Re: [Fis] Chuan's reply11 - THE FRONTIERS OF INTELLIGENCE SCIENCE - unless reaches
I understand that he equates (or at least compares) it to the paradox of simultaneity between distinctive events and their interrelationhips in mechanics. If I understand Joseph, he is right to point out that the notion of 'simultaneity' from a non-observer stance is not necessary, because the distributed nature of physics is an ontological given in my Monist world view. The confusion now is that humans often over extend the machine analogy to explain currently unexplained phenomena, e.g. intelligence. It is exactly the fact that most assume a priori that if the brain and universe aren't actually digital, or at least mechanical, they can be simulated to the point to duplication via such noiseless state machines. Not only do I argue that we have over-extended our industrial analogies past the point of utility in the context of intelligence, mind, significance, cognition, etc., I also suggest that such heuristics actively obfuscate a viable path to discover such understanding. Why? Let's take vision. It is often assumed that our own retina digitizes EM phenomena transducing them into independent states like bits in a square wave. Or, at the very least, such evolved systems can be simulated to the point of duplication via state machines. The problem is that a large amount of energy is expended to create such independent discrete states, states that are specifically designed not to be related in any way with adjacent states. However, there is a vast amount of relationships, both temporal and spatial, among potential observables embedded in the agent's surroundings that can co-stimulate two adjacent rods thereby assimilating not only two distinct events, but their spatio-temporal relations, simultaneously. This potentially useful information to the agent is embedded in the agent's environment for free, so to speak. Digitizing, on the other hand, spends energy to filter out these inter-relations only to re-create these relations later with still more energy and increased memory consumption. In this way, Joseph is right to question the need to insert the notion of simultaneity, because, the biology never took it out. It is our centuries of trying to perfect our control over noiseless states that creates the paradox; and, therefore, a need to overtly put it back in. On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 10:16 PM, Joshua Augustus Bacigalupi bacigalupiwo...@gmail.com wrote: Pedro and Joseph, thank you for your thoughtful replies. I was away this weekend, and look forward to responding shortly to your comments. But, briefly: Pedro - I'm not sure I have access to Koichiro Matsuno's discussion re: paradoxes. Would you mind quoting some of the relevant portions of this discussion? Joseph - Your comments on simultaneity are very insightful. They bring much to mind; but, I will let these initial thoughts settle over the next day or so before I respond. Until then, best to all; Josh On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 6:33 PM, joe.bren...@bluewin.ch joe.bren...@bluewin.ch wrote: Dear Josh, Pedro, Chuan and All, In Josh's original note and the subsequent comments on it, I see a poetic sensibility with which I fully empathize. I return, however, to four of Josh's expressions for I think require further discussion would be useful to explicate the complex relations involved. In reverse order, they are as follows, with my comments interpolated: · the self-efficacious relationship between agents and surroundings JEB: a good expression of the need for looking at content and context together; · the simultaneous dynamic between so-called parts and wholes JEB: ‘so-called parts’ suggests a non-separability or overlap between parts and wholes, leading toward a necessary new mereology, but see point 4; · a both/and outcome JEB: a necessary processual antidote to an either/or ontology; · a paradox of simultaneity JEB: here, the concept of simultaneity has been ‘imported’ from classical logic and physics and I think there is a better alternative. If classical simultaneity does not exist, as in General Relativity and other absolutes also do not exist, there is no paradox to be explained. In the case of time, the non-separability of time and space has as a consequence that neither simultaneity nor succession is ‘pure’ but each is partly the other, like parts and wholes. Thus the word ‘simultaneous’ in point 2 is not required. To repeat, these somewhat more formal statements are not intended to denature the original insights but show that they can be related to a non-standard, non-binary logic that better reflects, among other things, the dynamics of intelligent processes. Thank you. Joseph Message d'origine De : pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es Date : 28/03/2015 - 11:59 (PST) À : zh...@cdut.edu.cn Cc : fis@listas.unizar.es Objet : Re: [Fis] Chuan's reply11 - THE FRONTIERS OF INTELLIGENCE SCIENCE - unless reaches Dear FISers
