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From: jim@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Jim Ruehlin, Cognitologist domesticus)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: What AI is exactly.
Message-ID: <3893@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 20 Sep 90 15:21:39 GMT
References: <35282@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <3851@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <146@tdatirv.UUCP>
Organization: NCR Corporation, Systems Engineering - San Diego
Lines: 123

In article <146@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>In article <3851@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> jim@se-sd (Jim Ruehlin) writes:
>>Good question!  Looking inside the "black box" called "learning organism",
>>are there low-level cognitive similarities?  Or even high-level ones?
>>I doubt it - humans and butterflys are very different.  
 
>At a high level this is true, but at a basic neurological level it is not.
>Neurons operate the same in humans and in buterflies, and at this level
>learnng most certainly does take place in almost all known animals. 

I'm glad we've got a biologist in on this conversation.  We need more of
them to involve themselves in this area.

Neurons do, but what about cognitive structures?  No doubt we have different
and more powerful neurally computational (call it mid-level cognition)
abilities, probably due to some of the specialized neurons in the 
cerbral cortex (I hope I'm naming it correctly - I aint no biologist!).
We can make up all sorts of cognitive structures that they can't (as
hypothesized by frames, scripts, etc. etc.).

>yes indeed, you seem to be using a very different definition of learning
>than most biologists.  As a trained bologist, I would sya that the standard
>definition of learning runs something like this:
>	A change in neurological responses due to repeated stimulus
>	that tends to alter behavior in a way that is responsive to
>	changing environmental situations.
>[Note this is only an aproximation - I do not have the formal definition handy]
>By this definition the example with the buterflies is a *clear* and
>*definitive* example of learning.

That's seems to me to be a fair definition for what biologists are trying
to study.  I certainly don't know enough to discuss it in that realm
anyway.  But to apply that definition to cognitive science leaves out
the capability to just sit back and think, to have thoughts or engage
in cognitive activity with NO change in behaviour.  I can sit back and
enjoy the memory of the date I had last night, or draw conclusions
about S&L presidents who didn't run the banks properly.  But these don't
necessarily change my behaviour.  This is learning, as I'm arriving at
new data (e.g., "Those S&L guys are crooks!"), but I'm not changing
my behaviour (I don't bank at S&L's anyway).

>>Agreed, if you look merely at the behavioural aspects of learning.  Otherwise,
>>maybe there's little similarities between the exhibited behaviour in humans
>>and cats.
>Not just the behavioral similarities, but also the identity of basic
>neurological mechanism.  Even if the *cognitive* processes are different
>in humans, cats and buterflies, the neuronal mechanisms are still the same.

Yes, but we have some different neurons (e.g., cerebral cortex vs.
hypocamus (sp?), and more of them.  The "hardware" is important, but
what we can do on top of it is what makes learning, or intelligence,
what it is.

>I would distinguish between learning, which is shown by all forms with a
>nervous system, and intelligence which involves creative behaviors - the
>initiation of new behavior by mechanisms other than simple trail and error.
>This includes anticipation, modeling, improvization, recombination of
>behavioral primitives & c.  Cats show the latter, as well as learning.
>I have never observed un-programmed behavior in any insect, so I doubt
>that any insect is particualrly intelligent.

You may be right.  But in some of the examples you cite (such as modeling)
we currently don't have a way to see if cats model internally.  The only
way we can with humans so far (as far as I know, anyway) is to query
them as to what cognitive process is occuring.  So while cats might be
doing just that, we don't know if they really are, and won't until we
have a more accurate and language-free method of determining if this is
true.

>>Is this learning or behaviour designed to acquire food?
 
>It is both!  Just what do you think 'learning' is?  It is a `software' design
>to increase adaptability, and thus survival, by allowing behavior to be
>modified by past experience.  Learning is *primarily* a behavior designed
>to acquire food (and escape predators, and ...).
>Indeed in these examples not only do the birds show learning, they show
>intelligence.

While Man goes beyond this in civilized society, I'll concede this as
at least the original purpose or function of the ability to learn.

>A good point.  I do not think anyone is claiming *equivalence* in learning
>or intelligence, just that it exists to various degrees in many animals.
>Intelligence is not an all or none thing, it is a measure of tendency.

I agree.  The reason I go on about learning and intelligence in other
animals is because we arn't very rigorous about what these things are
and how to study them.  We often rely solely on behaviour without
regard to the internal activity going on.  I don't think we should
be suprised if we find out that while some behaviours look the same
between humans and animals, the motivations or internal mechanisms that
cause them are very different.  In other words, we're naturally prone
to anthropomorphism.

>>We haven't positively located any other species that is intelligent, so
>>we have only ourselves to base creating intelligent systems on.  I'm not
>>saying there isn't other intelligent species (to a greater or lesser
>>degree than us), just that we haven't identified them yet.
 
>Perhaps by your definitions. But most biologists would disagree.  We know
>of many relatively intelligent species, some more so, some less so.  The
>porpoise appears to be second only to humans with the chimpanzee in the
>same general vicinity.

>If you wish to use different definitions of intelligence and learning than
>biologists and psychologists, feel free to do so.  But then you should
>try to give us a clear specification of *your* definition, so we can talk
>the same language.

I won't argue with the biologist definition of intelligence - if the
distinction works will for them, that's fine.  As a trained cognitive
scientist, I take the cognitive approach to the definition.

As I'm sure everyone in this conversation knows, EVERYONE has a different
definition of intelligence, some of them wildly different.  I think when
discussing this issue, we need to be aware that we'll always be talking
from different definitions, looking to see where the weak and strong
points are in them.

I've already posted what my definitions of intelligence and learning are,
so I won't waste time and space here again.

- Jim Ruehlin