Well, I'm not sure if "not doing logic" necessarily means a system is
irrational, i.e if rationality equates to logic. Any system consistently
followed can classify as rational. If for example, a program consistently
does Freudian free association and produces nothing but a chain of
associations with some connection:
"bird - - feathers - four..tops "
or on the contrary, a 'nonsense' chain where there is NO connection..
logic.. sex... ralph .. essence... pi... Loosemore...
then it is rational - it consistently follows a system with a set of rules.
And the rules could, for argument's sake, specify that every step is
illogical - as in breaking established rules of logic - or that steps are
alternately logical and illogical. That too would be rational. Neural nets
from the little I know are also rational inasmuch as they follow rules.
Ditto Hofstadter & Johnson-Laird from again the little I know also seem
rational - Johnson-Laird's jazz improvisation program from my cursory
reading seemed rational and not truly creative.
I do not know enough to pass judgment on your system, but you do strike me
as a rational kind of guy (although probably philosophically much closer to
me than most here as you seem to indicate). Your attitude to emotions
seems to me rational, and your belief that you can produce an AGI that will
almost definitely be cooperative , also bespeaks rationality.
In the final analysis, irrationality = creativity (although I'm using the
word with a small "c", rather than the social kind, where someone produces a
new idea that no one in society has had or published before). If a system
can change its approach and rules of reasoning at literally any step of
problem-solving, then it is truly "crazy"/ irrational (think of a crazy
path). And it will be capable of producing all the human irrationalities
that I listed previously - like not even defining or answering the problem.
It will by the same token have the capacity to be truly creative, because it
will ipso facto be capable of lateral thinking at any step of
problem-solving. Is your system capable of that? Or anything close? Somehow
I doubt it, or you'd already be claiming the solution to both AGI and
computational creativity.
But yes, please do send me your paper.
P.S. I hope you won't - & I actually don't think - that you will get all
pedantic on me like so many AI-ers & say "ah but we already have programs
that can modify their rules." Yes, but they do that according to metarules -
they are still basically rulebound. A crazy/ creative program is
rulebreaking (and rulecreating) - can break ALL the rules, incl. metarules.
Rulebound/rulebreaking is one of the most crucial differences between narrow
AI/AGI.
Richard: In the same way computer programs are completely
neutral and can be used to build systems that are either rational or
irrational. My system is not "rational" in that sense at all.
Richard,
Out of interest, rather than pursuing the original argument:
1) Who are these programmers/ systembuilders who try to create programs
(and what are the programs/ systems) that are either "irrational" or
"non-rational" (and described as such)?
I'm a little partied out right now, so all I have time for is to suggest:
Hofstadter's group builds all kinds of programs that do things without
logic. Phil Johnson-Laird (and students) used to try to model reasoning
ability using systems that did not do logic. All kinds of language
processing people use various kinds of neural nets: see my earlier
research papers with Gordon Brown et al, as well as folks like Mark
Seidenberg, Kim Plunkett etc. Marslen-Wilson and Tyler used something
called a "Cohort Model" to describe some aspects of language.
I am just dragging up the name of anyone who has ever done any kind of
computer modelling of some aspect of cognition: all of these people do
not use systems that do any kind of "logical" processing. I could go on
indefinitely. There are probably hundreds of them. They do not try to
build complete systems, of course, just local models.
When I have proposed (in different threads) that the mind is not
rationally, algorithmically programmed I have been met with uniform and
often fierce resistance both on this and another AI forum.
Hey, join the club! You have read my little brouhaha with Yudkowsky last
year I presume? A lot of AI people have their heads up their asses, so
yes, they believe that rationality is God.
It does depend how you put it though: sometimes you use rationality to
not mean what they mean, so that might explain the ferocity.
My argument
re the philosophy of mind of cog sci & other sciences is of course not
based on such reactions, but they do confirm my argument. And the
position you at first appear to be adopting is unique both in my
experience and my reading.
2) How is your system "not rational"? Does it not use algorithms?
It uses "dynamic relaxation" in a "generalized neural net". Too much to
explain in a hurry.
And could you give a specific example or two of the kind of problem that
it deals with - non-rationally? (BTW I don't think I've seen any problem
examples for your system anywhere, period - for all I know, it could be
designed to read children' stories, bomb Iraq, do syllogisms, work out
your domestic budget, or work out the meaning of life - or play and
develop in virtual worlds).
I am playing this close, for the time being, but I have released a small
amount of it in a forthcoming neuroscience paper. I'll send it to you
tomorrow if you like, but it does not go into a lot of detail.
Richard Loosemore
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