Mike A:
You could have a large one shaped
like, say a foot. The next one you see is shaped like a foot but
smaller. So they both have the essence of a foot appearance to them.
It's not mathematical. You are just identifying characteristics.
This is the same problem I deal with over and over - so central to AGI - and
people here just avoid it, precisely because maths can't deal with it, and
nobody taught them what to do.
No, there is no central essence of any kind that helps you recognize "foot"
or any other conceptual group, such as "waterdrop" or "line". (That idea
*is* Platonic).
Think of the reality of waterdrops - they are fluid and can be continually
form-changing.
Effectively, every other group in the world is form-changing. A given foot
of course is not form-changing (unless you create a likeness in a fluid
substance like water). But feet as a whole can be considered as
form-changing as waterdrops. They can be smashed, acid-burned, toeless and
all kinds of deformations.
So what kind of conceptual prototype can/should you/your-brain use to
represent form-changing entities?
Thinks.
THE PROTOTYPE HAS TO BE FORM-CHANGING! - FLUID.
No eternal essence whatsoever.
Once you realise the prototype can be form-changing, then it doesn't matter
what initial prototypical form for a given group - of waterdrops, feet etc -
you start with. You can adjust it, replace it with a distinctly more
representative form as you go along.
As you go along, you also form "principles of transformation" that are
relevant to, and help define, the given group. Waterdrops change in somewhat
different ways to plasticine to,say, chairs.
To think fluidly, you have to totally change your frameworks of reference -
you have to think in MOVIE terms. Wh. is hard for AGI-ers because they
mainly think in static book/literate terms, and there is no geometry that
can analyse all the actual and potential forms of, say, a "writhing body."
Or indeed a "winding snake" or "flowing amoeba."
Well, the brain is clearly a MOVIE CAMERA of sorts - consciousness is a
movie, not a series of photo stills. So the brain must be adept at dealing
with fluidly moving forms. Not eternal essences. Everchanging forms for an
everchanging world.
But AGI-ers haven't been taught to think in movie terms. Oh dear..
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Archbold
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 8:23 AM
To: AGI
Subject: Re: [agi] Behold your saviour, Ben
It doesn't have to be an "eternal" essence. Like for instance your
blob diagram on the other post. You could have a large one shaped
like, say a foot. The next one you see is shaped like a foot but
smaller. So they both have the essence of a foot appearance to them.
It's not mathematical. You are just identifying characteristics.
You see a happy group of people with a birthday cake and presents...
has the essence of a birthday party. Next week a different cake,
different people, different presents, still meets the criteria of the
essence of a party. Note: from one case to the next we are talking
about wholly different instances but the essence is the same.
The question is how do you know if some case fits the essence in
question? Then you get into the possibility of algorithm, because you
have to account for the identification of likenesses in terms of
properties.
Calling you a British empiricist wasn't meant to be an insult. There
is nothing wrong with that. When I think of that school of thought,
though, in the extreme cases there was nothing that persisted from
moment to moment. Just because the last ten people that jumped off a
building died doesn't mean the next one will and so on.... Eventually
in order to handle AI you have to settle on something, if nothing else
then that there is some form of continuity through time. Math can be
a part, doesn't mean it's the whole thing... logic can be a part, not
the whole thing.
Even going back to the works of Aristotle, he didn't use logic as the
basis for everything. Metaphysics accounts for first principles. He
had logic in some works and metaphysics in other works.
On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 11:00 PM, Mike Tintner <[email protected]>
wrote:
The saviour really applies to Ben.
As for eternal essences, it sounds a bit too Platonic and airy
philosophical
for me. The focus here for me should be on how we can produce creative,
endlessly generative AGI's - like humans and animals. And it is quite
clear
that they are not and could not be following algorithms, other than for
brief routines - fleeting parts of their activities, but not the wholes.
-----Original Message----- From: Mike Archbold
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 6:43 AM
To: AGI
Subject: Re: [agi] Behold your saviour, Ben
I'm trying to retire from message board arguing, I don't like it much,
but it sounds to me like you agree that there are some laws, rules,
etc that persist from case to case, which is what I was wondering.
When I've seen posts from you you seem to discount anything persisting
beyond just the present case at hand. I recall an interchange not to
long ago when I ventured that the essence of some problem persists
from case to case, but you said something like "there is no essence."
But then you've segued quickly into an attack on creativity, or the
capacity to be generative, which I have not said a thing about so I'm
not going to defend it.
I don't think it's fair either to lump me in with the rest of the
AGIers as they are in your opinion. Nobody is my savior. I have a
book running about 80 pages which I can send a copy of to you when it
is complete, projected the end of this month.
Mike A
On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 10:26 PM, Mike Tintner <[email protected]>
wrote:
Mike A:
Surely you'd have to concede that there are some rules which persist
over time and are static?
Absolutely. All mathematical and logical and algorithmic systems (in
themselves) are completely, eternally non-creative, non-generative. They
are
all dead recipes with rigid rules that have never and could never produce
a
single new ingredient or element - because quite obviously they are not
designed to be creative. They are recipes with set, exclusive mixtures of
ingredients.
(This is the crux of creativity - the capacity to add new hitherto
unknown
elements to a course of action or its product).
If you add new unknown elements to a recipe, the recipe collapses and
could
get v. nasty. If you allow a building algorithm that produces lego block
structures, to introduce any new building blocks - rocks, say, or chunks
of
mud, - its buildings could literally collapse. And no one tries this.
These
systems are designed to produce precisely predetermined results with
precisely predetermined mixes of known elements.
These systems are wonderful if you want to be a narrow AI cook who can
cook
one specialist dish or set of dishes. They're useless if you want to be a
creative cook, who can endlessly generate new dishes, as humans can.
Now surely you can concede that no one anywhere in the entire history of
the
world has produced a single exception to this general rule of the
non-generativity of formulaic, rulebound, set-ingredients systems? There
are
no algorithms, formulae or logics that are creative. No one has ever
produced an example here. No one ever will.... And there are zillions of
possible examples.
What we do have is the most amazing amount of logical gobbledygook that
argues how these systems might be creative - but neither a) explains how
they can introduce new elements or b) provides a single instance of a
program etc that ever has.
Nada. But an awful lot of shameful assertions that of course there are
such
systems - and of course people have produced millions of examples of them
in
the past - and how could you, Mike, be so stupid as to think there are
not
-
and ROFL at you - oh absolutely ridiculous - but now, right now, the
speaker
is just too busy, you understand, to produce a single example. Oh of
course
he could produce *so many* examples, and he will, he will, but now right
now, he can't. (Basically all people who argue thus are lying gits).
If you or Ben can grasp this simple obvious truth of the
non-generativity,
non-new-element-ality of formulaic, rulebound systems with set mixtures
of
ingredients, I will indeed be your saviour.
What you et al are trying to maintain is a scientific, material absurdity
-
and something of which you will come to be v. v. ashamed. Produce ONE
FUCKING EXAMPLE. Or admit you can't.
P.S. And I've heard all the shit about sophisticated, evolving systems
and
GA's etc - they cannot and never have introduced a single new hitherto
unknown element They have no novelty. Demonstrably. They are
mindblowingly
narrow in their products except to AGI suckers who actually half believe
their own hype - and AGI is nothing but failed hype.
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