Steve,
Alright, I won't complain anymore, we are all in the same game. STEVE> My assertion is that it is probably IMPOSSIBLE to understand many of the aspects of intelligence (like self-organization) ... SERGIO> I agree. STEVE> ... without heavy math, SERGIO> Heavy math won't help, and that is part of the problem: you can't prove anything or convince anyone by traditional math methods. There is no theorem for self-organization. The theory is a conjecture, it is a theory of nature, and it is falsifiable as every theory of nature is. The only thing that really matters: does it work or not. But we need to get there, to the "does it work or not" part. It works very well for a few stupid experiments that I was able to carry out. Conclusion? The theory is not good because Sergio has a small computer? I quote Boris replying to Alan's peg & holes challenge on Aug 21, 2012: "If my algorithm does your pegs & holes because I specifically designed it to do so, then the success won't tell you anything about its ability to scale beyond that. And if it does so as a trivial side-effect of general learning, then I won't be posting here. My point is, if you need "evidence" (that is, can't evaluate an approach theoretically), then you are a crackpot, in GI terms." Algorithms don't scale because they accumulate too much entropy as they learn and grow. Brains scale when they learn because they get rid of the entropy, and keep on learning. It's simple Physics. So where do we go from here? To the "does it work or not" part. Note that the entire field of Physics is a constant "does it work or not." Physics gets applied to new fields all the time, new experiments, spins off new technologies, and that is useful. But the minute something seems not to work . you know, recall recent neutrino experiments. Sergio From: Steve Richfield [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 12:03 PM To: AGI Subject: Re: [agi] LM741 Sergio, On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Sergio Pissanetzky <[email protected]> wrote: Just look what happened to the much heralded Santa Fe Institute. They sure did a great deal of useful research, but they did not explain self-organization - their original objective - and they sure did not explain intelligence. My assertion is that it is probably IMPOSSIBLE to understand many of the aspects of intelligence (like self-organization) without heavy math, wet lab experimentation, new scanning technology, and/or other out-of-discipline research. If nothing else, the last half-century has clearly shown that there are no easy answers, no "low hanging fruit" to gather. Plenty of people just as smart as us have dashed their careers by trying to "reason things out" without the advanced tools to simply examine the solution. I have enough of a sense of history not to do the same. Whether a research center could accomplish what lots of bright people have failed to do remains to be seen. In the interest of claiming the "scientific method" to arrive at an answer, we should list ALL of the alternatives, now that we know that general intelligence is NOT an easy problem. So, does anyone here see OTHER approaches to dealing with such hard problems? One of my fears regarding a research center is that it would be ever SO easy to mismanage such a thing. Here are a few looming errors waiting to be made: 1. Proceeding with woefully inadequate funding. 2. Putting all of the funding into a small number of high priced efforts, while starving countless small-dollar efforts that could conceivably blow the lid off of AI/AGI. 3. Throwing all the money at projects promising near-term payoffs, so that if/when they fail, the research center dies. 4. Starving areas that the management think won't bear near-term fruit, so there is nothing to fall back on if needed. 5. Failing to perform any sort of competent feasibility analysis before throwing big money at things. 6. Heavily funding the things that the management thinks are most important, and letting everything else starve. There are multiple prospective goals, many ways to proceed toward each goal, and unknown pitfalls waiting to sabotage every approach. This should be professionally managed like any other BIG project. IBM pioneered the technique of putting 2 or 3 teams to designing the SAME piece of critical equipment, and selecting the "winner" at the last minute. I would expect to see some of the same sorts of management approaches at a research center. In the meanwhile, I am being ignored, accused, even insulted. Is there anyone on this forum who does NOT feel ignored, accused, and insulted? I don't care. I am right, the others are wrong. And this is all that maters. Is there anyone on this list who does NOT believe that they are right, and that is all that matters? Such is the price of greatness. Steve AGI | <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/18883996-f0d58d57> | <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; ad2> Modify Your Subscription <http://www.listbox.com> ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-c97d2393 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-2484a968 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
