Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
David Butler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Would two AGI's with the same initial learning program, same hardware in a controlled environment (same access to a specific learning base-something like an encyclopedia) learn at different rates and excel in different tasks? How would an AGI choose which things to learn first if given enough data so that it would have to make a choice? If two AGI's (again-same hardware, learning programs and controlled environment) were given the same data would they make different choices? Yes, any two exact copies of AGI's would learn at different rates, and learn different things, its one of the cores and basic easy things that can be programmed into an AGI, *with ease*. To make a decision ever, an AGI takes all pertinent information, calculates it over its choices, and makes the choice with highest value, when any choice has approx the same value, it needs a tie-breaker. If the machines just choose the First choice every time, then they will always act the same given the same input. But a simple random number generator can tell the AGI, ok now I want to read encycolpedia A or Z, the first may choose A, the second Z, and they diverge from there. This simple concept is very useful for making an AGI explore an alternative choice to the one they are given, perhaps allowing them to choose a seperate path to a goal that provides them with unique or new information, or providing a creative answer to a problem. Im not sure what game it is from, but a VR AI program had a problem of attacking someone as they walked outside the house, and normally it was expected to go out the door and attack. On one iteration though, to dove and rolled thru the window and attacked instead. This was unexpected and creative solution to the problem at hand. James Ratcliff ___ James Ratcliff - http://falazar.com Looking for something... - Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=88965806-34e98c
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Mike Tinter, If you really do not think that digital computers can be creative by definition, I do not understand why you would like to join a mailing list with AGI researchers? Computers operate by using software, thus, they need to be programmed. It just seems to me that you do not understand what the word program means. Even if you use use a computer that do not need to be loaded with a program, guess what, such a computer could be considered to have an initial program. The very determinism of the universe implicates that everything runs according to a program, including your ramblings here about creativity. I have to ask you a question, do you think the universe and everything in it runs according to deterministic laws of nature? Do you accept that you are a part of this deterministic reality? Well, in that case Ive got news for you, you are a program also! As evidence I would present your DNA, a program encoded and stored in molecular structures. Have you ever heard of computational equivalence? Do you know what it means? Also, I feel annoyed that you compare the Novamente architecture with something that just takes instructions, like do this, do that, then do this etc. It seems you need to spend greater effort in studying this architecture, for example by reading The Hidden Pattern. I feel you are in great need of widening your mind to understand chaotic or fractal processes. Take a forest for example, even in all its complexity and diversity, it is still governed by very simple and basic laws namely the laws of nature. By mimicking some of these laws at an appropriate level, such as shape level, programmers can create forests that to a very large extent looks like real forests: http://www.speedtree.com/. A generator such as speedtree could generate entire forests of miles and miles of trees, with no single two trees looking the same. Even though the lines of code producing the trees are pretty simple, the outcome in creativity and originality is vast. The same thing applies to a human mind. Even though the output of a human mind is amazingly diverse and creative, its program is still goverened by the basic laws of nature, and the DNA program. What AGI designers tries to do is to is to mimic this process. The concepts of program and determinism are pretty well established within the scientific community, please do not try to redefine them like you do. It just creates a lot of confusion. I think what you really want to use is the concept of adaptability, or maybe you could say you want an AGI system that is *programmed in an indirect way* (meaning that the program instructions are very far away from what the system actually does). But please do not say things like we should write AGI systems that are not programmed. It hurts my ears/eyes. /Robert Wensman 2008/1/7, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Well we (Penrose co) are all headed in roughly the same direction, but we're taking different routes. If you really want the discussion to continue, I think you have to put out something of your own approach here to spontaneous creativity (your terms) as requested. Yes, I still see the mind as following instructions a la briefing, but only odd ones, not a whole rigid set of them., a la programs. And the instructions are open-ended and non-deterministically open to interpretation, just as my briefing/instruction to you - Ben go and get me something nice for supper - is. Oh, and the instructions that drive us, i.e. emotions, are always conflicting, e.g [Ben:] I might like to.. but do I really want to get that bastard anything for supper? Or have the time to, when I am on the very verge of creating my stupendous AGI? Listen, I can go on and on - the big initial deal is the claim that the mind isn't - no successful AGI can be - driven by a program, or thoroughgoing SERIES/SET of instructions - if it is to solve even minimal general adaptive, let alone hard creative problems. No structured approach will work for an ill-structured problem. You must give some indication of how you think a program CAN be generally adaptive/ creative - or, I would argue, squares (programs are so square, man) can be circled :). Mike, The short answer is that I don't believe that computer *programs* can be creative in the hard sense, because they presuppose a line of enquiry, a predetermined approach to a problem - ... But I see no reason why computers couldn't be briefed rather than programmed, and freely associate across domains rather than working along predetermined lines. But the computer that is being briefed is still running some software program, hence is still programmed -- and its responses are still determined by that program (in conjunction w/ the environment, which however it perceives only thru a digital bit stream) I don't however believe that purely *digital* computers are capable of all the literally imaginative powers (as already
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
On 07/01/2008, Robert Wensman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think what you really want to use is the concept of adaptability, or maybe you could say you want an AGI system that is programmed in an indirect way (meaning that the program instructions are very far away from what the system actually does). But please do not say things like we should write AGI systems that are not programmed. It hurts my ears/eyes. /Robert Wensman I'd agree that Mike could do with tightening up his language. I wonder if he would agree with the following? The programs that determine the way system acts and changes is not highly related to the programming provided by the AI designer. Computer systems like this have been designed. All desktop computers can act, solve problems and change their programming (apt etc) in ways un-envisaged by the people who designed the hardware and BIOS. This approach still allows the programs the AI designer provided to have influence in *which* programs exist in the system, if not how they exactly they work. This is what would make it different from current computer systems. Will Pearson - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82558458-0ed659
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
On Jan 7, 2008 9:12 AM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Robert, Look, the basic reality is that computers have NOT yet been creative in any significant way, and have NOT yet achieved AGI - general intelligence, - or indeed any significant rulebreaking adaptivity; (If you disagree, please provide examples. Ben keeps claiming/implying he's solved them or made significant advances, but when pressed never provides any indication of how). We all agree that AGI is not yet achieved. Space travel to Proxima Centauri is also not yet achieved, nor is human cloning ... there is a big difference in science between -- not yet achieved, but seems possible based on available knowledge and -- doesn't seem possible based on available knowledge If you are truly serious about solving these problems, I suggest, you should prepared to be hurt - you should be ready to consider truly radical ideas - for the ground on which you stand to be questioned - and be seriously shaken up. You should WELCOME any and all of your assumptions being questioned. Even if, let's say, what I or someone else suggests is in the end nutty, drastic ideas are good for you to contemplate at least for a while. Most of us on this list are already aware of the possibility that it is not possible to achieve high levels of intelligence using digital computer programs, given realistic space and time constraints. It is scientifically possible that Penrose is right, and to achieve human-like levels of intelligence in a machine, one needs to use a machine making use of weird, as yet poorly understood quantum gravity effects. However, at present, that Penrose-ean hypothesis does not seem that likely to most of us on this list; and given the current state of science, it's not a hypothesis that we really can explore in detail. Quantum gravity is in a confused state and quantum computing (let alone quantum gravity computing) is in its infancy. There is also always the possibility that the whole modern scientific world-view is deeply flawed in a way that is relevant to AGI. Maybe digital computers are unable to lead to human-level AI, for some reason totally unrelated to computability theory and quantum gravity and all that. There is plenty in the world that we don't understand -- I recommend Damien Broderick's recent and excellent book Outside the Gates of Science for anyone who doesn't agree But, this list is devoted to exploring the hypothesis that AGI **can** be achieved via creating intelligent machines -- and mainly, at the moment, to the hypothesis that it can be achieved via creating intelligent digital computer programs. We realize this hypothesis may be wrong, but it seems likely enough to us to merit a lot of attention and effort aimed at validation. Your supposed arguments against the hypothesis are nowhere near as original as you seem to think, and nearly everyone on this list has heard them before and not found them convincing. I read What Computers Can't Do by Hubert Dreyfus as a child in the 1970's and your diatribes don't seem to add anything to what he said there. If you think the whole digital-computer-AGI pursuit is a wrong direction and a waste of time, that's fine. But why do you feel the need to keep repeatedly informing us of this fact? For instance, I think string theory is probably wrong. But I don't see any point in spending my time trolling on string theory email lists and harping on this point repeatedly and confusingly. Let them explore their hypothesis... -- Ben G - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82594941-c3bbc7
Can Computers Be Creative? [WAS Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.]
