Richard Loosemore wrote:
Eugen Leitl wrote:
On Wed, Mar 07, 2007 at 01:24:05PM -0500, Richard Loosemore wrote:
For each literary work n in N, use G to generate a universe u, and
within that universe, inject a copy of the literary work at a random
point in the spacetime of u. Measure the reaction, in terms of critical
acclaim generated by the work in any species who happen to be hanging
I realize that this is sarcasm, but detecting the mere presence
of a species (nevermind their critical acclaim) from a trajectory,
then rather give me the infinite simians, and I will personally look
for Shakespeare sonnets in them.
No, no wait! I change my mind about agreeing with you. ;-)
We don't have to wait for a species and then detect it, nor do we have
to translate their language!
We just apply each n to *all* of the infinite universes generated by
G. In amongst those universes will be some in which English (assuming
that n is defined over English words) just happens to arise by chance.
Then, all we do is compute the number of times that the name of the
literary work appears in the same sentence with "literary
masterpiece," at any time in the history of all the universes.
I can't see any other problems: aside from the infinities, it looks
like a perfectly regular algorithm to me. As good as AIXI any day.
Richard, I will suggest one modification to your excellent algorithm.
What we really want to compute is the weighted sum over all universes U,
SUM_U [ 2^-K(U) * M(U, N) ]
where
M[U, N] is the "masterpiece index" of literary work N in universe U,
properly normalized
K[U] is the length of the shortest program for generating the universe U
This weights being a masterpiece in universe U higher, if the universe U
has a simpler description.
This way we get a convergent measure of masterpiece-ness across all
universes. (If we set up the math assumptions right, blah blah blah.)
With this change or something else similar, I think you have indeed
outlined a perfect algorithm for generating literary masterpieces.
Congratulations!
I think this merits a Nobel Prize for Literature.... I'll send the
Nobel Committee an email nominating you right away....
As you say, scaling down the algorithm to yield a practical automated
literary genius may require a bit of work, but hey, the problem is
Solved In Principle, and that's the most important thing!! ;-)
-- Ben G
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