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From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: computer life?
Keywords: Survival, instincts
Message-ID: <1991Mar1.205136.10670@news.larc.nasa.gov>
Date: 1 Mar 91 20:51:36 GMT
References: <1991Feb27.134800.18153@news.larc.nasa.gov> <1991Feb28.190553.20519@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> <1991Feb28.235517.20218@news.larc.nasa.gov> <1991Mar1.143222.29977@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
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Reply-To: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey)
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In article <1991Mar1.143222.29977@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> dailey@buster.cps.msu.edu (Chris Dailey) writes:
>I would tend to agree that we could not do software mutation and weeding
>out of bad variants with what are today's acceptable software
>engineering practices.  Maybe this will become a new specialization?  I
>think it is needed to accomplish 'AI' (I'll leave the reason
>unexplained).

No comment.  Except to say that if we do mutation and weeding, than we need
to develop an adequate mutation system and also a criterion for weeding out.
Evolution (in the sense of biological systems) is very, very slow.  It took
quite a few million years to construct man, even though it was operating in
a parallel fashion (across many different people in large populations).  I
think that this is not a very efficient way of developing anything, and it
also tends to result in the development of systems which are not well-
understood.  (Maybe that's the crux of the thing.)

>I guess I did not explain myself well.  I meant that computer
>strategies are an attempt at quantizing human methods, or doing methods
>that are just beyond human capabilities to actually implement.  I sure
>humans would play chess much more like a computer if we had brains more
>suited to doing so.  In the meanwhile, we dream up strategies that we
>implement on computer ONLY BECAUSE OF THE TIME CONSIDERATIONS of us
>trying the same strategy.  The computer is merely an extension of the
>programmer's brain from this perspective.

Well, yes.  But the programmer is thinking in ways that he would not have
thought, had he not been programming a computer.  Really, every line of code
executing can be traced back to a human being, or to a compiler written by
a human being (or written by another compiler written by a human being, etc.).

The point is that humans don't have brains which are suited to playing chess
like computers.  If computers had attributes like human brains they would
probably be programmed with strategies that much more resemble those used by
humans.  But because of this, different methods are used.  Perhaps, then, the
methods which are used to develop a "living" computer system will also be 
different from those that were used to develop "living" organic systems.
And as long as the end result is a system which is "living," does it matter
what is inside the grey box?

This is why it's important to have a "definition" of living.  That is, a
criterion to tell if something is alive. 

>To the purpose of explaining my last paragraph ...  Have you ever
>written a cellular automata program with differing rules?  Even though
>you knew what the rules were before you ran the program, it was hard to
>predict what the outcomes would be like.  Similar with chaos systems
>like the Mandelbrot set:  each point is easy to find, but a point X and
>Y units away is [almost?] impossible to predict.

Yes.  But since the system is calculable, it's behaviour can be predicted.
It's just more difficult to predict, and the pattern which occurs is not
obvious at all to the naked eye.  (Sorry if I tend to have a rather 
deterministic, nineenth century point of view on the world, but I think
it's a rather good one).  If it's almost impossible to predict, that just
means that the tools for predicting it haven't been devised yet.

>>This sounds very much like we are agreeing.
>I think you're right.

The whole point of the first article that I wrote was to point out that
because humans and computers have fundamental differences in the way they
work inside, that tasks are performed differently by computers and human
beings to obtain the same result, and therefore if a living computer system
is built that it probably won't be built in the same way that a living organic
system is built.  I don't know at all how it will be built, and if I did I'd
be making a fortune on the lecture circuit.
--scott