Mike, This discussion is just another a repetition of a common fallacy, namely that computers cannot be creative (or flexible, adaptive, original etc.) because they are programmed. The fallacy can be illustrated by considering the following set of situations. 1) If I tell a child how to solve a calculus problem by giving them explicit steps to manipulate the symbols, they are not really doing the problem, they are just blindly doing what I am telling them to. The child is just following a program written by me. 2) If I tell a child some general rules for solving calculus problems, but let the child figure out which rules map onto the particular problem at hand, then the child is now doing some work, but still they don't understand calculus. 3) If I tell the child some of the background behind the general rules for solving calculus problems, things start to become a little less clear. If the child simply memorizes the rules and the background, and can recite them parrot fashion, do they actually understand? Probably not. Under those circumstances it might still be true to say that I am the one solving the problem, and the child is just following my program by rote. 4) If I explicitly teach a child all about mathematics (I am the math teacher), so they can see the linkages between all the different aspects of math that relate to calculus, and if the child now knows about calculus, then surely we would say that they understand and can creatively solve problems? 5) If I teach a child how to *learn* in a completely general way, and then give them a math book, and the child uses their learning skills to acquire a comprehensive knowledge of mathematics, including calculus, and if they do this so well that they understand the complete foundations of the field and can do research of their own, is it the case that the child is just following a program that I taught it (because I taught it everything about *how* to learn)? The problem is that people who make the claim that computers are not creative see the relationship between programmers and computers as like situation (1) above, when in fact it is like (5). For example, you say below: A *program* is a prior series or set of instructions that shapes and determines an agent's sequence of actions. A precise itinerary for a journey... The crucial thing is that THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF PROGRAMS, and some programs are like (1) above. But you are mistaking the fact that some are like (1) for the fact that all of them are. It is completely false to assume that programs in general have that kind of simplistic relationship between [code] and [performance carried out by the code]. In particular, my type of AI (and Ben's, and others who are attempting full-blown AGI) is at least as complex as the type (5) above. And for just the same reason that it would be false to say that a child that can do mathematics is just following the rules of their parents and kindergarten teacher (who arguably knew nothing about math, but who maybe did teach the child how to be a good learner), so it is completely false to say that a program is just a sequence of instructions that determines a computer's sequence of actions. The program may simply determine how the computer goes about the process of learning about the world while everything from there on out is not explicitly determined by the program, at all. The relationship between program and actual performance can be *incredibly* subtle, and sensitive to enormous numbers of factors ... so many factors that, in practice, it is not possible to say exactly why the computer did a particular thing. And when it gets to that level of complexity, a naive observer might say the computer is being creative. Indeed it is being creative in just the same way that a few billion neurons can also be creative. Richard Loosemore Mike Tintner wrote: Ben, Sounds like you may have missed the whole point of the test - though I mean no negative comment by that - it's all a question of communication. A *program* is a prior series or set of instructions that shapes and determines an agent's sequence of actions. A precise itinerary for a journey. Even if the programmer doesn't have a full but only a very partial vision of that eventual sequence or itinerary. (The agent of course can be either the human mind or a computer). If the mind works by *free composition,* then it works v. differently - though this is an idea that has still to be fleshed out, and could take many forms. The first crucial difference is that there is NO PRIOR SERIES OR SET OF INSTRUCTIONS - saves a helluva lot on both space and programming work. Rather the mind works principally by free association - making up that sequence of actions/ journey AS IT GOES ALONG. So my very crude idea of this is you start, say, with a feeling of hunger, which = go get food. And
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Robert, Look, the basic reality is that computers have NOT yet been creative in any significant way, and have NOT yet achieved AGI - general intelligence, - or indeed any significant rulebreaking adaptivity; (If you disagree, please provide examples. Ben keeps claiming/implying he's solved them or made significant advances, but when pressed never provides any indication of how). These are completely unsolved problems. Major creative problems. And I would suggest you have to be prepared for the solutions to be revolutionary and groundshaking. If you are truly serious about solving these problems, I suggest, you should prepared to be hurt - you should be ready to consider truly radical ideas - for the ground on which you stand to be questioned - and be seriously shaken up. You should WELCOME any and all of your assumptions being questioned. Even if, let's say, what I or someone else suggests is in the end nutty, drastic ideas are good for you to contemplate at least for a while. Having said all this, I accept that what I have been saying offends this community - I wasn't trying originally to push it, I got dragged into some of that last discussion.by Ben. And I also accept that most of you are not interested in going for the revolutionary, from whatever source. And I shall try to restrict my comments unless someone wishes to engage with me - although BTW I am ever more confident of my broad philosophical/ psychological position - the mind really doesn't work that way. I may possibly make one last related post in the not too distant future about the nature of problems, and which are/aren't suitable for programs - but just ignore it. Mike Tinter, If you really do not think that digital computers can be creative by definition, I do not understand why you would like to join a mailing list with AGI researchers? Computers operate by using software, thus, they need to be programmed. It just seems to me that you do not understand what the word program means. Even if you use use a computer that do not need to be loaded with a program, guess what, such a computer could be considered to have an initial program. The very determinism of the universe implicates that everything runs according to a program, including your ramblings here about creativity. I have to ask you a question, do you think the universe and everything in it runs according to deterministic laws of nature? Do you accept that you are a part of this deterministic reality? Well, in that case Ive got news for you, you are a program also! As evidence I would present your DNA, a program encoded and stored in molecular structures. Have you ever heard of computational equivalence? Do you know what it means? Also, I feel annoyed that you compare the Novamente architecture with something that just takes instructions, like do this, do that, then do this etc. It seems you need to spend greater effort in studying this architecture, for example by reading The Hidden Pattern. I feel you are in great need of widening your mind to understand chaotic or fractal processes. Take a forest for example, even in all its complexity and diversity, it is still governed by very simple and basic laws namely the laws of nature. By mimicking some of these laws at an appropriate level, such as shape level, programmers can create forests that to a very large extent looks like real forests: http://www.speedtree.com/. A generator such as speedtree could generate entire forests of miles and miles of trees, with no single two trees looking the same. Even though the lines of code producing the trees are pretty simple, the outcome in creativity and originality is vast. The same thing applies to a human mind. Even though the output of a human mind is amazingly diverse and creative, its program is still goverened by the basic laws of nature, and the DNA program. What AGI designers tries to do is to is to mimic this process. The concepts of program and determinism are pretty well established within the scientific community, please do not try to redefine them like you do. It just creates a lot of confusion. I think what you really want to use is the concept of adaptability, or maybe you could say you want an AGI system that is programmed in an indirect way (meaning that the program instructions are very far away from what the system actually does). But please do not say things like we should write AGI systems that are not programmed. It hurts my ears/eyes. /Robert Wensman 2008/1/7, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Well we (Penrose co) are all headed in roughly the same direction, but we're taking different routes. If you really want the discussion to continue, I think you have to put out something of your own approach here to spontaneous creativity (your terms) as requested. Yes, I still see the mind as following instructions a la briefing, but only odd
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Mike, Let me clarify further. What me and other computer scientists mean by program, is probably something like *A formal and non-ambigous description of a deterministic system that operates over time*. Thus, if you can describe something in nature with enough detail, your description is a program. As another example, if you write a book that describes the human mind formally in enough detail, that book in itself would become a program. So when you say that we cannot write a program that is creative on the same level as humans, you basically state that it would be impossible to describe the human mind in a detailed enough way. This is certainly bogus, as this could be done theoretically by simply scanning and recording the state and connections of every neuron in a human mind. Another way to put it, is that your suggestion implies that we could never *understand *the human mind on a fine enough level, which is pretty upsetting and certainly not revolutionary. What computers have or have not done up until this point is completely besides the question, if we discuss the definition of program. Yes, enough powerful AGI would be revolutionary, but they would still be programs. What you is suggesting is equivalent to asking a painter to paint a revolutionary painting, without using paint. What should he do, stare intensely at the canvas until what happens? He could try to cheat, using dirt, or mud to paint. But most people would then just say he invented another kind of paint, namely the dirt paint, or the mud paint. It is just impossible to paint a painting without paint (unless your painting is intended to look the same as the empty canvas). Painting paintings without paint is not a radical idea, it is just plain futile or incorrect, depending on perspective. Why this topic is frustrating, is because you are roughly right in one aspect. Yes, computers and AI systems up until this point has been programmed in a much too direct way, where the connection between programmers lines of code, and the systems actions has been too close. E.g. there is a line of code saying *if(handIsHot()) moveHand(),* and where the robot system moves its hand when it becomes hot. But this is what we here call narrow AI and what we all here try to distance ourselves from. From what I can tell, Novamente is for example miles and miles and miles away from this kind of programming. In contrast, systems like Novamente studies input and builds and relates concepts to abstract goals and later form actions using different