of indexing words is just silly. If
a dictionary were a database, it might be a reasonable idea.
But trying to simulate human speech with a database-like
dictionary is the way of symbolic AI, and the combinatorial
nature of language is going to rear its ugly head when you try
to scale your system to realistic proportions. Hence, why
programs like SHRDLU were good at their blocks worlds,
but terrible at everything else. Again, a little history would
do you well. If you want to refer to your text, let's take a
quick look at something you wrote:

6.4. Introduce aspects of massively parallel ("maspar")
learning by letting many uniconceptual filaments on the
mindgrid coalesce into conceptual minigrids that
redundantly hold the same unitary concept as a massively
parallel aggregate with massively parallel associative tags,
so that the entire operation of the AI Mind is massively
parallel in all aspects except such bottleneck factors as
having only two eyes or two ears -- in the human tradition.

Umm...pardon me, but the emperor is wearing no clothes.
"uniconceptual filaments"? "comceptual minigrids"?
"massively parallel aggregate"? Where is the glossary for
your pig Latin? How on earth is a programmer supposed
to build a computational model from this fluff? Read your
mind? She certainly can't read your text. This sounds more
like a motivational speech from a pointy-haired boss in a
Dilbert strip than instructions for how to build an "AI Mind".
I would parody it, but you've done a fine job yourself. Here's
the real cheerleading right here:

Then go beyond human frailties and human limitations
by having any number ad libitum of local and remote
sensory input devices and any number of local and
remote robot embodiments and robotic motor
opportunities. Inform the robot of human bondage in
mortal bodies and of robot freedom in possibilities yet
to be imagined.

Wow. I have a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I think I'll stay
up another hour writing more of the Sensorium module.

> > [...] At one point, you address programmers who might
> > have access to a 64-bit architecture. Pardon me, but
> > given things like the "Hard Problem of Consciousness",
> > the size of some programmer's hardware is completely
> > irrelevant. [...]
>
> http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/standard.html#hardware
> (q.v.) explains that not "the size of some programmer's
> hardware" counts but rather the amount of memory
> available to the artificial Mind.

The amount of memory is completely irrelevant, since you
have not given enough detail to build a working model. It's
like me saying: "If you have a tokamak transverse reactor,
then my spaceship plans will get you to Alpha Centauri in
8 years, but if you only have a nuclear fission drive, then it
will take 10. Oh and drop your carrots and onions in this
big black kettle I have here." Also, the memory space of a
single processor really isn't that important, since a serious
project would be designed to operate over clusters or grids
of processors. But I suppose it never occurred to you that
you might want an AI brain that takes advantage of more
than one processor, huh? I suppose you think the Sony
"Emotion Engine" is what Lt. Cmdr. Data installed so he
could feel human?

> The Mentifex AI Mind project is extremely serious and
> ambitious.

There's no doubt it's ambitious. And I have no doubt that
you believe you have really designed an AI mind. However,
I also believe you hear voices in your head and when you
look in the mirror you see a halo. Frankly, your theory has
too much fibre for me to digest.

> Free-lance coders are morking on it in C++ and other
> languages:

If I knew what "morking" was, I would probably agree.
However, your first example of someone "morking" on it in
C++ tells me that "morking" isn't really a good thing. At
least not as far as C++ goes. Namely, it more or less proves
that the "interest" in this project mainly consists of the blind
being (b)led by the blind.

> [...]


> http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/vb.html -- see
> "Mind.VB #001" link.

This is the only sign of progress you have shown. Without
even looking at the link, I can believe that the "VB Mind"
already has a higher IQ than you.

> AI Mind project news pervades the blogosphere, e.g. at
> http://www.alpha-geek.com/2003/09/11/perl_ai.html -- etc.

Oh, I see...so if enough people report on it, then it's "serious"
and should be taken seriously? A lot of people reported on
cold fusion. But I'd take the cold fusion researchers over
you any day of the week.

