William P:> My theory of intelligence is something like this. Intelligence
requires the changing of programmatic-structures in an arbitrary fashion, so that we can learn, and learn how to learn.
Well, you're getting v. close. But be careful, because you'll upset Ben and Pei not to mention cog sci.
The moment you make a mechanical mind "arbitrary" to any extent, it ceases to be deterministic. Tch tch. And the moment you make the application of programs arbitrary, well, they cease to be programs in any true sense. Shock, horror.
Perhaps the only way such a mind could function is if it only had a rough idea rather than a precise set of programmed instructions for how to get from A to Z and conduct any activity - a precis rather than a program of what to do - and would have to freely/arbitrarily combine steps and sub-routes to see/learn what worked and reached the goal. As scientists do. And technologists do. And computer programmers in writing their programs do. And human beings do period. Yes, that would require intelligence in the full sense.
P.S. And, as you indicate, such a machine would only have a rough idea of how to *learn* as well as directly conduct an activity - it wouldn't have any preprogrammed set of instructions for learning and correcting mistakes, either.
'What then, I thought myself, if I [Robot Daneel Olivaw] were utterly without laws as humans are? What if I could make no clear decision as to what response to make to some given set of conditions? It would be unbearable, and I do not willingly think of it."
Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire ----- 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=8660244&id_secret=67599979-79e74d