kinds of subtle methods. But a system like that is * complex* and you cannot expect Ben Goertzel to blurt out all this complexity in an email on this mailing list. You have to study the design in detail if you are interested in it. But the bottom line is, it is still programming in any way you choose to look at it (unless you want to use the word programming in some way that no other person on earth is using it, but in that case, be prepared to feel alone). You should focus on HOW we could make programs creative, rather loosing yourself in a strange quest to redefine well established terminology. It is completley besides the point. /Robert Wensman 2008/1/7, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Robert, Look, the basic reality is that computers have NOT yet been creative in any significant way, and have NOT yet achieved AGI - general intelligence, - or indeed any significant rulebreaking adaptivity; (If you disagree, please provide examples. Ben keeps claiming/implying he's solved them or made significant advances, but when pressed never provides any indication of how). These are completely unsolved problems. Major creative problems. And I would suggest you have to be prepared for the solutions to be revolutionary and groundshaking. If you are truly serious about solving these problems, I suggest, you should prepared to be hurt - you should be ready to consider truly radical ideas - for the ground on which you stand to be questioned - and be seriously shaken up. You should WELCOME any and all of your assumptions being questioned. Even if, let's say, what I or someone else suggests is in the end nutty, drastic ideas are good for you to contemplate at least for a while. Having said all this, I accept that what I have been saying offends this community - I wasn't trying originally to push it, I got dragged into some of that last discussion.by Ben. And I also accept that most of you are not interested in going for the revolutionary, from whatever source. And I shall try to restrict my comments unless someone wishes to engage with me - although BTW I am ever more confident of my broad philosophical/ psychological position - the mind really doesn't work that way. I may possibly make one last related post in the not too distant future about the nature of problems, and which are/aren't suitable for programs - but just ignore it. Mike Tinter, If you really do not think that digital
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Mike, To put my question in another way. Would you like to understand intelligence? Understand it to such a degree, that you can give a detailed and non-ambiguous description of how an intelligent system operates over time? Well, if you do want that, then you want -using standard terminology- to create an intelligent program. Why we get upset is because we feel you basically say I don't want to understand intelligence alternatively intelligence can never be clearly understood. You have to understand how computer scientists use the word program to understand how we perceive your statements. From our perspective, your position is not revolutionary, just depressing. /Robert Wensman 2008/1/7, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Robert, Look, the basic reality is that computers have NOT yet been creative in any significant way, and have NOT yet achieved AGI - general intelligence, - or indeed any significant rulebreaking adaptivity; (If you disagree, please provide examples. Ben keeps claiming/implying he's solved them or made significant advances, but when pressed never provides any indication of how). These are completely unsolved problems. Major creative problems. And I would suggest you have to be prepared for the solutions to be revolutionary and groundshaking. If you are truly serious about solving these problems, I suggest, you should prepared to be hurt - you should be ready to consider truly radical ideas - for the ground on which you stand to be questioned - and be seriously shaken up. You should WELCOME any and all of your assumptions being questioned. Even if, let's say, what I or someone else suggests is in the end nutty, drastic ideas are good for you to contemplate at least for a while. Having said all this, I accept that what I have been saying offends this community - I wasn't trying originally to push it, I got dragged into some of that last discussion.by Ben. And I also accept that most of you are not interested in going for the revolutionary, from whatever source. And I shall try to restrict my comments unless someone wishes to engage with me - although BTW I am ever more confident of my broad philosophical/ psychological position - the mind really doesn't work that way. I may possibly make one last related post in the not too distant future about the nature of problems, and which are/aren't suitable for programs - but just ignore it. Mike Tinter, If you really do not think that digital computers can be creative by definition, I do not understand why you would like to join a mailing list with AGI researchers? Computers operate by using software, thus, they need to be programmed. It just seems to me that you do not understand what the word program means. Even if you use use a computer that do not need to be loaded with a program, guess what, such a computer could be considered to have an initial program. The very determinism of the universe implicates that everything runs according to a program, including your ramblings here about creativity. I have to ask you a question, do you think the universe and everything in it runs according to deterministic laws of nature? Do you accept that you are a part of this deterministic reality? Well, in that case Ive got news for you, you are a program also! As evidence I would present your DNA, a program encoded and stored in molecular structures. Have you ever heard of computational equivalence? Do you know what it means? Also, I feel annoyed that you compare the Novamente architecture with something that just takes instructions, like do this, do that, then do this etc. It seems you need to spend greater effort in studying this architecture, for example by reading The Hidden Pattern. I feel you are in great need of widening your mind to understand chaotic or fractal processes. Take a forest for example, even in all its complexity and diversity, it is still governed by very simple and basic laws namely the laws of nature. By mimicking some of these laws at an appropriate level, such as shape level, programmers can create forests that to a very large extent looks like real forests: http://www.speedtree.com/. A generator such as speedtree could generate entire forests of miles and miles of trees, with no single two trees looking the same. Even though the lines of code producing the trees are pretty simple, the outcome in creativity and originality is vast. The same thing applies to a human mind. Even though the output of a human mind is amazingly diverse and creative, its program is still goverened by the basic laws of nature, and the DNA program. What AGI designers tries to do is to is to mimic this process. The concepts of program and determinism are pretty well established within the scientific community, please do not try to redefine them like you do. It just creates a lot of confusion. I think what you really want to use is the concept of adaptability, or maybe
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Would two AGI's with the same initial learning program, same hardware in a controlled environment (same access to a specific learning base- something like an encyclopedia) learn at different rates and excel in different tasks? Mike, To put my question in another way. Would you like to understand intelligence? Understand it to such a degree, that you can give a detailed and non-ambiguous description of how an intelligent system operates over time? Well, if you do want that, then you want -using standard terminology- to create an intelligent program. Why we get upset is because we feel you basically say I don't want to understand intelligence alternatively intelligence can never be clearly understood. You have to understand how computer scientists use the word program to understand how we perceive your statements. From our perspective, your position is not revolutionary, just depressing. /Robert Wensman 2008/1/7, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Robert, Look, the basic reality is that computers have NOT yet been creative in any significant way, and have NOT yet achieved AGI - general intelligence, - or indeed any significant rulebreaking adaptivity; (If you disagree, please provide examples. Ben keeps claiming/implying he's solved them or made significant advances, but when pressed never provides any indication of how). These are completely unsolved problems. Major creative problems. And I would suggest you have to be prepared for the solutions to be revolutionary and groundshaking. If you are truly serious about solving these problems, I suggest, you should prepared to be hurt - you should be ready to consider truly radical ideas - for the ground on which you stand to be questioned - and be seriously shaken up. You should WELCOME any and all of your assumptions being questioned. Even if, let's say, what I or someone else suggests is in the end nutty, drastic ideas are good for you to contemplate at least for a while. Having said all this, I accept that what I have been saying offends this community - I wasn't trying originally to push it, I got dragged into some of that last discussion.by Ben. And I also accept that most of you are not interested in going for the revolutionary, from whatever source. And I shall try to restrict my comments unless someone wishes to engage with me - although BTW I am ever more confident of my broad philosophical/ psychological position - the mind really doesn't work that way. I may possibly make one last related post in the not too distant future about the nature of problems, and which are/aren't suitable for programs - but just ignore it. Mike Tinter, If you really do not think that digital computers can be creative by definition, I do not understand why you would like to join a mailing list with AGI researchers? Computers operate by using software, thus, they need to be programmed. It just seems to me that you do not understand what the word program means. Even if you use use a computer that do not need to be loaded with a program, guess what, such a computer could be considered to have an initial program. The very determinism of the universe implicates that everything runs according to a program, including your ramblings here about creativity. I have to ask you a question, do you think the universe and everything in it runs according to deterministic laws of nature? Do you accept that you are a part of this deterministic reality? Well, in that case Ive got news for you, you are a program also! As evidence I would present your DNA, a program encoded and stored in molecular structures. Have you ever heard of computational equivalence? Do you know what it means? Also, I feel annoyed that you compare the Novamente architecture with something that just takes instructions, like do this, do that, then do this etc. It seems you need to spend greater effort in studying this architecture, for example by reading The Hidden Pattern. I feel you are in great need of widening your mind to understand chaotic or fractal processes. Take a forest for example, even in all its complexity and diversity, it is still governed by very simple and basic laws namely the laws of nature. By mimicking some of these laws at an appropriate level, such as shape level, programmers can create forests that to a very large extent looks like real forests: http://www.speedtree.com/. A generator such as speedtree could generate entire forests of miles and miles of trees, with no single two trees looking the same. Even though the lines of code producing the trees are pretty simple, the outcome in creativity and originality is vast. The same thing applies to a human mind. Even though the output of a human mind is amazingly diverse and creative, its program is still goverened by the basic laws of nature, and the DNA program. What AGI designers tries
RE: Can Computers Be Creative? [WAS Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.]
