Matt,
I'm confused here. What I mean is that in real life, the probabilities are
mathematically incalculable, period, a good deal of the time - you cannot
go, as you v. helpfully point out, much beyond saying this is "fairly
probable", "may happen", "there's some chance.." And those words are fairly
good reflections of how we actually reason and "anti-calculate"
probabilities -*without* numbers or any maths... And such non-mathematical
vagueness seems foundational for AGI. You can't, for example, calculate
mathematically the likeness or the truthfulness of metaphorical terms - of
storms and swirling milk in a teacup. Not even provisionally.
My understanding is that AGI-ers still persist in trying to use numbers, and
you seem, in your first sentence, to be advocating the same.
Matt: I mean that you have to assign likelihoods to beliefs, even if the
numbers are wrong. Logic systems where every statement is true or false
simply are too brittle to scale beyond toy problems. Everything in life is
uncertain, including the degree of uncertainty. That's why we use terms like
"probably", "maybe", etc. instead of numbers.
--
Matt:You absolutely must have a means of guessing
probabilities to do
anything at all in the real world
MT: Do you mean mathematically? Estimating chances as roughly,
even if
provisionally, 0.70? If so, manifestly, that is untrue.
What are your
chances that you will get lucky tonight? Will an inability
to guess the
probability stop you trying? Most of the time, arguably,
we have to and do,
act on the basis of truly vague magnitudes - a
mathematically horrendously
rough sense of probability. Or just: "what the heck -
what's the worst that
can happen? Let's do it. And let's just pray it
works out." How precise a
sense of the probabilities attending his current decisions
does even a
professionally mathematical man like Bernanke have?
Only AGI's in a virtual world can live with cosy,
mathematically calculable
"uncertainty." Living in the real world is as
Kauffman points out to a great
extent living with *mystery*. What are the maths of
mystery? Do you think
Ben has the least realistic idea of the probabilities
affecting his AGI
projects? That's not how most creative projects get
done, or life gets
lived. Quadrillions, Matt, schmazillions.
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