Ben, I think I followed most of your analysis :)
I agree with most of what you stated so well. The only difficulty for me is that the patterns, whether emergent in the individual or the group, still pertain to the gross level of mind and not the subtle levels of consciousness. It is quite OK, IMO, to disregard this subtle aspect of mind in your design for AGI, Strong AI or the Singularity. But it should be noted that this is disregarding what I would consider the predominant capabilities of the human mind. For instance, in relation to memory capacity. let's say I could live for the age of the universe, roughly 15 billion years. I believe the human mind(without enhancement of any kind) is capable of remembering every detail of every day for that entire lifespan. A person can only understand this if they understand the non-gray matter portion of the Mind. The mind you describe I would call mind, small "m". The Mind I am referring to is capitol "M". I believe it is an error to reduce memory and thought to the calculations that Kurzweil and Alan put forth. Clearly we have had incredibly fast processors, yet we can't even create something that can effectively navigate a room, or talk to me, or reason or completely simulate an ant. How can they reconcile that?? If they sy "we don't know how to program that yet". then I say "well then stop saying that the singularity is near striclty because of processor speed\memory projections. Processor speed is irrelevant when you have no idea how to use them!" It is true that few humans reach this capacity i describe above. I would call them human singularities. Therer have only been a handful in history. But it's important to note that these capabilities are within each of us. I will go as far to say that any computer system we develop, even one that realizes all the promises of the singularity, can only match the capacity of the human Mind. Why? Because the universe is the Mind itself, and the computational capacity of the universe is rather immense and cannot be exceeded by something created within its own domain. In regards to the idea of what I believe will happen with an AGI. I believe something rather incredible will emerge. Right now, I can even think of a calculator as an incredible AI. It is very specific in its function, but exceeds almost every human on the planet in what it can do. An AGI, once mature, and because of its general utility, will be able to do incredible things. As an example, when designing a car, the designers have to take into account many variables including, aesthetics, human engineering, wind resistance, fuel efficiency, performance, cost, maintenance etc. The list immense. I believe an AGI will prove to be incredibly superior in the areas of engineering because of its ability to consider many more factors than humans as well as its ability to discern patterns that most humans cannot. AGI will prove tremendously useful in areas like biotech, engineering, space science, etc, and can truly change things for the better IMO My only real question is in the area of invention and true innovation. These often occur in humans in ways that are hard to understand. People have leaps of intuition on occasion. They may make a leap in understanding something, even though they have no supporting information and their inference does not come necessarily from patterns either. I sometimes believe that we *already* know everything we need to know or invent, and we uncover or discover them when we are so close to the problem at hand that, like the Zen koan, the answer just appears. Where it comes from is anyone's guess... So I guess what I'm saying is I can see some limited ability for an AGI to be creative, but I am not so sure that it will be able to make leaps in intuition like humans can... At least for awhile :) Some day down the road. I believe that an AGI with sufficient capacity, may become conscious and also be able to make use of the subtle consciousness and inutition etc. But lets not underestimate the human mind, small "m", in the meantime. No one has come even close to matching it yet. Sorry for the length and for babbling.. Kevin ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ben Goertzel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 6:59 PM Subject: RE: [agi] How wrong are these numbers? > > > Kevin, > > About "mind=brain" ... > > My own view of that elusive entity, "mind" is well-articulated in terms of > the philosophy of Charles S. Peirce, who considered there to be several > different levels on which mind could be separately considered. Peirce used > three levels, but inspired by Jung and others, I have introduced a fourth, > and we prefer to think about: > > 1. First, raw experience > 2. Second, physical reaction > 3. Third, relationship and pattern > 4. Fourth, synergy and emergence > > Each of these levels constitutes a different perspective on the mind; and > many important mental phenomena can only be understood by considering them > on several different levels. > > First corresponds roughly speaking to consciousness. On this level, > analysis has no more meaning than the color red, and everything is simply > what it presents itself as. We will not speak about this level further in > this article, except to say that, in the Peircean perspective, it is an > aspect that everything has - even rocks and elementary particles - not just > human brains. > > Second, the level of physical reaction, corresponds to the "machinery" > underlying intelligent systems. In the case of humans, it's bodies and > brains; in the case of groups of humans, it's sets of bodies and brains. In > fact, there's a strong case to be made that even in the case of "individual" > human minds, the bodies and brains of a whole set of humans is involved. No > human mind makes sense in isolation; if a human mind is isolated for very > long, it changes into a different sort of thing than an ordinary human mind > as embedded in society. > > Third, the level of relationship and pattern, is the level that is most > commonly associated with the word "mind" in the English language. One way > of conceiving of the mind is as the set of patterns associated with a > certain physical system. By "associated with" we mean the patterns in that > system, and the patterns that emerge when one considers that system together > with other systems in its habitual environment. So, for instance, the human > mind may be considered as the set of patterns in the human brain (both in > its structure, and in its unfolding over time), and the patterns that are > observed when this brain is