simply executes algorithms, as a billiard table where billiard balls act as message carriers and their interactions act as logical decisions. He argues against the viewpoint that the rational processes of the human mind are completely algorithmic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm and can thus be duplicated by a sufficiently complex computer -- this is in contrast to views, e.g., Biological Naturalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_Naturalism , that human behavior but not consciousness might be simulated. This is based on claims that human consciousness transcends formal logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_logic systems because things such as the insolubility of the halting problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem and Gödel's incompleteness theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorem restrict an algorithmically based logic from traits such as mathematical insight. These claims were originally made by the philosopher John Lucas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lucas_%28philosopher%29 of Merton College http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merton_College%2C_Oxford , Oxford http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Oxford . In 1994 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994 , Penrose followed up The Emperor's New Mind with Shadows of the Mind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind and in 1997 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997 with The Large, the Small and the Human Mind http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Large%2C_the_Small_and_the_Hu man_Mindaction=edit , further updating and expanding his theories. Penrose's views on the human thought http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought process are not widely accepted in scientific circles. According to Marvin Minsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Minsky , because people can construe false ideas to be factual, the process of thinking is not limited to formal logic. Furthermore, he says that AI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence programs can also conclude that false statements are true, so error is not unique to humans. Penrose and Stuart Hameroff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hameroff have constructed a theory in which human consciousness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects in microtubules http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtubule , which they dubbed Orch-OR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orch-OR (orchestrated object reduction). But Max Tegmark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark , in a paper in Physical Review E, calculated that the time scale of neuron firing and excitations in microtubules is slower than the decoherence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence time by a factor of at least 10,000,000,000. The reception of the paper is summed up by this statement in his support: Physicists outside the fray, such as IBM's John Smolin http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Smolinaction=edit , say the calculations confirm what they had suspected all along. 'We're not working with a brain that's near absolute zero. It's reasonably unlikely that the brain evolved quantum behavior', he says. The Tegmark paper has been widely cited by critics of the Penrose-Hameroff proposal. It has been claimed by Hameroff to be based on a number of incorrect assumptions (see linked paper below from Hameroff, Hagan http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scott_Haganaction=edit and Tuszyński http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jack_Tuszy%C5%84skiaction=edit ), but Tegmark in turn has argued that the critique is invalid (see rejoinder link below). In particular, Hameroff points out the peculiarity that Tegmark's formula for the decoherence time includes a factor of [the square root of temperature, if you can't see the graphic] in the numerator, meaning that higher temperatures would lead to longer decoherence times. Tegmark's rejoinder keeps the factor of [the square root of temperature, if you can't see the graphic]for the decoherence time. -Original Message- From: Richard Loosemore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 10:09 AM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Can Computers Be Creative? [WAS Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.] Mike, This discussion is just another a repetition of a common fallacy, namely that computers cannot be creative (or flexible, adaptive, original etc.) because they are programmed. The fallacy can be illustrated by considering the following set of situations. 1) If I tell a child how to solve a calculus problem by giving them explicit steps to manipulate the symbols, they are not really doing the problem, they are just blindly doing what I am telling them to. The child is just following a program written by me. 2) If I tell a child some general rules for solving calculus problems, but let the child figure out which rules map onto the particular problem at hand, then the child is now doing some work, but still they don't understand calculus
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
On Jan 7, 2008 12:08 PM, David Butler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Would two AGI's with the same initial learning program, same hardware in a controlled environment (same access to a specific learning base-something like an encyclopedia) learn at different rates and excel in different tasks? Yes ... Even in the extreme case of identical external stimuli, two AGI systems could evolve slightly differently due to consequences of rounding error. However, if the AGI systems were built carefully enough (so as not to be susceptible to rounding error or other related phenomena) it could be made so that with totally identical environments they were totally identical in behavior, so long as no hardware failures occurred. (I note though that minor hardware failures like small defects in RAM or disk could always intervene and play the same role as roundoff error, potentially setting the two AGIs with identical code and identical environmental stimuli on different courses.) -- Ben - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82647670-987d16
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
How would an AGI choose which things to learn first if given enough data so that it would have to make a choice? If two AGI's (again-same hardware, learning programs and controlled environment) were given the same data would they make different choices? On Jan 7, 2008, at 11:15 AM, Benjamin Goertzel wrote: On Jan 7, 2008 12:08 PM, David Butler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Would two AGI's with the same initial learning program, same hardware in a controlled environment (same access to a specific learning base- something like an encyclopedia) learn at different rates and excel in different tasks? Yes ... Even in the extreme case of identical external stimuli, two AGI systems could evolve slightly differently due to consequences of rounding error. However, if the AGI systems were built carefully enough (so as not to be susceptible to rounding error or other related phenomena) it could be made so that with totally identical environments they were totally identical in behavior, so long as no hardware failures occurred. (I note though that minor hardware failures like small defects in RAM or disk could always intervene and play the same role as roundoff error, potentially setting the two AGIs with identical code and identical environmental stimuli on different courses.) -- Ben - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/? - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82651064-e17c10
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
2008/1/7, David Butler [EMAIL PROTECTED]: How would an AGI choose which things to learn first if given enough data so that it would have to make a choice? This is a simple question that demands a complex answer. It is like asking How can a commercial airliner fly across the Atlantic?. Well, in that case you would have to study aerodynamics, mechanics, physics, thermodynamics, computer science, electronics, metallurgy and chemistry for several years, and in the end you would discover that one single person cannot understand such a complex machine in its entire detail. True enough, one person could understand all basic principles for such a system, but explaining them would hardly suffice as evidence that it would actually work in practice. If you lived in the medieval times, and someone asked you how is it possible to cross the Atlantic in a flying machine carrying several hundred passengers?, what would you answer? Even if you had the expertise knowledge it would be very hard to explain thoroughly, just because the machine is so complex and you would have to explain every technology from the beginning. Where would you start? Maybe some person with less insight would interrupt you after a few sentences and say well, clearly you cannot present evidence that it will ever work and make fun of the idea, but how does insufficient time/space to explain a complex system prove that something is not possible? The same goes for AGI, for example when someone asks how can we create a program that is creative and can choose what to learn?. In response to this it is possible to present a lot of different principles, such as adaptability, genetic programming, quelling of combinatorial explosions etc. But will the principles work in practice when put together? Well, at this stage we simply cannot tell. *So every person just has to make a choice in whether to believe it is possible, or whether to believe it is not possible. *But just because no AGI researcher can answer that question in a few words. how can we create a programs that is creative and can choose what to learn, it doesn't mean it is not possible when all these principles come together. We just have to wait and see. To those who do not believe: Please just go away from this mailing list and do not interfere with the work here. Don't demand proof that it would work, because when we have such proof, i.e. a finished AGI system, we wont need to defend our hypothesises anyway. If two AGI's (again-same hardware, learning programs and controlled environment) were given the same data would they make different choices? Is a deterministic system deterministic? I do not understand what you are getting at. Why this question? I think Benjamin answered this question pretty thoroughly already. /Robert Wensman - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82686766-4e2400
