Abram:> In that case I do not see how your view differs from simplistic
dualism, as Terren cautioned. If your goal is to make a creativity
machine, in what sense would the machine be non-algorithmic? Physical
random processes?
Abram,
You're operating within a philosophical paradigm that says all actions and
problemsolving must be preprogrammed. Nothing else is possible. That ignores
the majority of real life problems where no program is possible, period.
"Sometimes the best plan is no plan" If you're confronted with the task of
finding something in a foreign territory, you simply don't (and couldn't)
have the luxury of a program.
All you have is a rough idea, as opposed to an algorithm, of the sort of
things you can do. You know roughly what you're looking for - an object
somewhere in that territory. You know roughly how to "travel" and put one
foor in front of the other and avoid obstacles and pick things up etc.
(Let's say - you have to find a key that has been lost somewhere in a
house).
Well you certainly don't have an algorithm for finding a lost key in a
house. In fact, if you or anyone would care to spend 5 mins on this problem,
you would start to realise that no algorithm is possible. Check out
Kauffman's interview on edge.com. for similar problems & arguments
.
So what do/can you do? Make it up as you go along. Start somewhere and keep
going, and after a while if that doesn't work, try somewhere and something
else...
But there's no algorithm for this. Just as there is, or was, no algorithm
for your putting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together (a much simpler,
more tightly defined problem). You just got stuck in. Somewhere. Anywhere
reasonable.
Algorithms, from a human POV, are for literal people who have to "do things
by the book" - people with a "compulsive obsessional disorder" - who can't
bear to confront a blank page. :).V useful *after* you've solved a problem,
but not in the beginning
There are no physical, computational, mechanical reasons why machines can't
be designed on these principles - to proceed with rough ideas of what to do,
freely consulting and combining options and looking around for fresh ones,
as they go along, rather than following a preprogrammed list.
P.S. Nothing in this is strictly "random" - as in a narrow AI, randomly,
blindly. working its way through a preprogrammed list. You only try options
that are appropriate - routes that appear likely to lead to your goal. I
would call this "unstructured" but not (blindly) random thinking.
-------------------------------------------
agi
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