Bob: > As a roboticist I can say that a physical body resembling that of a
human isn't really all that important. You can build the most
sophisticated humanoid possible, but the problems still boil down to
how such a machine should be intelligently directed by its software.
What embodiment does provide are *instruments of causation* and closed
loop control. The muscles or actuators cause events to occur, and
sensors then observe the results. Both actuation and sensing are
subject to a good deal of uncertainty, so an embodied system needs to
be able to cope with this adequately, at least maintaining some kind
of homeostatic regime. Note that "actuator" and "sensor" could be
broadly interpreted, and might not necessarily operate within a
physical domain.
The main problem with non-embodied systems from the past is that they
tended to be open loop (non reflective) and often assumed crisp logic.
Certainly from a marketing perspective - if you're trying to promote a
particular line of research - humanoid-like embodiment certainly helps
people to identify with what's going on. Also if you're trying to
understand human cognition by attempting to reproduce results from
developmental psychology a humanoid form may also be highly desirable.
Bob,
I think you are v. seriously wrong - and what's more, I suspect, robotically
as well as humanly wrong. You are, in a sense, missing literally "the whole
point."
What mirror neurons are showing is that our ability to understand humans -
as say portrayed in The Dancers :
http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/matisse_dance_moma.jpg
comes from our capacity to simulate them with our whole body-and-brain
all-at-once. Note that our brain does not just simulate their particular
movement at the given point in time on that canvas - it simulates and
understands their *manner* of movement - and you can get up and dance like
them, and continue their dance, and produce/predict *further* movements that
will be a reasonable likeness of how those dancers might dance - all from
that one captured pose.
Our ability to understand animals and how they will move and emote and
generally respond similarly comes from our ability to simulate them with our
whole body-and-brain all at once - hence it is that we can go still further
and liken humans to almost every animal under the sun - "he's a
snake/lizard/angry bear/slug/busy bee" etc. etc.
Not only do we understand animals but also inanimate matter and its
movements or non-movements with our whole body. Hence we see a book as
"lying" on the table, and a wardrobe as "standing" in a room. This capacity
is often valuable for inventors, who use it to imagine, for example, how
liquids will flow through a machine, or scientists like Einstein who
imagined himself riding a beam of light, or Kekule who imagined the atoms of
a benzene molecule coiling like a snake.
We can only understand the entire world and how it behaves by embodying it
within ourselves... or embodying ourselves within it.
This capacity shows that our self is a whole-brain-and-body unit. If I ask
you to "change your self" - and please try this mentally - to simulate/
imagine yourself walking as - say,a flaming diva.. John Wayne... John
Travolta... Madonna... you should find that you will
immediately/instinctively start to do this with your whole body and brain at
once.As one integral unit.
Now my v. garbled understanding (& please comment) is that those Carnegie
Mellon starfish robots show that such an integrated whole self is both
possible - and perhaps vital - for robots too. You need a whole-body-self
not just to understand/embody the outside world and predict its movements,
but to understand your inner body/world and how it's "holding up" and "how
together" or "falling apart" it is - and whether you will/won't be able to
execute different movements and think thoughts. You see, I hope, why I say
you are missing the "whole" point.
-------------------------------------------
agi
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