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Robert, Thank you for your time. I am not a scientist nor do I have an opinion or agenda on weather a successful AGI can be built. I am just really curious and exited about the prospects. On Jan 7, 2008, at 12:39 PM, Robert Wensman wrote: 2008/1/7, David Butler [EMAIL PROTECTED]: How would an AGI choose which things to learn first if given enough data so that it would have to make a choice? This is a simple question that demands a complex answer. It is like asking How can a commercial airliner fly across the Atlantic?. Well, in that case you would have to study aerodynamics, mechanics, physics, thermodynamics, computer science, electronics, metallurgy and chemistry for several years, and in the end you would discover that one single person cannot understand such a complex machine in its entire detail. True enough, one person could understand all basic principles for such a system, but explaining them would hardly suffice as evidence that it would actually work in practice. If you lived in the medieval times, and someone asked you how is it possible to cross the Atlantic in a flying machine carrying several hundred passengers?, what would you answer? Even if you had the expertise knowledge it would be very hard to explain thoroughly, just because the machine is so complex and you would have to explain every technology from the beginning. Where would you start? Maybe some person with less insight would interrupt you after a few sentences and say well, clearly you cannot present evidence that it will ever work and make fun of the idea, but how does insufficient time/space to explain a complex system prove that something is not possible? The same goes for AGI, for example when someone asks how can we create a program that is creative and can choose what to learn?. In response to this it is possible to present a lot of different principles, such as adaptability, genetic programming, quelling of combinatorial explosions etc. But will the principles work in practice when put together? Well, at this stage we simply cannot tell. So every person just has to make a choice in whether to believe it is possible, or whether to believe it is not possible. But just because no AGI researcher can answer that question in a few words. how can we create a programs that is creative and can choose what to learn, it doesn't mean it is not possible when all these principles come together. We just have to wait and see. To those who do not believe: Please just go away from this mailing list and do not interfere with the work here. Don't demand proof that it would work, because when we have such proof, i.e. a finished AGI system, we wont need to defend our hypothesises anyway. If two AGI's (again-same hardware, learning programs and controlled environment) were given the same data would they make different choices? Is a deterministic system deterministic? I do not understand what you are getting at. Why this question? I think Benjamin answered this question pretty thoroughly already. /Robert Wensman This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/? - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82704532-0ec3b9
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Mike, You have mischaracterized cog sci. It does not say the things you claim it does. What you are actually trying to attack was a particular view of AI (not cog sci) in which everything is symbolic in a particular kind of way. That stuff is just a straw man. Cog sci in general encourages a wide range of different theories of cognition, and the one that you vaguely describe is easily part of teh cog sci mainstream. Richard Loosemore Mike Tintner wrote: I think I've found a simple test of cog. sci. I take the basic premise of cog. sci. to be that the human mind - and therefore its every activity, or sequence of action - is programmed. Eric Baum epitomises cog. sci.Baum proposes [in What Is Thought] that underlying mind is a complex but compact program that corresponds to the underlying structure of the world.. As you know, I contend that that is absurd - that, yes, every human activity - having a conversation, writing a post, making love, doing a drawing etc - is massively subprogrammed, containing often v. large numbers of routines - but as a whole, each activity is a free composition. Those routines, along with isolated actions, are more or less freely thrown together - freely associated . As a whole, our activities are more or less crazy walks - I use crazy to mean both structured and chaotic - and effectively self-contradictory. (This has huge implications for AGI - you guys believe that an AGI must be programmed for its activities, I contend that free composition instead is essential for truly adaptive, general intelligence and is the basis of all animal and human activities). So how to test cog sci? I contend that the proper, *ideal* test is to record humans' actual streams of thought about any problem - like, say, writing an essay - and even just a minute's worth will show that, actually, humans have major difficulties following anything like a joined-up, rational train of thought - or any stream that looks remotely like it could be programmed overall. (That includes more esoteric forms of programming like random kinds). Actually, humans follow more or less roving, crazy streams of thought - not chaotic by any means, but not perfectly joined up either - more or less free-form, a bit like free verse - somewhat structured but only loosely). I still think that this is the proper, essential approach to studying the connectedness, programmed or otherwise, of human thought. But it is obviously a complicated affair - even if one could record those streams of thought absolutely faithfully. And science likes simple tests/ experiments - the more mathematical and measurable the better. So here's a simple mathematical test, which everyone can try. Do an abstract line drawing. (for let's say 30 secs. - on this particular site) Here are a few of my spontaneous masterpieces: http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_194101926_970043768_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_194033348_926554557_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_193922629_715992016_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_193734879_1708083161_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . The beauty of this site is that it does indeed record the actual stream of thought/ drawing - and not just the end result. (It would be v. interesting to see many other people's tests). Now you guys are mathematicians - I contend that those drawings are indeed crazy, spontaneous, free compositions - they have themes and patterns in parts and are by no means entirely random, but they are certainly not patterned or programmed overall either. Can you find an overall pattern or program to any of them - let alone a program that underlies ALL of them? Or, if you prefer, can you find a suite of programs? (I guess a more formal way of expressing the test is that on any given page, it is possible to draw an infinite number of line drawings which are a) structured b) chaotic c) crazy (mixtures of both) - and, in principle, programmed or non-programmed. And to assert that human activities are programmed is, in the final analysis, to assert that there is no such thing as a crazy set of lines. But please comment). What this test shows, I believe, is the bleeding obvious - humans can and do produce truly spontaneous,crazy, nonprogrammed,ad hoc, unplanned sequences of action. Well, it should be
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
David Butler wrote: I would say that the best way to simulate human intelligence with diversity and creativity is to create not one AGI but many. The only way to insure diversity and natural selection like our own evolution is to simultaneously create multiple AGI's so that we have a better chance of the emergence of the best path for the evolution of friendly AGI. I am new to this list. Is there anyone out there who has addressed this issue? We have many people who are very gifted with math and science who are in the forefront of AGI, but random creativity and seat of the pants intuition is a really big part of human evolution. If we create multiple AGI's we have a chance that all of our traits are developed (in the same way that we are genetically programed) in some way to create a community of sorts that hopefully will be able to sustain our legacy of diversity and creative thought. Dave Butler Making one AGI is difficult, so really the friendliness problem and the question of how to make them creative (etc) already has to be confronted and solved before we create the first one. Creating multiple AGIs would then be an afterthought, rather than a solution to those problems. If, on the other hand, you are talking about the RD process that will go on during the creation of the first AGI, then I completely agree with you: we need to experiment with a range of mechanisms in order to find out how they behave (and that is very much part of my own program of research). But these will not be free-ranging AGIs that are allowed to evolve and interact in the real world. That would be very different from simply allowing everyone and their motheer to build a different type of AGI, then letting them all interact and compete to see which is the best. Richard Loosemore On Jan 5, 2008, at 9:52 PM, Mike Tintner wrote: I think I've found a simple test of cog. sci. I take the basic premise of cog. sci. to be that the human mind - and therefore its every activity, or sequence of action - is programmed. Eric Baum epitomises cog. sci.Baum proposes [in What Is Thought] that underlying mind is a complex but compact program that corresponds to the underlying structure of the world.. As you know, I contend that that is absurd - that, yes, every human activity - having a conversation, writing a post, making love, doing a drawing etc - is massively subprogrammed, containing often v. large numbers of routines - but as a whole, each activity is a free composition. Those routines, along with isolated actions, are more or less freely thrown together - freely associated . As a whole, our activities are more or less crazy walks - I use crazy to mean both structured and chaotic - and effectively self-contradictory. (This has huge implications for AGI - you guys believe that an AGI must be programmed for its activities, I contend that free composition instead is essential for truly adaptive, general intelligence and is the basis of all animal and human activities). So how to test cog sci? I contend that the proper, *ideal* test is to record humans' actual streams of thought about any problem - like, say, writing an essay - and even just a minute's worth will show that, actually, humans have major difficulties following anything like a joined-up, rational train of thought - or any stream that looks remotely like it could be programmed overall. (That includes more esoteric forms of programming like random kinds). Actually, humans follow more or less roving, crazy streams of thought - not chaotic by any means, but not perfectly joined up either - more or less free-form, a bit like free verse - somewhat structured but only loosely). I still think that this is the proper, essential approach to studying the connectedness, programmed or otherwise, of human thought. But it is obviously a complicated affair - even if one could record those streams of thought absolutely faithfully. And science likes simple tests/ experiments - the more mathematical and measurable the better. So here's a simple mathematical test, which everyone can try. Do an abstract line drawing. (for let's say 30 secs. - on this particular site) Here are a few of my spontaneous masterpieces: http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_194101926_970043768_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_194033348_926554557_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_193922629_715992016_gbrtranscript=_lscid= .
