Hi all,
This seems to have touched a point of interest. I'll try and address all
the issues raised in one post. I hope I don't miss any of them. Please
remind me if I have. Apologies if I don;t reference the originator of
the query explicitly. You know who you are!
Re 'defining terms'.
1) Yes: Theres pages and pages of background information not in the
posts. It is the result of thousands of hours of reading and analysis.
Without it the readership is not 'calibrated' properly and the dialogue
is bound to have its problems. The reader has only been exposed to about
1/50th of the total work, so please don;t assume that any of the terms
are poorly defined. They are only.poorly defined here and so far,
1a) Here's the basics of the term "visual scene". This is long proven
empirical physiology. I already said: it is the occipital lobe
deliverable. Very specific neurons, well known, highly documented, are
responsible. Officially no-one knows 'how'/'why' visual experience
results happens. The official position only declared what does it.
"Visual Scene" = that construct that is replaced by a roughly
hemispherical gloom/blackness when you close your eyes. It is highly
localised to specific neuron populations (occipital V4 does colour, for
example) and has been studied for decades. Everyone who studies
cognition should be aware of this empirical knowledge. I do not need to
specify it further or justify it. The evidence speaks for itself. An
entire empirical science paradigm call the 'neural correlates of
consciousness' has been set up specifically to isolate the neural basis.
All experiential fields are the same. They are all cranial central
nervous system deliverables. This means audition, haptic, olfaction,
gustation, vision, situational and primordial emotions and all internal
imagined versions of these (including the visual imagery in the post by
JLM). My argument deals only with the visual scene.
1b) So, in answer to another comment from one of the posts: "visual
scene", specifically: "I assume you mean the original image impressed on
your retina". No, I do not mean this. The molecular machinations of the
entire peripheral nervous system, including the 'peripherals' of the
central nervous system..... are 100% empirically proven for 100 years to
be experientially inert. You do not see with your eyes. Vision occurs in
the occipital. Please read the literature. Peripheral sensory
transduction is not experienced. Central perceptual fields are projected
to the periphery. This is physiology. EG. For the peripheral insult
sensory transduction, the term nociception is used. PAIN, the
experience, is added in the CNS and projected (often rather badly) to
the site of origin. There is an entire collection of nomenclature
established by physiology to enable descriptive specificity..I should
not have to provide any more information along these lines. Please read
the literature. There's lots of it. I can supply refs if you need them.
1c) Computationalism. = _abstract_ symbol manipulation. This is meant in
specific contrast to the manipulation of _natural_ symbol manipulation.
Analog computing is also COMP. This means that all computing based on
the various calculii are COMP. It means that all machines using any sort
of abstract mathematical or logical framework where the semantics of the
symbols need extra documentation... are COMP. The basic defs:
See:
(i) Moor, J. 'The Dartmouth College Artificial Intelligence
Conference: The next fifty years', Ai Magazine vol. 27, no. 4, 2006. 87-91.
(ii) Beer, R. D. 'A Dynamical-Systems Perspective on Agent
Environment Interaction', Artificial Intelligence vol. 72, no. 1-2,
1995. 173-215.
RE: The nature of the COMP = false as an argument.
2) I don't intend to formalise the argument any further here. I have
given the precis. The two papers I mentioned are in review. One of them
for 18 months already. Very painful. When they come out they can speak
for themselves.
3) Please do not taint my words with any attributions in respect of
being 'philosophical'. ;-) I love reading philosophy and have
internalised truckloads....but this is irrelevant...When I say this is
an empirical argument I mean it. All I do is aggregate well known (but
hyper-cross-disciplinary) fact into one place. I follow the path of
least resistance to what it says of the natural world. If the empirical
evidence said anything else I'd say something else.
4) I'll say it again: this is an empirical argument... therefore: If
you want to helpfully counter the argument then please deliver the novel
evidence to the contrary that counters the evidence I give and explain
why. Show references. Point to a history of facts. Then I can respond
because i have encountered something I must account for which alters the
implications of the evidence. If this cannot be done then the statements
you make are empty beliefs and I can do nothing with them. I defer to
real evidence. Nothing else. And I require that of all critique. I am
absolutely STOKED if you can set me straight empirically. I relish it. I
need it.
5) To be more blunt about it: I cannot respond to any empty meta-belief
(belief about belief) such as "I find it unconvincing", "What if it
doesn't/wont't/isn't?", "This seems wrong", "I find this implausible"
and all manner of other such statements. If you can't deliver the
evidence to the contrary then please don't say anything. Educate
yourself in the empirical areas you find problematic and then come back
and tell me exactly where I am wrong and why. A viable discussion will
ensue..
RE: Motivation
6) The only reason I have made such an effort to complete the refutation
of COMP (you have seen only 1 way, there are 3 others) is that despite
being publicly established as merely "conjecture" (i) and a "theoretical
claim" (ii), for 50 years it has continued to be entertained by computer
science/AI projects as if it was a "law of nature". It has no proof.