Re: [Fis] Chuan's reply11 - THE FRONTIERS OF INTELLIGENCE SCIENCE - unless reaches
Pedro and Joseph, thank you for your thoughtful replies. I was away this weekend, and look forward to responding shortly to your comments. But, briefly: Pedro - I'm not sure I have access to Koichiro Matsuno's discussion re: paradoxes. Would you mind quoting some of the relevant portions of this discussion? Joseph - Your comments on simultaneity are very insightful. They bring much to mind; but, I will let these initial thoughts settle over the next day or so before I respond. Until then, best to all; Josh On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 6:33 PM, joe.bren...@bluewin.ch joe.bren...@bluewin.ch wrote: Dear Josh, Pedro, Chuan and All, In Josh's original note and the subsequent comments on it, I see a poetic sensibility with which I fully empathize. I return, however, to four of Josh's expressions for I think require further discussion would be useful to explicate the complex relations involved. In reverse order, they are as follows, with my comments interpolated: · the self-efficacious relationship between agents and surroundings JEB: a good expression of the need for looking at content and context together; · the simultaneous dynamic between so-called parts and wholes JEB: ‘so-called parts’ suggests a non-separability or overlap between parts and wholes, leading toward a necessary new mereology, but see point 4; · a both/and outcome JEB: a necessary processual antidote to an either/or ontology; · a paradox of simultaneity JEB: here, the concept of simultaneity has been ‘imported’ from classical logic and physics and I think there is a better alternative. If classical simultaneity does not exist, as in General Relativity and other absolutes also do not exist, there is no paradox to be explained. In the case of time, the non-separability of time and space has as a consequence that neither simultaneity nor succession is ‘pure’ but each is partly the other, like parts and wholes. Thus the word ‘simultaneous’ in point 2 is not required. To repeat, these somewhat more formal statements are not intended to denature the original insights but show that they can be related to a non-standard, non-binary logic that better reflects, among other things, the dynamics of intelligent processes. Thank you. Joseph Message d'origine De : pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es Date : 28/03/2015 - 11:59 (PST) À : zh...@cdut.edu.cn Cc : fis@listas.unizar.es Objet : Re: [Fis] Chuan's reply11 - THE FRONTIERS OF INTELLIGENCE SCIENCE - unless reaches Dear FISers, Herewith I respond to late messages from several colleagues. I think they are pretty much interrelated. First, from Chuan and Yixin, about the scope of intelligence science. In my view, the evolutionary dimension has been missing. No other kind of intelligence has existed until recent decades in this planet except that one existing in living beings--humans and many other animals. Cells themselves manifest intelligence, as I have argued several times in this list. All kinds of natural intelligence are finally due to the coupling between nucleic acids and their protein transcripts. Then the essential “goal” becomes evident, as the maintenance and reproduction of the living organism. Failure to achieve that, particularly in front of another intelligence striving for its own goal –against the former subject- means but natural selection in action: disappearance of the subject. Intelligence derives from life and has to be checked by how it subserves life’s goals. Otherwise we leave “empty”, baseless, that very important goal aspect. Our own intelligence, answering Joseph, often evaluates situations, problems, relationships, etc. by the concurrent action of two systems (echoing Daniel Kahneman): system 1, fast and dirty, highly emotionally laden, and system 2, slow and reflective, implying the most rational capabilities. The former is closer to our deeper personal goals as living entities, a faithful transmitter of what we need inside, and the second acts as a sort of high-level, discursive, logic intelligence. It is not easy integrating them plainly, but Poetry, I think, uses both in the most cohesive way, taking the best of both worlds –see the poems we have posted these days, and personally I find Machado’s poem rather astonishing vitally and rationally. Then, Josh's views about the information paradox, are not easy to confront. On the one side, I understand that he equates (or at least compares) it to the paradox of simultaneity between distinctive events and their interrelationhips in mechanics. Koichiro Matsuno has posted about that paradox in this list, so I refrain to comment. But on the other side, when the paradox is essentially considered as addressed to significance in the organisms sense, I fail to fully grasp it. Maybe it is because I see that very information paradox (beautiful term!) as that which occurs between self-production and
