On Apr 23, 2007, at 2:05 PM, J. Storrs Hall, PhD. wrote:
On Monday 23 April 2007 15:40, Lukasz Stafiniak wrote:
... An AGI working with bigger numbers had better discovered binary
numbers. Could an AGI do it? Could it discover rational numbers? (It
would initially believe that irrational numbers do not exist, as
early
Pythagoreans have believed.) After having discovered the basic
grounding, it could be taught the more advanced things.
How many people on this list have discovered anything as fundamental
as binary
numbers, I wonder?
Many I would suspect. I learned math by ignoring most of what went on
in junior high and early high school classes. My school ran out of
math to teach me by my junior year. I would look up now and then from
my SF book once a week or so to see what was being taught. If it was
new I would take it, abstract it, play with the abstractions and
generally figure out what was likely to be taught the next week or
month. If I saw something new I would figure out at least one way it
could have been discovered for myself. This kept math interesting. I
very much doubt I am unique in that respect around these parts.
We take a lot of stuff for granted but we *learned* almost
all of it, we didn't discover it.
I generally got less happy when I couldn't figure out a way to derive
what was being taught. I wasn't big on memorization or applying
things I did not understand.
There's a lot of hubris in the notion that
we, working from a technology base that can't build an AI with the
common
sense of a 5-year-old, will turn around and build a system that will
duplicate 3000 years of the accumulated efforts of humanitiy's
greatest
geniuses in a year or two.
Yay for hubris! A lot has been done throughout history by people who
didn't know any better than to assume it was possible to do what they
desired and not give up. What would it serve us to assume that
creating at least a seed AI is impossible?
- samantha
-----
This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email
To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to:
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=231415&user_secret=fabd7936
