irrationality - is used to describe thinking and actions which are, or appear to be, less useful or logical than the other alternatives. and rational would be the opposite of that.
This line of thinking is more concerned with the behaviour of the entities, which requires Goal orienting and other things. An irrational being is NOT working effectively towards the goal according to this. This may be necessary in order to determine new routes, unique solutions to a problem, and according to the description will be included in most AGI's I have heard described so far. The other definition which seems to be in the air around here is irrational - acting without reason or logic. An entity that acts without reason or logic entirely is a totally random being, will choose to do something for no reason, and will not ever find any goals or solutions without accidentily hitting them. In AGI terms, any entity given multiple equally rewarding alternative paths to a goal may randomly select any of them. This may be considered acting without reason, as there was no real basis for choosing 1 as opposed to 2, but it also may be very reasonable, as given any situation where either path can be chosen, choosing one is reasonable. (choosing no path at that point would indeed be irrational and pointless) I havnt seen any solutions proposed that require any real level of "acting without reason" and neural nets and others are all reasonable, though the reasoning may be complex and hidden from us, or hard to understand. The example given previously about the computer system that changes its thinking in the middle of discovering a solution, is not irrational, as it is just contuing to follow its rules, it can still change those rules as it allows, and may have very good reason for doing so. James Ratcliff Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Richard: 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, Er, it helps to read my posts. From my penultimate post to you: "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." A rational system follows a set of rules in solving a problem (which can incl. rules that self-modify according to metarules) ; a creative, irrational system can change/break/create any and all rules (incl. metarules) at any point of solving a problem - the ultimate, by definition, in adaptivity. (Much like you, and indeed all of us, change the rules of engagement much of the time in our discussions here). Listen, no need to reply - because you're obviously not really interested. To me that's ironic, though, because this is absolutely the most central issue there is in AGI. But no matter. ----- 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/?&; --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. ----- 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=74598181-2b0ae5