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
On Jan 5, 2008 10:52 PM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think I've found a simple test of cog. sci. I take the basic premise of cog. sci. to be that the human mind - and therefore its every activity, or sequence of action - is programmed. No. This is one perspective taken by some cognitive scientists. It does not characterize the field. (This has huge implications for AGI - you guys believe that an AGI must be programmed for its activities, I contend that free composition instead is essential for truly adaptive, general intelligence and is the basis of all animal and human activities). Spontaneous, creative self-organized activity is a key aspect of Novamente and many other AGI designs. So how to test cog sci? I contend that the proper, *ideal* test is to record humans' actual streams of thought about any problem - like, say, writing an essay - and even just a minute's worth will show that, actually, humans have major difficulties following anything like a joined-up, rational train of thought - or any stream that looks remotely like it could be programmed overall. A) While introspection is certainly a valid and important tool for inspiring work in AI and cog sci, it is not a test of anything. There is much empirical evidence showing that humans' introspections of their own cognitive processes are highly partial and inaccurate. For instance, if we were following the arithmetic algorithms that we think we are, there is no way the timing of our responses when solving arithmetic problems would come out the way they actually do. (I don't have the references for this work at hand, but I saw it years ago in the Journal of Math Psych I believe.) B) Whether something looks like it's following a simple set of rules doesn't mean much. Chaotic underlying dynamics can give rise to high-level orderly behavior; and simple systems of rules can give rise to apparently disorderly, incomprehensibly complex behaviors. Cf the whole field of complex-systems dynamics. -- Ben G - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82365583-966081
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
I don't really understand what you mean by programmed ... nor by creative You say that, according to your definitions, a GA is programmed and ergo cannot be creative... How about, for instance, a computer simulation of a human brain? That would be operated via program code, hence it would be programmed -- so would you consider it intrinsically noncreative? Could you please define your terms more clearly? thx ben On Jan 6, 2008 1:21 PM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MT: This has huge implications for AGI - you guys believe that an AGI must be programmed for its activities, I contend that free composition instead is essential for truly adaptive, general intelligence and is the basis of all animal and human activities). Ben: Spontaneous, creative self-organized activity is a key aspect of Novamente and many other AGI designs. Ben, You are saying that your pet presumably works at times in a non-programmed way - spontaneously and creatively? Can you explain briefly the computational principle(s) behind this, and give an example of where it's applied, (exploration of an environment, say)? This strikes me as an extremely significant, even revolutionary claim to make, and it would be a pity if, as with your analogy claim, you simply throw it out again without any explanation. And I'm wondering whether you are perhaps confused about this, (or I have confused you) - in the way you definitely are below. Genetic algorithms, for example, and suchlike classify as programmed and neither truly spontaneous nor creative. Note that Baum asked me a while back what test I could provide that humans engage in free thinking. He, quite rightly, thought it a scientifically significant claim to make, that demanded scientific substantiation. My test is not a test, I stress though, of free will. But have you changed your mind about this? It's hard though not a complete contradiction to believe in a mind being spontaneously creative and yet not having freedom of decision. MT: I contend that the proper, *ideal* test is to record humans' actual streams of thought about any problem Ben: While introspection is certainly a valid and important tool for inspiring work in AI and cog sci, it is not a test of anything. Ben, This is a really major - and very widespread - confusion. A recording of streams of thought is what it says - a direct or recreated recording of a person's actual thoughts. So, if I remember right, some form of that NASA recording of subvocalisation when someone is immediately thinking about a problem, would classify as a record of their thoughts. Introspection is very different - it is a report of thoughts, remembered at a later, often much later time. A record(ing) might be me saying I want to kill you, you bastard in an internal daydream. Introspection might be me reporting later: I got very angry with him in my mind/ daydream. Huge difference. An awful lot of scientists think, quite mistakenly, that the latter is the best science can possibly hope to do. Verbal protocols - getting people to think aloud about problems - are a sort of halfway house (or better). - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82398434-a3e5d5
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Benjamin Goertzel wrote: I don't really understand what you mean by programmed ... nor by creative You say that, according to your definitions, a GA is programmed and ergo cannot be creative... How about, for instance, a computer simulation of a human brain? That would be operated via program code, hence it would be programmed -- so would you consider it intrinsically noncreative? Could you please define your terms more clearly? thx ben Creativity is a byproduct of analogical reasoning, or abstraction. It has nothing to do with symbols or genetic algorithms! GA is too computationally complex to generate creative solutions. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82421095-927e7e
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
On Jan 6, 2008 3:07 PM, a [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Creativity is a byproduct of analogical reasoning, or abstraction. It has nothing to do with symbols or genetic algorithms! GA is too computationally complex to generate creative solutions. care to explain what sounds so absolute as to certainly be wrong? Is the brain too compurationally complex to generate creative solutions? (scare quotes persisted) Or are you suggesting that GA is more computationally complex than your brain? - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82423813-676f3c
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Ben, Sounds like you may have missed the whole point of the test - though I mean no negative comment by that - it's all a question of communication. A *program* is a prior series or set of instructions that shapes and determines an agent's sequence of actions. A precise itinerary for a journey. Even if the programmer doesn't have a full but only a very partial vision of that eventual sequence or itinerary. (The agent of course can be either the human mind or a computer). If the mind works by *free composition,* then it works v. differently - though this is an idea that has still to be fleshed out, and could take many forms. The first crucial difference is that there is NO PRIOR SERIES OR SET OF INSTRUCTIONS - saves a helluva lot on both space and programming work. Rather the mind works principally by free association - making up that sequence of actions/ journey AS IT GOES ALONG. So my very crude idea of this is you start, say, with a feeling of hunger, which = go get food. And immediately you go to the fridge. But only then, when the right food isn't there, do you think: in what other place could food be. And you may end up going various places, and/or asking various people, and/or consulting various sources of information, and/or doing things that you don't normally do like actually cooking/preparing various dishes, or looking under sofas or going to a restaurant- but there was no initial program in your brain for the actual journey you undertake, which is simply thrown together ad hoc and can take many different courses. Rather like an actual Freudian chain of free word associations, where there cannot possibly be a prior program (or would anyone disagree?) (Any given journey, though, may involve many well-established routines). As opposed to an initial AI-style program with complete set of instructions, I suggest, the mind in undertaking activities, has normally only the roughest of briefs outlining a goal, together with a rough, abstract and very, even extremely, incomplete sketch of the journey to be undertaken. A program is essentially a detailed blueprint for a house. A free composition is a very rough sketchy outline to begin with, that is freely filled in as you go along . Evolution and development seem to work more on the latter principle - remember Dawkins' idea of them as like an airplane built in mid-flight - though our physical development, while definitely having considerable degrees of freedom as to possible physiques, is vastly more constrained than our physical and mental activities. None of the many activities of writing a program that you have undertaken - as distinct from the programs themselves - was, I suggest, remotely preprogrammed itself. Writing a program like any creative activity - writing a story/musical piece/ drawing a picture or producing a design - is a free composition. A crazy walk. Genetic algorithms are indeed programs and function v. differently from human creativity. They proceed along predefined lines. Nothing crazy about them. If they produce surprising results, it is only because the programmer didn't have the capacity to think through the consequences of his instructions. Now note here - heavily underlined several times - I have only gone into free composition, in order to give you something more or less vivid to contrast with the idea of a program. But the point of my test is NOT to elucidate the idea of free composition- I don't have to do that - it is to test hopefully destroy the idea of the mind being driven by neat prior sets of instructions - even pace Richard or genetic algorithms, v. complex sets of instructions. Does that make the program/free composition distinction - the point of the test - clearer, regardless of how you may agree/disagree? Ben: I don't really understand what you mean by programmed ... nor by creative You say that, according to your definitions, a GA is programmed and ergo cannot be creative... How about, for instance, a computer simulation of a human brain? That would be operated via program code, hence it would be programmed -- so would you consider it intrinsically noncreative? Could you please define your terms more clearly? thx ben On Jan 6, 2008 1:21 PM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MT: This has huge implications for AGI - you guys believe that an AGI must be programmed for its activities, I contend that free composition instead is essential for truly adaptive, general intelligence and is the basis of all animal and human activities). Ben: Spontaneous, creative self-organized activity is a key aspect of Novamente and many other AGI designs. Ben, You are saying that your pet presumably works at times in a non-programmed way - spontaneously and creatively? Can you explain briefly the computational principle(s) behind this, and give an example of where it's applied, (exploration of an environment, say)? This strikes
