Ben Goertzel wrote:
Richard, Linas, David, etc.
Let's please move this dialogue to the AGI list (to which I've cc'd
this) as I'd prefer to reserve the OpenCog list for discussions that
pertain to OpenCog in a more direct way, rather than being of general
AGI interest ...
-- Ben
On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 3:51 PM, Linas Vepstas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
2008/8/1 Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>>:
>important
> fact in this case is that if Conway had started out with the
intention
> of designing a cellular automaton with a particular set of very
specific
> characteristics (which is analogous to the AGI researchers
intention to
> build systems with the very specific characteristic of displaying
> stable, human level intelligence), then there is nothing he could
have
> done beforehand to "design" or "engineer" his system to make it
do what
> he wanted it to do. His only option was random exploration of
the space
> of possible systems.
Bull.
There are many theorems one can prove about cellular automata,
so one's exploration is hardly "random". You also seem to
vastly underestimate Conway, or are perhaps unfamaliar with
his work: he designed/engineered many rather amazing
systems, and proved many fundamental theorems thereon.
Calling the invention of his "game of life" as a "random
exploration" is a major put-down of his abilities.
There is nothing quite so pathetic as someone who starts their comment
with a word like "Bull", and then proceeds to spout falsehoods.
Thus: in my paper there is a quote from a book in which Conway's
efforts were described, and it is transparently clear from this quote
that the method Conway used was random search:
“[Conway and his team of collaborators found an appropriate set of
rules] ... only after the rejection of many patterns, triangular and
hexagonal lattices as well as square ones, and of many other laws of
birth and death, including the introduction of two and even three sexes.
Acres of squared paper were covered, and he and his admiring entourage
of graduate students shuffled poker chips, foreign coins, cowrie shells,
Go stones or whatever came to hand, until there was a viable balance
between life and death.”
The reference is: Guy, R. K. (1985) “John Horton Conway,” in Albers and
G L Alexanderson (eds.), “Mathematical people: Profiles and interviews.”
Cambridge, MA: 43-50.
The rest of your comment, below, is just as full of BS as the first
paragraph.
Richard Loosemore
As to the complexity of the game of life: it is now known that
it is equivalent to a turing machine -- it is no more (and no
less) complex than a turing machine, or equivalently, lambda
calculus. Are you implying that a system has to be functionally
equivalent to a turing machine in order to be considered
complex?
--linas
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Ben Goertzel, PhD
CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC
Director of Research, SIAI
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first
overcome " - Dr Samuel Johnson
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