-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Marcus G. Daniels on 01/08/2008 10:44 AM: > Perception, locomotion, and signaling are capabilities that animals > have evolved for millions of years. It's not fair to compare a > learning algorithm to the learning capabilities of a living system > without factoring in the fact that robots aren't disposable for the > sake of realizing evolutionary selection and search.
Well, first off, you're not arguing with me. [grin] I'm doing my best to explain what I understand of RR's ideas. That's all. Feel free to go over to one of the rosen mailing lists to see how they mostly dislike me because I disagree with them (... or in their opinion because I'm a stubborn jerk who doesn't listen to them or because I'm just too lazy to dig really deep into RR's ideas ... or whatever ;-). > Anything that requires significant short > term memory and integration of broad but scare evidence is probably > something a computer will be better at than a human. That's just plain silly in terms of RR's ideas because _humans_ program the computer. Until/unless we come up with a computer that programs itself, or a computer that programs another computer, or something of that sort, computers will _never_ be better at any task than humans. I.e. in RR terms, humans are THE canalizing "efficient cause" for any computer system. > My assertion remains that the things computers do are primarily > limited by the desire of humans to 1) understand what was learned, > and then 2) use it. If those two conditions are removed, then we > are talking about a very different scenario. There's little > incentive to develop control systems for robots to keep them > stumbling around as long as possible, with no limits on the actions > they can take. Computers don't _do_ anything. Humans _do_ things using computers as tools. I believe that will change. But for the time being, it's the case. Anything else is speculation. RR speculates (albeit with significant rhetoric and build-up) that computers, as we now know them, are incapable of doing everything living systems do. I would speculate that computers, as we now know them (but with manymanymanymany more of them and radically different software), can do everything living systems do. But, just because my opinion differs from RR's doesn't mean both opinions are anything more than speculation. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com The Government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion. -- John Adams -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHg8xOZeB+vOTnLkoRAuAEAKCDue88MCLn77MZv/riWMkqE6l0cwCgn50L izuRo5hXA/ySB2u83GdBUWA= =YuBQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