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
On Jan 6, 2008 4:00 PM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben, Sounds like you may have missed the whole point of the test - though I mean no negative comment by that - it's all a question of communication. A *program* is a prior series or set of instructions that shapes and determines an agent's sequence of actions. A precise itinerary for a journey. Even if the programmer doesn't have a full but only a very partial vision of that eventual sequence or itinerary. (The agent of course can be either the human mind or a computer). OK, then any AI that is implemented in computer software is by your definition a programmed AI. Whether it is based on GA's, neural nets, logical theorem-proving or whatever. So, is your argument that digital computer programs can never be creative, since you have asserted that programmed AI's can never be creative? -- Ben G - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82448475-4978a0
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Benjamin Goertzel wrote: So, is your argument that digital computer programs can never be creative, since you have asserted that programmed AI's can never be creative Hard-wired AI (such as KB, NLP, symbol systems) cannot be creative. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82459047-c3be62
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Mike, The short answer is that I don't believe that computer *programs* can be creative in the hard sense, because they presuppose a line of enquiry, a predetermined approach to a problem - ... But I see no reason why computers couldn't be briefed rather than programmed, and freely associate across domains rather than working along predetermined lines. But the computer that is being briefed is still running some software program, hence is still programmed -- and its responses are still determined by that program (in conjunction w/ the environment, which however it perceives only thru a digital bit stream) I don't however believe that purely *digital* computers are capable of all the literally imaginative powers (as already discussed elsewhere) that are also necessary for true creativity and general intelligence. I don't know how you define a literally imaginative power. So, it seems like you are saying -- digital computer software can never truly be creative or possess general intelligence Is this your assertion? It is not an original one of course: Penrose, Dreyfus and many others have argued the same point. The latter paragraph of yours I've quoted could be straight out of The Emeperor's New Mind by Penrose. Penrose then notes that quantum computers can compute only the same stuff that digital computers can; so he posits that general intelligence is possible only for quantum gravity computers, which is what he posits the brain is. I think Penrose is most probably wrong, but at least I understand what he is saying... I'm just trying to understand what your perspective actually is... thx Ben - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82464788-e73a96
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
Well we (Penrose co) are all headed in roughly the same direction, but we're taking different routes. If you really want the discussion to continue, I think you have to put out something of your own approach here to spontaneous creativity (your terms) as requested. Yes, I still see the mind as following instructions a la briefing, but only odd ones, not a whole rigid set of them., a la programs. And the instructions are open-ended and non-deterministically open to interpretation, just as my briefing/instruction to you - Ben go and get me something nice for supper - is. Oh, and the instructions that drive us, i.e. emotions, are always conflicting, e.g [Ben:] I might like to.. but do I really want to get that bastard anything for supper? Or have the time to, when I am on the very verge of creating my stupendous AGI? Listen, I can go on and on - the big initial deal is the claim that the mind isn't - no successful AGI can be - driven by a program, or thoroughgoing SERIES/SET of instructions - if it is to solve even minimal general adaptive, let alone hard creative problems. No structured approach will work for an ill-structured problem. You must give some indication of how you think a program CAN be generally adaptive/ creative - or, I would argue, squares (programs are so square, man) can be circled :). Mike, The short answer is that I don't believe that computer *programs* can be creative in the hard sense, because they presuppose a line of enquiry, a predetermined approach to a problem - ... But I see no reason why computers couldn't be briefed rather than programmed, and freely associate across domains rather than working along predetermined lines. But the computer that is being briefed is still running some software program, hence is still programmed -- and its responses are still determined by that program (in conjunction w/ the environment, which however it perceives only thru a digital bit stream) I don't however believe that purely *digital* computers are capable of all the literally imaginative powers (as already discussed elsewhere) that are also necessary for true creativity and general intelligence. I don't know how you define a literally imaginative power. So, it seems like you are saying -- digital computer software can never truly be creative or possess general intelligence Is this your assertion? It is not an original one of course: Penrose, Dreyfus and many others have argued the same point. The latter paragraph of yours I've quoted could be straight out of The Emeperor's New Mind by Penrose. Penrose then notes that quantum computers can compute only the same stuff that digital computers can; so he posits that general intelligence is possible only for quantum gravity computers, which is what he posits the brain is. I think Penrose is most probably wrong, but at least I understand what he is saying... I'm just trying to understand what your perspective actually is... - Release Date: 1/5/2008 11:46 AM - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82482150-8495ed
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
If you believe in principle that no digital computer program can ever be creative, then there's no point in me or anyone else rambling on at length about their own particular approach to digital-computer-program creativity... One question I have is whether you would be convinced that digital programs ARE capable of true creativity, by any possible actual achievements of digital computer programs... If a digital computer program made a great painting, wrote a great novel, proved a great theorem, patented dozens of innovative inventions, etc. -- would you be willing to admit it's creative, or would you argue that due to its digital nature, it must have achieved these things in a noncreative way? Ben On Jan 6, 2008 6:58 PM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well we (Penrose co) are all headed in roughly the same direction, but we're taking different routes. If you really want the discussion to continue, I think you have to put out something of your own approach here to spontaneous creativity (your terms) as requested. Yes, I still see the mind as following instructions a la briefing, but only odd ones, not a whole rigid set of them., a la programs. And the instructions are open-ended and non-deterministically open to interpretation, just as my briefing/instruction to you - Ben go and get me something nice for supper - is. Oh, and the instructions that drive us, i.e. emotions, are always conflicting, e.g [Ben:] I might like to.. but do I really want to get that bastard anything for supper? Or have the time to, when I am on the very verge of creating my stupendous AGI? Listen, I can go on and on - the big initial deal is the claim that the mind isn't - no successful AGI can be - driven by a program, or thoroughgoing SERIES/SET of instructions - if it is to solve even minimal general adaptive, let alone hard creative problems. No structured approach will work for an ill-structured problem. You must give some indication of how you think a program CAN be generally adaptive/ creative - or, I would argue, squares (programs are so square, man) can be circled :). Mike, The short answer is that I don't believe that computer *programs* can be creative in the hard sense, because they presuppose a line of enquiry, a predetermined approach to a problem - ... But I see no reason why computers couldn't be briefed rather than programmed, and freely associate across domains rather than working along predetermined lines. But the computer that is being briefed is still running some software program, hence is still programmed -- and its responses are still determined by that program (in conjunction w/ the environment, which however it perceives only thru a digital bit stream) I don't however believe that purely *digital* computers are capable of all the literally imaginative powers (as already discussed elsewhere) that are also necessary for true creativity and general intelligence. I don't know how you define a literally imaginative power. So, it seems like you are saying -- digital computer software can never truly be creative or possess general intelligence Is this your assertion? It is not an original one of course: Penrose, Dreyfus and many others have argued the same point. The latter paragraph of yours I've quoted could be straight out of The Emeperor's New Mind by Penrose. Penrose then notes that quantum computers can compute only the same stuff that digital computers can; so he posits that general intelligence is possible only for quantum gravity computers, which is what he posits the brain is. I think Penrose is most probably wrong, but at least I understand what he is saying... I'm just trying to understand what your perspective actually is... - Release Date: 1/5/2008 11:46 AM - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=82484935-6a7f84
[agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
I think I've found a simple test of cog. sci. I take the basic premise of cog. sci. to be that the human mind - and therefore its every activity, or sequence of action - is programmed. Eric Baum epitomises cog. sci.Baum proposes [in What Is Thought] that underlying mind is a complex but compact program that corresponds to the underlying structure of the world.. As you know, I contend that that is absurd - that, yes, every human activity - having a conversation, writing a post, making love, doing a drawing etc - is massively subprogrammed, containing often v. large numbers of routines - but as a whole, each activity is a free composition. Those routines, along with isolated actions, are more or less freely thrown together - freely associated . As a whole, our activities are more or less crazy walks - I use crazy to mean both structured and chaotic - and effectively self-contradictory. (This has huge implications for AGI - you guys believe that an AGI must be programmed for its activities, I contend that free composition instead is essential for truly adaptive, general intelligence and is the basis of all animal and human activities). So how to test cog sci? I contend that the proper, *ideal* test is to record humans' actual streams of thought about any problem - like, say, writing an essay - and even just a minute's worth will show that, actually, humans have major difficulties following anything like a joined-up, rational train of thought - or any stream that looks remotely like it could be programmed overall. (That includes more esoteric forms of programming like random kinds). Actually, humans follow more or less roving, crazy streams of thought - not chaotic by any means, but not perfectly joined up either - more or less free-form, a bit like free verse - somewhat structured but only loosely). I still think that this is the proper, essential approach to studying the connectedness, programmed or otherwise, of human thought. But it is obviously a complicated affair - even if one could record those streams of thought absolutely faithfully. And science likes simple tests/ experiments - the more mathematical and measurable the better. So here's a simple mathematical test, which everyone can try. Do an abstract line drawing. (for let's say 30 secs. - on this particular site) Here are a few of my spontaneous masterpieces: http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_194101926_970043768_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_194033348_926554557_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_193922629_715992016_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage?aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=[EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105_193734879_1708083161_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . The beauty of this site is that it does indeed record the actual stream of thought/ drawing - and not just the end result. (It would be v. interesting to see many other people's tests). Now you guys are mathematicians - I contend that those drawings are indeed crazy, spontaneous, free compositions - they have themes and patterns in parts and are by no means entirely random, but they are certainly not patterned or programmed overall either. Can you find an overall pattern or program to any of them - let alone a program that underlies ALL of them? Or, if you prefer, can you find a suite of programs? (I guess a more formal way of expressing the test is that on any given page, it is possible to draw an infinite number of line drawings which are a) structured b) chaotic c) crazy (mixtures of both) - and, in principle, programmed or non-programmed. And to assert that human activities are programmed is, in the final analysis, to assert that there is no such thing as a crazy set of lines. But please comment). What this test shows, I believe, is the bleeding obvious - humans can and do produce truly spontaneous,crazy, nonprogrammed,ad hoc, unplanned sequences of action. Well, it should be obvious but many of you guys will fight to the death to defy the obvious. So one needs a simple test. It's a considerable historical irony that painting by numbers was born very roughly at the same time as AI/ cog sci , c. 1950. Cog sci. is the view that we live - paint, eat, copulate, talk, etc. - by numbers. That view is wrong. We live, paint etc. by free composition. (And we find both our own and nature's created forms beautiful or ugly precisely because
Re: [agi] A Simple Mathematical Test of Cog Sci.
I would say that the best way to simulate human intelligence with diversity and creativity is to create not one AGI but many. The only way to insure diversity and natural selection like our own evolution is to simultaneously create multiple AGI's so that we have a better chance of the emergence of the best path for the evolution of friendly AGI. I am new to this list. Is there anyone out there who has addressed this issue? We have many people who are very gifted with math and science who are in the forefront of AGI, but random creativity and seat of the pants intuition is a really big part of human evolution. If we create multiple AGI's we have a chance that all of our traits are developed (in the same way that we are genetically programed) in some way to create a community of sorts that hopefully will be able to sustain our legacy of diversity and creative thought. Dave Butler On Jan 5, 2008, at 9:52 PM, Mike Tintner wrote: I think I've found a simple test of cog. sci. I take the basic premise of cog. sci. to be that the human mind - and therefore its every activity, or sequence of action - is programmed. Eric Baum epitomises cog. sci.Baum proposes [in What Is Thought] that underlying mind is a complex but compact program that corresponds to the underlying structure of the world.. As you know, I contend that that is absurd - that, yes, every human activity - having a conversation, writing a post, making love, doing a drawing etc - is massively subprogrammed, containing often v. large numbers of routines - but as a whole, each activity is a free composition. Those routines, along with isolated actions, are more or less freely thrown together - freely associated . As a whole, our activities are more or less crazy walks - I use crazy to mean both structured and chaotic - and effectively self-contradictory. (This has huge implications for AGI - you guys believe that an AGI must be programmed for its activities, I contend that free composition instead is essential for truly adaptive, general intelligence and is the basis of all animal and human activities). So how to test cog sci? I contend that the proper, *ideal* test is to record humans' actual streams of thought about any problem - like, say, writing an essay - and even just a minute's worth will show that, actually, humans have major difficulties following anything like a joined-up, rational train of thought - or any stream that looks remotely like it could be programmed overall. (That includes more esoteric forms of programming like random kinds). Actually, humans follow more or less roving, crazy streams of thought - not chaotic by any means, but not perfectly joined up either - more or less free-form, a bit like free verse - somewhat structured but only loosely). I still think that this is the proper, essential approach to studying the connectedness, programmed or otherwise, of human thought. But it is obviously a complicated affair - even if one could record those streams of thought absolutely faithfully. And science likes simple tests/ experiments - the more mathematical and measurable the better. So here's a simple mathematical test, which everyone can try. Do an abstract line drawing. (for let's say 30 secs. - on this particular site) Here are a few of my spontaneous masterpieces: http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage? aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=from_email=tin [EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105 _194101926_970043768_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage? aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=from_email=tin [EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105 _194033348_926554557_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage? aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=from_email=tin [EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105 _193922629_715992016_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . http://www.imagination3.com/LaunchPage? aFileType=_nolivecachesessionID=message=room_email=from_email=tin [EMAIL PROTECTED]from_name=mike tintner[EMAIL PROTECTED]to_name=aDrawingID=20080105 _193734879_1708083161_gbrtranscript=_lscid= . The beauty of this site is that it does indeed record the actual stream of thought/ drawing - and not just the end result. (It would be v. interesting to see many other people's tests). Now you guys are mathematicians - I contend that those drawings are indeed crazy, spontaneous, free compositions - they have themes and patterns in parts and are by no means entirely random, but they are certainly not patterned or programmed overall either. Can you find an overall pattern or program to any of them - let alone a program that underlies ALL of them? Or, if you prefer, can you find a suite of
