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From: dave@hpgnd.HP.COM (Dave PENKLER)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Artificial vs. ''real'' intelligence
Message-ID: <4610002@hpgnd.HP.COM>
Date: 11 Jul 90 15:03:50 GMT
References: <1990Jul2.182411.4441@king.mcs.drexel.edu>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, GND
Lines: 87

In article <1990Jul2.182411.4441@king.mcs.drexel.edu>, jsmith@king.mcs.drexel.edu (Justin Smith) writes:

> Roger Penrose has suggested that the human brain
> has properties that may enable it to carry out actions
> that are not reproducible by any computer.  This
> argument is used to imply that attempts to simulate the
> reasoning capability of the human mind mechanically are
> essentially {\it futile}. His argument makes use of human
> consciousness.  I contend that one can come to the same
> conclusion without appealing to human consciousness.
>  
    [ stuff omitted ]
> 
> On the other hand, it is quite likely that the set of
> physical functions is {\it strictly larger} than the set
> of recursive functions.  In fact,
> quantum-mechanical phenomena suggest {\it precisely
> this}.  Quantum mechanics contains many manifestations
> of ``random'' phenomena  --- basically contending that
> certain physical phenomena can only be analyzed {\it
> statistically}.  One can interpret ``random'' as meaning
> ``not computable'' rather than ``entirely devoid of
> meaning''.

       [ more stuff omitted ]

> I feel, that if we must regard the brain as a ``computer
> program'', we have to concede that it uses {\it many 
> oracles} (in the sense of computability
> theory)

A book that I read called 'The Spirit of Matter' gives an interesting if
not very conjectural theory of the 'oracles' mentioned by Justin (vide supra).
The author (I forget the name) is a theoretical physicist who developed
a complex formulation of Einstein's Relativity Theory.

  The gist of the book, very roughly, is as follows

     Electrons are indeed very old, the large majority anyway, since
     spontaneous electron (positron) creation by collision of very
     high energy photons is rare.

     The density of an electron is such that it can be considered to
     be a tiny black-hole in its own right.

     When a photon impinges on an electron it is subjected to the relativistic
     effects of the little black-hole and as such never actually gets there.
     Energy conservation is kept by in a change of orbital. When the electron
     drops back it releases a photon. The direction of propagation of this 
     released photon is *not* predictable. The author of the book claims that
     the direction of the released photon is determined by the aggregate 
     configuration of photons still 'arriving' at the electron since its 
     creation. In this way the electrons 'communicate'.
     Because the electron is a closed system it never 'loses' information,
     i.e. inside it entropy only decreases = neg-entropy increases.
     (tenuous identification of neg-entropy i.e. order and information).
     Given that the bulk of electrons in the matter that constitutes
     our world are a old as the universe, that there is a kind of
     _action-at-a-distance_ he concludes that matter itself is the base 
     of intelligence, a system capable of evolving into galaxies, planets,
     life and indeed into organisms capable forming theories on these things.

     (BTW this theory is not only limited to the leptons but can also plausibly
      be extended to the hadrons)

  Now looking at the problem of A.I. in this light, the sheer volume of
  information and the number of interactions occurring that engender 
  'Real intelligence' makes the job of simulating it about as big as
  re-creating the universe itself. 

  (How many states does this beastie have ? 
   How many state transitions occur per second ?
   The number of states increases with each photon emitted
   and the sun is just an average star.)

  I don't think we want to simulate nature (building birds that can
  flit from tree to tree) so that we can take our place on Mount Olympus, but
  to learn from nature so that we can facilitate our lives and give ourselves
  the time and means to do the things we want. For me artificial intelligence
  involves the adaptation, implementation, application and exploitation of
  processes, assimilated from nature, deemed by us the engineers as intelligent.
  The adoption of suitable epistemological frameworks is an important 
  consideration in the field of A.I. but we should leave the BIG PICTURE for the
  philosophers to ponder about.

-Dave PENKLER                          
"Objects are nothing but debilitated functional-values"