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From: zarnuk@caen.engin.umich.edu (Paul Steven Mccarthy)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: "Sensor Evolution"
Message-ID: <1990Mar22.182005.3293@caen.engin.umich.edu>
Date: 22 Mar 90 18:20:00 GMT
References: <782@berlioz.nsc.com>
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> andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty) writes:
> [... How can a machine know when/how to build its own 
>  sensors/actuators? ...]

Mankind has been building its own sensors for a couple 
of centuries now.  The development of radar, radio,
telescopes, microscopes (...ad nauseum...) represent
sensors which humans have developed to extend the 
capabilities of the ones that were "built-in".  

How/why did humans develop these instruments?

  1) Recognizing "interesting" characteristics of 
     existing devices and extrapolating, experimenting.

  2) Recognizing logical implications of existing 
     "world-models" which imply the existence of some
     property/characteristic beyond current sensor-
     capabilities and applying the results of (1)
     above to investigate the predictions of that 
     "world-model".

  3) Serendipity.

  4) Market-forces.

I am not really trying to assign any "intentional" force to
mankind as a whole.  However, I think it is fair to assign
"intention" to most of the individuals who have been primarily
responsible for the development of these "sensors".

I think the motivations/methods implied by (1) and (2) are 
machine-implementable.  The program "AM" by Doug Linnet (then
at Stanford) was supposed to have developed its own "tools"
for investigating set-theory.  It was given an initial set
of characteristics which were "interesting" and a small number
of simple axioms from set-theory.  Not only did the program go
on to expand its small set of tools (--this is the program that
"discovered" prime numbers--), but it also went on to refine 
its meaning of "interesting".

---Paul...