Mike,
I think you are going to have to be specific about what you mean by
"irrational" because you mostly just say that all the processes that
could possibly exist in computers are rational, and I am wondering what
else is there that "irrational" could possibly mean. I have named many
processes that seem to me to fit the "irrational" definition, but
without being too clear about it you have declared them all to be just
rational, so now I have no idea what you can be meaning by the word.
Richard Loosemore
Mike Tintner wrote:
Richard:This raises all sorts of deep issues about what exactly you
would mean
by "rational". If a bunch of "things" (computational processes) come
together and each contribute "something" to a decision that results in
an output, and the exact output choice depends on so many factors coming
together that it would not necessarily be the same output if roughly the
same situation occurred another time, and if none of these things looked
like a "rule" of any kind, then would you still call it "rational"?If
the answer is yes then whatever would count as "not rational"?
I'm not sure what you mean - but this seems consistent with other
impressions I've been getting of your thinking.
Let me try and cut through this: if science were to change from its
prevailing conception of the human mind as a rational, computational
machine to what I am suggesting - i.e. a creative, compositional,
irrational machine - we would be talking of a major revolution that
would impact right through the sciences - and radically extend the scope
of scientific investigation into human thought. It would be the end of
the deterministic conception of humans and animals and ultimately be a
revolution of Darwinian proportions.
Hofstadter & co are absolutely not revolutionaries. Johnson-Laird
conceives of the human mind as an automaton. None of them are
fundamentally changing the prevailing conceptions of cognitive science.
No one has reacted to them with shock or horror or delight.
I suspect that what you are talking about is loosely akin to the ideas
of some that quantum mechanics has changed scientific determinism. It
hasn't - the fact that we can't measure certain quantum phenomena with
precision does not mean that they are not fundamentally deterministic.
And science remains deterministic.
Similarly, if you make a computer system very complex, keep changing the
factors involved in computations, add random factors & whatever, you are
not necessarily making it non-rational. You make it v. difficult to
understand the computer's rationality, (and possibly extend our
conception of rationality), but the system may still be basically
rational, just as quantum particles are still in all probability
basically deterministic.
As a side-issue, I don't believe that human reasoning, conscious and
unconscious, is remotely, even infinitesimally as complex as that of
the AI systems you guys all seem to be building. The human brain surely
never seizes up with the kind of complex, runaway calculations that
y'all have been conjuring up in your arguments. That only happens when
you have a rational system that obeys basically rigid (even if complex)
rules. The human brain is cleverer than that - it doesn't have any
definite rules for any activities. In fact, you should be so lucky as to
have a nice, convenient set of rules, even complex ones, to guide you
when you sit down to write your computer programs.
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