Re: [Fis] Chuan's reply8 - THE FRONTIERS OF INTELLIGENCE SCIENCE-- an old poem as an echo
Greetings All; I am new to your group, and am moved to contribute by the Machado passage posted by Pedro. Never have I read such a concise and eloquent rendering of how I've come to understand the dynamic physical process of mind and intelligence. The poetic focus this last week, and the thread's original Far East infusion, has been refreshing. However, I will try to contribute something towards a more formal expression of intelligence per Joe Brenner's suggestion. My own research has led me to a number of realizations, not the least of which, very generally stated, is that the question of cognition, mind, and intelligence will only be understood by embracing a paradox of information - not in the the Shannon sense, but in the significance to organisms sense. Namely, to be informed, in the sense that an agent's internal structure re-organizes so as to increase its chance of making significant choices in its indeterminate environment, is to do two seemingly contradictory things at once: 1) Re-organize so as to represent, or 'know', distinct objects and events in the agent's world that are relevant to it, and 2) Re-organize so as to represent, or 'know', the relevant inter-relations between these objects and events. And, the crux of the paradox is that these two behaviors are *simultaneous*. Put very briefly, agents evolved to do this, I suggest, because physical reality is itself both distinct events and their inter-relations, *simultaneously*. Here in lies the numerical intractability of the *n*-body problem; because, both the barionic masses and their gravitational attributes co-exist, not as a sequential processes, but as a single unified dynamic. It is here where I think this thread's openness to more (w)holistic world views can be very useful. Never the less, an *n*-body system, though numerically intractable, is still formally knowable to within knowable bounds. So, there is a both/and outcome, where distinct formalism, the so-called Western tradition, are employed as tools to both measure and influence the complex irreducible dynamics of self-adaptive systems. Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. Celestial masses both form and are simultaneously formed by the dynamic gravitational terrain, an attribute intrinsically of the system. Similarly, I suggest that brain assemblages of neural, glial, and blood vessel cells both form and are simultaneously formed by their interstitial chemistry and fields into and out of complex terrains of mass and energy. Again, this system is intractable when assessed sequentially. There is a physical, and therefore, simultaneous dynamic between so-called parts and their whole. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be again. Wanderer, there is no road - only wakes upon the sea. Amazing image. A beautiful rendering of a self-efficacious relationship between the distinct agent(s) and its(their) surroundings at every scale. Cordially, Josh On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 3:29 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es wrote: Dear FISers, Herewith my contribution to the poetic intelligence tangent we have entered. It is in Spanish, from the great poet Antonio Machado: Caminante, son tus huellas el camino y nada más; Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Al andar se hace el camino, y al volver la vista atrás se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar. Caminante no hay camino sino estelas en la mar. One English translation could say: “Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road-- Only wakes upon the sea. I find it quite moving, and extremely complex on its meaning, quite phenomenological and deeply neurophilosophical. But above all, impressive. Thanks are due to Chuan, Stan, Joseph, Francesco... et al. best---Pedro Lee todo en: Caminante no hay camino - Poemas de Antonio Machado http://www.poemas-del-alma.com/antonio-machado-caminante- no-hay-camino.htm#ixzz3Uv6PQoJo http://www.poemas-del-alma. com/antonio-machado-caminante-no-hay-camino.htm#ixzz3Uv6PQoJo Francesco Rizzo wrote: Caro Joseph e cari Tutti, anche se rischio di essere bloccato o frainteso perché non ho voce linguistica di moda, nei numerosi interventi precedenti ho sottolineato l'importanza della parola composta emo-ra-zionalità, risultato della combinazione della intelligenza emotiva e della razionalità intellettuale. Nessuna descrizione non poetica della realtà può essere completa. Ilya Prigogine ha proposto di adottare nel campo della scienza il paradigma della musica. Henri Poincarè ritiene, talvolta, le equazioni o le funzione un museo teratologico ed i modelli paradigmatici una scelta convenzionale o di