> The Mentifex Seed AI engenders a new species of mind at
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/mindjava -- Mind2.Java --
> and at other sites popping up _passim_ on the Web.

And what, pray tell, is a "mind species"? Is it subject to
crossover, selection, and mutation?

> AI has been solved in theory

LOL!!!! Wow! Whatever you're smoking, it has to be
illegal, because it's obviously great stuff!

> and in primitive, free AI source code.

Here is an example of "primitive, free AI source code":

10 PRINT "Hello, world!"

See? It's got a speech generation and emotion engine
built right in! And the AI is so reliable, it will never display
a bad attitude, even if you tell it to grab you a cold one
from the fridge. It always has a cheerful, positive
demeanor. It is clearly self-aware, because it addresses
others as being distinct from itself. And it has a theory of
mind, because it knows that others expect a greeting when
meeting for the first time. Unfortunately, it has no memory,
so every meeting is for the first time. However, its output
is entirely consistent, given this constraint. I guess I've
just proved that "AI has been solved in theory"!

> Please watch each new species of AI Mind germinate
> and proliferate.

I'm still waiting to see *your* mind germinate. I've watched
grass grow faster. While ad homs are usually frowned
upon, I don't see any harm when applied to someone who
cannot be reasoned with anyway. Since you seem to have
single-handedly "solved the AI problem", I'd like to ask
you a few questions I (and I'm sure many others) have.

1) How does consciousness work?
2) Does an AI have the same feeling when it sees red
that I do? How do we know?
3) How are long-term memories formed?
4) How does an intelligent agent engage in abstract
reasoning?
5) How does language work?
6) How do emotions work?

Please don't refer me to sections of your site. I've seen
enough of your writing to know that the answers to my
questions cannot be found there.

Like a typical crackpot (or charlatan), you deceive via
misdirection. You attempt to draw attention to all the
alleged hype surrounding your ideas without addressing
the central issues. I challenged your entire scheme by
claiming that minds are not blank slates, and that human
brains are collections of specialized problem solvers
which must each be understood in considerable detail
in order to produce anything remotely intelligent. You
never gave a rebuttal, which tells me you don't have one.
Why don't you do yourself a favor and start out by
reading Society of Mind, by Minsky. After that, read
any good neurobiology or neuroscience text to see just
how "blank" your brain is when it starts out. Pinker
has several good texts you should read. There's a
reason why he's a professor at MIT, and you're a
crackpot trying to con programmers into fulfilling your
ridiculous fantasies.

Dave


Arthur T. Murray

unread,
Sep 15, 2003, 9:44:04 AM9/15/03
to
"David B. Held" wrote on Sat, 13 Sep 2003:
>> > In one section, you define a core set of concepts (like
>> > 'true', 'false', etc.), and give them numerical indexes.
ATM:
>> http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/variable.html#nen -- yes.
DBH:
> Brittle.
ATM:
You are right. It is precariously brittle. That brittleness
is part of the "Grand Challenge" of building a viable AI Mind.
First we have to build a brittle one, then we must trust the
smarter-than-we-are crowd to incorporate fault-tolerance.
DBH:
> Language-specific.
ATM:
Do you mean "human-language-specific" or "programming-language"?
With programming-language variables, we have to start somewhere,
and then we let adventitious AI coders change the beginnings.
With variables that lend themselves to polyglot human languages,
we achieve two aims: AI coders in non-English-speaking lands
will feel encouraged to code an AI speaking their own language;
and AI Minds will be engendered that speak polyglot languages.
Obiter dictu -- the Mentifex "Concept-Fiber Theory of Mind" --
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/theory5.html -- features
a plausible explanation of how to implant multiple Chomskyan
syntaxes and multiple lexicons within one unitary AI Mind.
The AI textbook AI4U page 35 on the English language module --
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/english.html -- and
the AI textbook AI4U page 77 on the Reify module --
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/reify.html -- and the
AI textbook AI4U page 93 on the English bootstrap module --
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/enboot.html -- all show
unique and original diagrams of an AI Mind that contains
the thinking apparatus for multiple human languages --
in other words, an AI capapble of Machine Translation (MT).