considered in conjunction with other humans and > its physical environment. This perspective may justly be claimed > incomplete - it doesn't capture the experiential aspect of the mind, which > is First; or the physical aspect of the mind, which is Second. But it > captures a very important aspect of mind, mind as relationship. This view > of mind in terms of "patterns" may be mathematically formalized, as has been > done in a "loose" way in my book From Complexity to Creativity. > > Fourth, the level of synergy, has to do with groups of patterns that emerge > from each other, in what have been called "networks of emergence." A mind > is not just a disconnected bundle of patterns, it's a complex, > self-organizing system, composed of patterns that emerge from sets of other > patterns, in an interpenetrating way. > > The notion of synergy is particularly important in the context of collective > intelligence. The "mind" of a group of people has many aspects - > experiential, physical, relational and synergetic - but what distinguishes > it from the minds of the people within the group, is specifically the > emergent patterns that exist only when the group is together, and not when > the group is separated and dispersed throughout the rest of society. > > One thing all this means is that the number of bits needed to realize a mind > physically, does not equal the number of bits in the mind. One cannot > reduce mind to the Second level. The physical substructure of a mind is the > key unlocking the door to a cornucopia of emergent patterns between an > embodied system and its environment (including other embodied systems). > These patterns are the mind, and they contain a lot more information than is > explicit in the number of bits in the physical substrate. > > Regarding quantum or quantum gravity approaches to the mind, these are > interesting to me, but from a philosophical perspective they're "just > details" regarding how the physical universe organizes its patterns... they > don't really affect the above general picture.... > > -- Ben G > > > > -- Ben G > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > > Behalf Of maitri > > Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 6:10 PM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Re: [agi] How wrong are these numbers? > > > > > > I've got a sawbuck in my pocket that says that you are seriously > > underestimating the capacity of the human mind. > > > > In fact, its questionable whether you can emulate a mouse brain adequately > > with that amount of power. I also think you guys are seriously > > underestimating the memory capacity of the human mind. Of course, I view > > the fundamental problem with your analysis as the mistaken assumption that > > mind=brain. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that indicates > > the error in > > this line of thinking, and I can say that I personally have resolved that > > mind does not indeed equal brain. If you ask me to prove it, I > > cannot...But > > I would think with the advent of quantum physics and the EPR experiments > > that even the hard science folks would begin to see that there > > are a lot of > > strange happenings going on in this universe of ours that we > > don't begin to > > understand intellectually. > > > > I suggest a reading of The Holographic Universe, if you get a chance. I > > have only perused it myself, but I support the concepts that it conveys. > > > > Good luck with your work! > > > > Kevin > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Alan Grimes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 8:55 PM > > Subject: Re: [agi] How wrong are these numbers? > > > > > > > Ben Goertzel wrote: > > > > The next question is: What's your corresponding estimate of processing > > > > power? > > > > > > Thanks for the prompt. > > > > > > Lets use the number 2^30 for the size of the memory which will require > > > 25 operations for each 32 bit word. > > > > > > 2^30 bytes == 2^28 words. > > > > > > We are going to cycle the thing at the 30hz rate of the human EEG so the > > > memory throughput required for the cortex part of the application > > > (ignoring the critical nuclei and cerebellum) will be > > > > > > 30*2^28 > 15*2^30 bytes/second total, 15GB/sec. (this is the most > > > critical number). > > > > > > A pair of servers with 8gb/sec throughput should be plenty and preserve > > > the native organization as well... > > > > > > Now the CPU: We want to do roughly 20 operations to each of 2^28 words > > > every 30 seconds. > > > > > > 20*30*2^28 > 75*2^31 > ~160 GHZ. (raw) Each server is responsible for > > > 80. Split 16 ways, the load comes to 5ghz each. If we use a more > > > conservative estimate of the typical EEG rate, say 15 hz, the load for > > > each processor comes to 2.5 ghz... (splitting into more servers will > > > probably not be practical due to network constraints). > > > > > > We could buy this for about $500,000. > > > > > > I would guess the cost to devel the hardware to emulate the varrious > > > nucleii, (many of which do nothing more than a few simple vector > > > operations), would probably add about $150k for custom cards (probably > > > several iterations of such.) > > > > > > To make a meta-notation here, I am exploring this path towards AI > > > because it is closer to a "sure fire" thing compared to a more radical > > > idea I have that I hope to see implemented in the next generation. This > > > more radical approach has some serious problems which may not be > > > resolvable. > > > > > > > To emulate the massively parallel "information update rate" of the > > > > brain on N bits of memory, how many commodity PC processors are > > > > required per GB of RAM? > > > > > > Well in the above I only mentioned 1GB total memory. However there is > > > almost certainly going to be an overhead above that gb... I invite the > > > reader to factor in a sensable overhead ratio (for pointers and misc > > > data structures) to the numbers above... > > > > > > -- > > > pain (n): see Linux. > > > http://users.rcn.com/alangrimes/ > > > > > > ------- > > > To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your > > subscription, > > > please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > > > > ------- > > To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate > > your subscription, > > please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > ------- > To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, > please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED] > ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED]
