This is an excellent e-mail. Thank you. You are offering good advice from
a position of knowledge.
Let me restate for you your own advice . . . .
I suggest that you cannot expect your reader to make allowances for you -
On this list, you have the same bad habit that I frequently have. You are
thinking things through as you go and getting very excited but don't go back
and condense and clarify your thoughts before sending them out. This list
*is* an excellent sounding board -- but it's even more effective if you use
it efficiently and politely. Everyone is allowed numerous lapses, just
don't be lazy and make it a permanent habit (or you'll get some jerk flaming
you ;-).
If you want to send me something, I'll gladly look at it & reply offline -
although I'm real busy at the mo. answering *your* last question.!
It was not my intent to chase you off the list -- merely to modify your
behavior. A good intelligent discussion where each person is directly
addressing and replying intelligently to other's points is either a)
appreciated by all or b) peaceably ignored (for example, the GLUT thread
just doesn't do it for me personally -- but I'd never say anything because
the participants seem to be having a great time making great progress on
something that appears to be AGI-related). If you're willing to interact as
an adult (as opposed to merely standing there and yelling "I can't believe
that y'all don't get this" OR "I'm sure that science will eventually catch
on to my brilliant ideas"), people here would enjoy your keeping it on-list.
Thanks again.
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Tintner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <agi@v2.listbox.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 10:07 PM
Subject: Re: [agi] Symbols
Richard,
I hope you understand - and I think you do - unlike your good friend -
that it's actually a lot easier to say nothing. Harsh as I may sound, I
was trying to be constructive.
I suggest that you cannot expect your reader to make allowances for you -
your ideas have to be clearly stated upfront, even if in condensed form.
You asked me for my ideas - e.g. the picture tree - I gave you them
upfront, in v. condensed form. It's actually a v.g. & incredibly valuable
discipline to force yourself to pitch your ideas succinctly. It's useful
whomever you're talking to, even idiots.
In case you missed the 2nd of my mis-postings, I DID actually read your
paper long ago as well as today - I had it in a folder.
And I suggest it's worth considering my ideas about presentation - this is
an area where I have a lot of professional experience. It's a major truth
of understanding, for example, that if you don't tell your reader what
your system does, you automatically leave them feeling vague, and place a
strain on them. (A bit like a detective story without a murder). You could
tell from Ben's recent report what a difference it made to his audience to
have a clear demo of his system.
If you want to send me something, I'll gladly look at it & reply offline -
although I'm real busy at the mo. answering *your* last question.!
Best
Mike Tintner wrote:
Richard,
I can't swear that I did read it. I read a paper of more or less exactly
that length some time ago and do remember the Neats vs Scruffies bit.
Here's why I would have not made an effort to remember the rest - and
this is consistent with what what you do mention briefly here from time
to time, and the impression I've already formed:
"The new methodology that I propose is not about random exploration of
different
designs for a general, human-level AI, it is about collecting data on
the global behavior
of large numbers of systems, while at the same time remaining as
agnostic as possible
about the local mechanisms that might give rise to the global
characteristics we desire."
This is a proposal about how you're going to try and come up with an
idea. In spirit, (and I stress "spirit"), it's not a lot different from
someone saying: "What's my idea? I'll tell you - I'm going to get the
best brains [or computers] that money can buy - loads & loads of them.
And get them to come up with an idea. Pretty original, huh?"
That's not an idea, Richard. *You* have to come up with that..
Is there any reason why you went to Section 4 of the paper, picked the
first sentence out, and then criticized it as if that WAS the proposal I
made?
Section 4 is 1700 words long. Did you not notice the rest?
Sadly, Section 4 had to be only 1700 words long because the paper was
already over budget by about 2000 words. It made me miserable to try to
condense any ideas at all into that space, but I had no choice.
If you had come to me and said: "I read section 4 and I tried to
understand what you said there, but it seems like it barely scratches the
surface: could you not elaborate on [this or that point]?" I would have
been more than willing to oblige. Heck, I'd have agreed with you: by the
standards I anted to achieve, that section was awful. Instead you poured
vicious, scornful sarcasm onto that first sentence. Doesn't look too
good to me.
I feel really bad about being unable to put more detail into that paper,
so you have touched my weak spot, for sure. But, as I say, I really had
no choice. There is a huge amount more that could have been said,
believe me. What I actually did was to explain the approach in terms of
existing approaches, thereby giving myself some hope of reaching people
who already understood what those existing approaches were.
Connectionism, for example, was a good reference point.
Meet me halfway here and I am always willing to expand on anything I have
written.
Richard Loosemore
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