There is merely a "failure to refute". This situation has been part of
the framework of justification (implicitly and explicitly by various
research efforts) that real AGI might result from COMP principles. I am
here to put that expectation to death once and for all: so that funds
may be more cautiously directed and expectations be more wisely managed.
7) Another refutation of COMP"
Bringsjord, S. 'The Zombie Attack on the Computational Conception of
Mind', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research vol. LIX, no. 1, 1999. 41-69
8) Another refutation of COMP comes by appropriately contextualising the
'No Free Lunch' Theorem(of machine learning) into a context of
cognition during a scientific act. In that circumstance NFL applies to a
refutation of COMP.
Koppen, M., Wolpert, D. H. and Macready, W. G. 'Remarks on a recent
paper on the ''No free lunch'' theorems', IEEE Transactions on
Evolutionary Computation vol. 5, no. 3, 2001. 295-296.
Wolpert, D. H. 'The lack of A priori distinctions between learning
algorithms', Neural Computation vol. 8, no. 7, 1996. 1341-1390.
Wolpert, D. H. 'The existence of A priori distinctions between
learning algorithms', Neural Computation vol. 8, no. 7, 1996. 1391-1420.
RE: Wider implications
7) In line with (6), I need draw no further connection to a solution to
the problem of consciousness generally. The claim of the COMP argument
is very specific. It merely tells us that a turing machine cannot
'compute' a scientist in an authentic act of original science using
visual observation of the novel distal natural world. On generalisation
the important implication is that the term "simulated scientist" is an
oxymoron. A logical impossibility.
8) Other connections to the physics and role of consciousness in
cognition and intelligent behaviour generally, whilst very interesting
and much more important, are not part of this COMP discussion.
9) There is a more fundamental issue which I have also not included thus
far which I think may be important here..."INVERSE or ILL-DEFINED
PROBLEMS". The expectation that source reconstruction from a remote
data-slice can occur is fatally and a-priori discountable. To be rather
more practical about it...I am involved in an EEG/Epilepsy group. The
explanation of the origins of EEG (a surface field structure) is
literally identical to the problem of explanation of the originator of
retinal photon impact. Science knows that the former is an ill-defined
problem and does not claim to have acquired the solution. It knows that
the models are metaphors and cannot claim any further veridicality.
Indeed it regards the problem as extreme and unresolved. How is it that
anyone can assume that vision, an even harder and structurally identical
inverse problem, is somehow possible with only the retinal impact?
Please read Nunez for the appropriate background:
Nunez, P. L. and Srinivasan, R., Electric fields of the brain : the
neurophysics of EEG, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York,
2006
I am realising that I may have a contribution to make to AGI by helping
strengthen its science base. I've run out of Sunday, so I'd like to
leave the discussion there... to be continued sometime.
Meanwhile I'd encourage everyone to get used to the idea that to be
involved in AGI is to _not_ be involved in purely COMP principles.
Purely COMP = traditional domain-bound AI. It will produce very good
results in specific problem areas and will be fragile and inflexible
when encountering novelty. AI will remain a perfectly valid target for
very exciting COMP based solutions. However those solutions will never
be AGI. Continuation with purely COMP approach is a strategically fatal
flaw which will result in a club, not a scientific discipline. This is
of great concern to me. Please sit back and let this realisation wash
over you. It's what I had to do. I used to think in COMP terms too. And
have fun! This is supposed to be fun!
cheers
Colin Hales
Ben Goertzel wrote:
The argument seems wrong to me intuitively, but I'm hard-put to argue
against it because the terms are so unclearly defined ... for instance
I don't really know what you mean by a "visual scene" ...
I can understand that to create a form of this argument worthy of
being carefully debated, would be a lot more work than writing this
summary email you've given.
So, I agree with your judgment not to try to extensively debate the
argument in its current sketchily presented form.
If you do choose to present it carefully at some point, I encourage
you to begin by carefully defining all the terms involved ...
otherwise it's really not possible to counter-argue in a useful way ...
thx
ben g
On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 12:31 AM, Colin Hales
<[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>>
wrote:
Hi Mike,
I can give the highly abridged flow of the argument:
!) It refutes COMP , where COMP = Turing machine-style abstract
symbol manipulation. In particular the 'digital computer' as we
know it.
2) The refutation happens in one highly specific circumstance. In
being false in that circumstance it is false as a general claim.
3) The circumstances: If COMP is true then it should be able to
implement an artificial scientist with the following faculties:
(a) scientific behaviour (goal-delivery of a 'law of nature', an
abstraction BEHIND the appearances of the distal natural world,
not merely the report of what is there),
(b) scientific observation based on the visual scene,
(c) scientific behaviour in an encounter with radical novelty.
(This is what humans do)
The argument's empirical knowledge is:
1) The visual scene is visual phenomenal consciousness. A highly
specified occipital lobe deliverable.
