2012/5/29 Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com> > > > 2012/5/29 Colin Geoffrey Hales <cgha...@unimelb.edu.au> > >> Here's a story I just wrote. I'll get it published in due course. >> Just posted it to the FoR list, thought you might appreciate the >> sentiments.... >> >> ======================================================== >> It's 100,000 BCE. You are a politically correct caveperson. You want >> dinner. The cooling body of the dead thing at your feet seems to be your >> option. You have fire back at camp. That'll make it palatable. The fire is >> kept alive by the fire-warden of your tribe. None of you have a clue what >> it is, but it makes the food edible and you don't care. >> >> It's 1700ish AD. You are a French scientist called Lavoisier. You have >> just worked out that burning adds oxygen to the fuel. You have killed off >> an eternity of dogma involving a non-existent substance called phlogiston. >> You will not be popular, but the facts speak for you. You are happy with >> your day's work. You go to the kitchen and cook your fine pheasant meal. >> You realise that oxidation never had to figure in your understanding of how >> to make dinner. Food for thought is your dessert. >> >> It is 2005 and you are designing a furnace. You use COMSOL Multiphysics >> on your supercomputer. You modify the gas jet configuration and the flames >> finally get the dead pocket in the corner up to temperature. The toilet >> bowls will be well cooked here, you think to yourself. If you suggested to >> your project leader that the project was finished she would think you are >> insane. Later, in commissioning your furnace, a red hot toilet bowl is the >> target of your optical pyrometer. The fierceness of the furnace is palpable >> and you're glad you're not the toilet bowl. The computation of the physics >> of fire and the physics of fire are, thankfully, not the same thing - that >> fact has made your job a lot easier, but you cannot compute yourself a >> toilet bowl. A fact made more real shortly afterwards in the bathroom. >> >> It is the early 20th century and you are a 'Wright Brother'. You think >> you can make a contraption fly. Your inspiration is birds. You experiment >> with shaped wood, paper and canvas in a makeshift wind tunnel. You figure >> out that certain shapes seems to drag less and lift more. Eventually you >> flew a few feet. And you have absolutely no clue about the microscopic >> physics of flight. >> >> It is a hundred years later and you are a trainee pilot doing 'touch and >> go' landings in a simulator. The physics of flight is in the massive >> computer system running the simulator. Just for fun you stall your jetliner >> and crash it into a local shopping mall. Today you have flown 146, 341 km. >> As you leave the simulator, you remind yourself that the physics of flight >> in the computer and flight itself are not the same thing, and that nobody >> died today. >> >> No-one ever needed a theory of combustion prior to cooking dinner with >> it. We cooked dinner and then we eventually learned a theory of combustion. >> >> No-one needed the deep details of flight physics to work out how to fly. >> We few, then we figured out how the physics of flight worked. >> >> This is the story of the growth of scientific knowledge of the natural >> world. It has been this way for thousands of years. Any one of us could >> think of a hundred examples of exactly this kind of process. In a modern >> world of computing and physics, never before have we had more power to >> examine in detail, whatever are the objects of our study. And in each and >> every case, if anyone told you that a computed model of the natural world >> and the natural world are literally the same thing, you'd brand them daft >> or deluded and probably not entertain their contribution as having any >> value. >> >> Well almost. There's one special place where not only is that very >> delusion practised on a massive scale, if you question the behaviour, you >> are suddenly confronted with a generationally backed systematic raft of >> unjustified excuses, perhaps 'policies'?, handed from mentor to novice with >> such unquestioning faith that entire scientific disciplines are enrolled in >> the delusion. >> >> Q. What scientific discipline could this be? >> >> A. The 'science' of artificial intelligence. >> >> It is something to behold. Here, for the first time in history, you find >> people that look at the only example of natural general intelligence - you, >> the human reading this - accept a model of a brain, put it in a computer >> and then expect the result to be a brain. This is done without a shred of >> known physical law, in spite of thousands of years of contrary experience, >> and despite decades of abject failure to achieve the sacred goal of an >> artificial intelligence like us. >> >> This belief system is truly bizarre. It is exactly like the cave person >> drawing a picture of a flame on a rock and then expecting it to cook >> dinner. It is exactly like getting into a flight simulator, flying it to >> Paris and then expecting to get out and have dinner on the banks of the >> Seine. > > > You always put that level confusion on the table. You could expect to have > dinner in a virtual paris if you were in a virtual world. If you want an > computational AI to interact with you, it must be able to control real > world appendices that permits it to *interact* or likewise if it was in a > virtual world, you should use a interface with this virtual world for you > to interact. >
For example, a "real world" robot in a "real world" car factory builds real cars... still the program that controls the robot is *a program* 100% computational... yet it builds real cars... how ? Simply because it has interface with the "real world" which permits the program to handle "real world" objects, that assembled correctly makes a car... Quentin > > You can't expect level to be mixed without an interface and I don't see > any problem with that. > > Quentin > > > > >> It is exactly like expecting your computer simulated furnace roasting you >> a toilet bowl. >> >> Think about it. If there was no difference between a computed physics >> model of fire and fire, then why doesn't the computer burst into flames? If >> there was no difference between a computed model of flight and flight, then >> why doesn't the computer leap up and fly? These things don't happen! Not >> only that, any computer scientist would say you were nuts to believe it to >> be a possibility. Then that same computer scientist will then got back to >> their desk, sit down and believe that their computer program can be brain >> physics. >> >> Now I am all about creating real artificial general intelligence. Call me >> crazy, but I find I am unique in the entire world. I am set about literally >> building artificial inorganic brain tissue. Like the Wright Bros built >> artificial flight. Like the caveperson built artificial fire. I will build >> artificial cognition. There will be no computing. There will be the physics >> of cognition. >> >> Ay now here's the rub. >> >> When I go about my business of organising and researching my artificial >> brain tissue I get questioned about my weird approach. I find that I am the >> one that has to justify my position! For the first time in history a >> completely systemic delusion about the relation between reality and >> computing is assumed by legions of scientists without question, and who >> fail constantly to achieve the goal for clearly obvious reasons..... _and I >> am the one that has to justify my approach_? If I have to listen to another >> deferral to the Church-Turing Thesis (100% right and 100% irrelevant) I >> will SCREAM! Aaaaiiiiieeeeeiiiiuuuuaaaaaaarrrrgggggh! >> >> I am not saying artificial general intelligence is impossible or even >> hard. I am simply suggesting that maybe the route toward it is through >> (shock horror) using the physics of cognition (brain material). Somebody >> out there..... please? Can there please be someone out there who sees this >> half century of computer science weirdness in 100,000 years of sanity? >> Please? Anyone? >> ================================================================== >> >> By Colin Hales >> >> Natural physics is a computation. Fine. >> >> But a computed natural physics model is NOT the natural physics....it is >> the natural physics of a computer. >> >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. >> >> > > > -- > All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. > -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