DBH:
> Non-scalable.
ATM:
Once again, we have to start somewhere. Once we attain
critical mass in freelance AI programmers, then we scale up.

DBH:


> You are trying to build something "intelligent", aren't you?

ATM:
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/mind4th.html -- Machine...
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/jsaimind.html -- Intelligence.

DBH:


> > Then you invite programmers to add to this core by using
> > indexes above a suitable threshold, as if we were defining
> > ports on a server. [...]

ATM:


> http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/newcept.html#analysis
> explains that Newconcept calls the English vocabulary
> (enVocab) module to form an English lexical node for any
> new word detected by the Audition module in the stream of
> user input.

DBH:


Besides the fact that the "enVocab" module is embarrassingly
underspecified, the notion of indexing words is just silly.

ATM:
Nevertheless, here at the dawn of AI (flames? "Bring 'em on.")
we need to simulate conceptual gangs of redundant nerve fibers,
and so we resort to numeric indexing just to start somewhere.

DBH:


> If a dictionary were a database, it might be a reasonable idea.
> But trying to simulate human speech with a database-like
> dictionary is the way of symbolic AI, and the combinatorial
> nature of language is going to rear its ugly head when you try
> to scale your system to realistic proportions. Hence, why
> programs like SHRDLU were good at their blocks worlds,

http://www.semaphorecorp.com/misc/shrdlu.html -- by T. Winograd?

> but terrible at everything else. Again, a little history would
> do you well. If you want to refer to your text, let's take a
> quick look at something you wrote:

6.4. Introduce aspects of massively parallel ("maspar")
learning by letting many uniconceptual filaments on the
mindgrid coalesce into conceptual minigrids that
redundantly hold the same unitary concept as a massively
parallel aggregate with massively parallel associative tags,
so that the entire operation of the AI Mind is massively
parallel in all aspects except such bottleneck factors as
having only two eyes or two ears -- in the human tradition.

> Umm...pardon me, but the emperor is wearing no clothes.
> "uniconceptual filaments"?

ATM:
Yes. Each simulated nerve fiber holds one single concept.

> "conceptual minigrids"?
ATM:
Yes. Conceptual fibers may coalesce into a "gang" or minigrid
distributed across the entire mindgrid, for massive redundancy --
which affords security or longevity of concepts, and which
also aids in massively parallel processing (MPP).

> "massively parallel aggregate"?
> Where is the glossary for your pig Latin?
> How on earth is a programmer supposed to build a
> computational model from this fluff? Read your mind?
> She certainly can't read your text. This sounds more
> like a motivational speech from a pointy-haired boss in a
> Dilbert strip than instructions for how to build an "AI Mind".
> I would parody it, but you've done a fine job yourself.

Ha! You're funny there! <grin>

> Here's the real cheerleading right here:

Then go beyond human frailties and human limitations
by having any number ad libitum of local and remote
sensory input devices and any number of local and
remote robot embodiments and robotic motor
opportunities. Inform the robot of human bondage in
mortal bodies and of robot freedom in possibilities yet
to be imagined.

> Wow. I have a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I think I'll stay
> up another hour writing more of the Sensorium module.

>> > [...] At one point, you address programmers who might
>> > have access to a 64-bit architecture. Pardon me, but
>> > given things like the "Hard Problem of Consciousness",
>> > the size of some programmer's hardware is completely
>> > irrelevant. [...]
>>
>> http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/standard.html#hardware
>> (q.v.) explains that not "the size of some programmer's
>> hardware" counts but rather the amount of memory
>> available to the artificial Mind.

> The amount of memory is completely irrelevant, since you
> have not given enough detail to build a working model.

