I would suggest that symbols are more powerful than images, though less
immediate (unmitigated?) in their effect.
Images present a visual scene. They require processing to evaluate, and
what one extracts from the scene may not be what another extracts.
Their power is that they may activate a large number of symbols.
Symbols, however, are different. They may contain a reference to an
image, but it will be a meaningful connection. I.e., it will highlight
certain features of the scene as significant, and mute the others (if
they aren't elided). It will also generally contain a value
(desirable-undesirable scale), and may contain a label (vocalization)
and various operations that it can enter into. Think of it as being
like an instance of a class in a proto-type based language. I.e., even
though it is an instance, it can have derivative sub-classes. But also
superclasses can freely be formed which automatically include it. In
fact superclasses can be retroactively inserted into the hierarchies of
symbols, and are themselves symbols. Note that most symbols *don't*
have either vocalizations or visibility to consciousness.
Also, symbols are a feature of the system within which they reside.
They don't constitute the system. I see most of what happens as not
only asymbolic, but also special purpose, such as sound recognition in
the cochlea. I.e., most of what goes on is narrow AI or even
hardwired. (Yes, I'm using biological metaphors. Sorry. People are
the only example of something approaching an AGI that I'm aware of.)
The AGI section is relatively slow and expensive, so it's kept
relatively limited. Analog computation is preferred when possible,
sometimes mixed with neural nets (which I think of as digital, even
though I know better). Consider catching a baseball. Just try to do
that with an AGI! But using the combination of analog and neural net
computation that is built into people it's a reasonable task. (For most
people. I'm lousy at it.) AH! But deciding to catch the baseball!
That's the AGI in action. (Well, eventually it becomes habitual, I
guess, for some people. But even so it's probably an AGI level decision.)
Now lets consider that baseball. That's clearly a symbol, as I didn't
show you a picture. You didn't know I was talking about a softball.
Notice how quickly the image changed. That's because you did it by
manipulating references rather than by moving around enough bits to
represent an image of one or the other kind of baseball. And if I now
tell you that it was bright green, the color of a tennis ball, you get
yet another rapid change. This time it's probably some kind of filter
being applied to the image, as I notice that even the thread holding it
together immediately changed color. (In my image the thread was
originally a kind of off-read, and on the green ball it shaded toward
black.)
But notice that this was all done via the manipulation of symbols. It
depended on the images already being resident within your mind, and tied
into these symbols via links (references).
I haven't mentioned it, but you probably have some sort of image about
the location of this playing around with the baseball. That's what I
meant about "...and mute the others (if they aren't elided)...", above.
(You may have totally elided the location, but all specific instances
[images] that you have ever seen will have had a background.)
Mark Waser wrote:
>> Why are images almost always more powerful than the corresponding
symbols? Why do they communicate so much faster?
Um . . . . dude . . . . it's just a bandwidth thing.
Think about images vs. visual symbols vs. word descriptions vs. names.
It's a spectrum from high-bandwidth information transfer to almost
pure reference tags.
If it's something you've never run across before, images are best --
high bandwidth but then you end up with high mental processing costs.
For familiar items, word descriptions (or better yet, single word
names) require little bandwidth and little in the way of subsequent
processing costs.
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Mike Tintner <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*To:* agi@v2.listbox.com <mailto:agi@v2.listbox.com>
*Sent:* Sunday, March 30, 2008 4:02 PM
*Subject:* Re: [agi] Symbols
In this & surrounding discussions, everyone seems deeply confused
- & it's nothing personal, so is our entire culture - about the
difference between
SYMBOLS
1. "Derek Zahn" "curly hair" "big jaw" "intelligent eyes"
..... etc. etc
and
IMAGES
2. http://robot-club.com/teamtoad/nerc/h2-derek-sunflower.JPG
I suggest that everytime you want to think about this area, you
all put symbols besides the corresponding images, and slowly it
will start to become clear that each does things the other CAN'T
do, period.
We are all next to illiterate - and I mean, mind-blowingly
ignorant - about how images function. What, for example, does an
image of D.Z. or any person, do, that no amount of symbols -
whether words, numbers, algebraic formulae, or logical
propositions - could ever do?
Why are images almost always more powerful than the corresponding
symbols? Why do they communicate so much faster?
...
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