Mike -----Original Message----- From: Mike Tintner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 8:25 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
>>>MIKE TINTNER>>>> "Isn't it obvious that the brain is able to understand the wealth of language by relatively few computations - quite intricate, hierarchical, multi-levelled processing," >>ED PORTER>>>> How do you find the right set of "relatively few computations" and/or models that are appropriate in a complex context without massive computation? >MIKE TINTNER>>>> How then does the brain rapidly pull relevant large-object-moving shapes out of memory? (There are obviously more operations involved here than just shape search, but that's what I want to concentrate on). Now this is where I confess again to being a general techno-idiot (although I suspect that in this particular area most of you may be, too). My confused idea is that if you have a stack of shapes, there are ways to pull out/ spot the relevant ones quickly without sorting through the stack one by one. I think Hawkins suggests something like this in ON INtelligence. Maybe you can have thoughts about this. ED>>>> One way is by indexing some thing by its features, but this is a form of a search, which if done completely activates each occurrence of each feature searched for, and then selects the one or more pattern with the best activation score. Others on the list can probably name other methods Another used in perception is to hierarchically match inputs against patterns that represent given shapes under different conditions. >MIKE TINTNER>>>> (Alternatively, the again confused idea occurs that certain neuronal areas, when stimulated with a certain shape, may be able to remember similar shapes that have been there before - v. loosely as certain metals when heated, can remember/ resume old forms) Whatever, I am increasingly confident that the brain does work v. extensively by matching shapes physically, (rather than by first converting them into digital/symbolic form). And I recommend here Sandra Blakeslee's latest book on body maps - & the opening Ramachandran quote - ED>>>> there clearly is some shape matching in the brain. >MIKE TINTNER>>>> P.S. One important feature of shape searches by contrast with digital, symbolic searches is that "you don't make mistakes." IOW when we think about a problem like getting the box out of a house, all our ideas, I suggest, will be to some extent relevant. They may not totally solve the problem, but they will fit some of the requirements, precisely because they have been derived by shape comparison. When a computer blindly searches lists of symbols by contrast, most of them of course are totally irrelevant. ED>>>> Yes, but there are a lot of types of thinking that cannot be done by shape alone, and shape is actually much more complicated than shape. There is shape, and shape distorted by perspective, and shape changed by bending, and shape changed by size. There is shape of objects, shape of trajectories, 2d shapes, 3d shapes. There are visual memories, where we don't really remember all the shapes, but instead remember the types of things that were their and fill in most of the actual shapes. In sum, it's a lot more complicated that just finding a matching photograph. ----- 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=71691780-efaeb1
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