ATM:
If the AI coder has an opportunity to go beyond 32-bit and
use a 64-bit machine, then he/she/it ought to do it, because
once we arrive at 64-bits (for RAM), we may stop a while.

> It's like me saying: "If you have a tokamak transverse reactor,
> then my spaceship plans will get you to Alpha Centauri in
> 8 years, but if you only have a nuclear fission drive, then it
> will take 10. Oh and drop your carrots and onions in this
> big black kettle I have here." Also, the memory space of a
> single processor really isn't that important, since a serious
> project would be designed to operate over clusters or grids
> of processors. But I suppose it never occurred to you that
> you might want an AI brain that takes advantage of more
> than one processor, huh?

ATM:
The desired "unitariness of mind" (quotes for emphasis) may
preclude using "clusters or grids of processors."

ATM:
http://www.seedai.e-mind.org tries to track each new species
of AI Mind. We do _not_ want standard Minds; we only wish
to have some standards in how we go about coding AI Minds.

> 10 PRINT "Hello, world!"

ATM:
Through a "searchlight of attention". When a mind is fooled
into a sensation of consciousness, then it _is_ conscious.

> 2) Does an AI have the same feeling when it sees red
> that I do? How do we know?

ATM:
You've got me there. Qualia totally non-plus me :(

> 3) How are long-term memories formed?

ATM:
Probably by the lapse of time, so that STM *becomes* LTM.

> 4) How does an intelligent agent engage in abstract reasoning?

ATM:
Syllogistic reasoning is the next step, IFF we obtain funding.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/mindx/profile.php?id=26 - $send____.

> 5) How does language work?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595654371/ -- AI4U.

> 6) How do emotions work?

ATM:
By the influence of physiological "storms" upon ratiocination.

> Please don't refer me to sections of your site. I've seen
> enough of your writing to know that the answers to my
> questions cannot be found there.

> Like a typical crackpot (or charlatan), you deceive via
> misdirection. You attempt to draw attention to all the
> alleged hype surrounding your ideas without addressing
> the central issues. I challenged your entire scheme by
> claiming that minds are not blank slates, and that human

IIRC the problem was with how you stated the question.

> brains are collections of specialized problem solvers
> which must each be understood in considerable detail
> in order to produce anything remotely intelligent. You
> never gave a rebuttal, which tells me you don't have one.
> Why don't you do yourself a favor and start out by
> reading Society of Mind, by Minsky. After that, read
> any good neurobiology or neuroscience text to see just
> how "blank" your brain is when it starts out. Pinker
> has several good texts you should read. There's a
> reason why he's a professor at MIT, and you're a
> crackpot trying to con programmers into fulfilling your
> ridiculous fantasies.

> Dave

Arthur

Terry Reedy

unread,
Sep 15, 2003, 10:18:30 AM9/15/03
to

"David B. Held" <dh...@codelogicconsulting.com> wrote in message
news:bjuh6u$bg9$1...@news.astound.net...

> "Arthur T. Murray" <uj...@victoria.tc.ca> wrote in message
> news:3f61...@news.victoria.tc.ca...
> > "David B. Held" wrote on Wed, 10 Sep 2003:
> > [...]

This AI thread has nothing to do with Python (or Java, and maybe not
much C++ either, that I can see). Please delete comp.lang.python (and
maybe the other languages) from any further followups. Note: googling
all newsgroups for 'Mentifex' gets over 4000 hits. I wonder if there
is really much new to say.

Terry J. Reedy


Matthias

unread,
Sep 17, 2003, 12:24:50 PM9/17/03
to
uj...@victoria.tc.ca (Arthur T. Murray) writes:

> A webpage of proposed Standards in Artificial Intelligence is at
> http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/standard.html -- updated today.

How about using a mailing list where everyone interested in your
website can subscribe and is informed about your frequent updates?

If everybody posted their update notifications through usenet the news
servers would immediately break down from overload. So please be
polite and use the appropriate channels to communicate with the
readers of your website.

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