2) In the context of a scientific act, scientific evidence is
'contents of phenomenal consciousness'. You can't do science
without it. In the context of this scientific act, visual
P-consciousness and scientific evidence are identities.
P-consciousness is necessary but on its own is not sufficient.
Extra behaviours are needed, but these are a secondary
consideration here.
NOTE: Do not confuse "scientific observation" with the
"scientific measurement", which is a collection of causality
located in the distal external natural world. (Scientific
measurement is not the same thing as scientific evidence, in this
context). The necessary feature of a visual scene is that it
operate whilst faithfully inheriting the actual causality of the
distal natural world. You cannot acquire a law of nature without
this basic need being met.
3) Basic physics says that it is impossible for a brain to create
a visual scene using only the inputs acquired by the peripheral
stimulus received at the retina. This is due to fundamentals of
quantum degeneracy. Basically there are an infinite number of
distal external worlds that can deliver the exact same photon
impact. The transduction that occurs in the retinal rod/cones is
entirely a result of protein isomerisation. All information about
distal origins is irretievably gone. An impacting photon could
have come across the room or across the galaxy. There is no
information about origins in the transduced data in the retina.
That established, you are then faced with a paradox:
(i) (3) says a visual scene is impossible.
(ii) Yet the brain makes one.
(iii) To make the scene some kind of access to distal spatial
relations must be acquired as input data in addition to that from
the retina.
(iv) There are only 2 places that can come from...
(a) via matter (which we already have - retinal impact at
the boundary that is the agent periphery)
(b) via space (at the boundary of the matter of the brain
with space, the biggest boundary by far).
So, the conclusion is that the brain MUST acquire the necessary
data via the spatial boundary route. You don't have to know how.
You just have no other choice. There is no third party in there to
add the necessary data and the distal world is unknown. There is
literally nowhere else for the data to come from. Matter and Space
exhaust the list of options. (There is alway magical intervention
... but I leave that to the space cadets.)
That's probably the main novelty for the reader to to encounter.
But we are not done yet.
Next empirical fact:
(v) When you create a turing-COMP substrate the interface with
space is completely destroyed and replaced with the randomised
machinations of the matter of the computer manipulating a model of
the distal world. All actual relationships with the real distal
external world are destroyed. In that circumstance the COMP
substrate is implementing the science of an encounter with a
model, not an encounter with the actual distal natural world.
No amount of computation can make up for that loss, because you
are in a circumstance of an intrinsically unknown distal natural
world, (the novelty of an act of scientific observation).
.
=> COMP is false.
======
OK. There are subtleties here.
The refutation is, in effect, a result of saying you can't do it
(replace a scientist with a computer) because you can't simulate
inputs. It is just the the nature of 'inputs' has been
traditionally impoverished by assumption born merely of
cross-disciplinary blindness.. Not enough quantum mechanics or
electrodynamics is done by those exposed to 'COMP' principles.
This result, at first appearance, says "you can't simulate a
scientist". But you can! If you already know what is out there in
the natural world then you can simulate a scientific act. But you
don't - by definition - you are doing science to find out! So
it's not that you can't simulate a scientist, it is just that in
order to do it you already have to know everything, so you don't
want to ... it's useless. So the words 'refutation of COMP by an
attempted COMP implementation of a scientist' have to be
carefully contrasted with the words "you can't simulate a scientist".
The self referential use of scientific behaviour as scientific
evidence has cut logical swathes through all sorts of issues. COMP
is only one of them. My AGI benchmark and design aim is "the
artificial scientist". Note also that this result does not imply
that real AGI can only be organic like us. It means that real AGI
must have new chips that fully capture all the inputs and make use
of them to acquire knowledge the way humans do. A separate matter
altogether. COMP, as an AGI designer' option, is out of the picture.
I think this just about covers the basics. The papers are dozens
of pages. I can't condense it any more than this..I have debated
this so much it's way past its use-by date. Most of the arguments
go like this: "But you CAN!...". I am unable to defend such
'arguments from under-informed-authority' ... I defer to the
empirical reality of the situation and would prefer that it be
left to justify itself. I did not make any of it up. I merely
observed. . ...and so if you don't mind I'd rather leave the issue
there. ..
regards,
Colin Hales
Mike Tintner wrote:
Colin:
1) Empirical refutation of computationalism...
.. interesting because the implication is that if anyone
doing AGI lifts their finger over a keyboard thinking they can be
directly involved in programming anything to do with the eventual
knowledge of the creature...they have already failed. I don't know
whether the community has internalised this yet.
Colin,
I'm sure Ben is right, but I'd be interested to hear the
essence of your empirical refutation. Please externalise it so
we can internalise it :)
-------------------------------------------
agi
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;
<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
-------------------------------------------
agi
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;
<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
--
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*agi* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now>
<https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/> | Modify
<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>
Your Subscription [Powered by Listbox] <http://www.listbox.com>
-------------------------------------------
agi
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/
Modify Your Subscription:
https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=114414975-3c8e69
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
