Xref: utzoo talk.philosophy.misc:1807 comp.ai:3047 sci.bio:1727 sci.psychology:1318 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!rutgers!soleil!peru From: peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,comp.ai,sci.bio,sci.psychology Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence (long) Message-ID: <564@soleil.UUCP> Date: 11 Jan 89 02:33:00 GMT Organization: Harris Semiconductor, Somerville, NJ Lines: 238 >>In the book "The Society of Mind" Marvin Minsky writes (p.50): >>"When people have no answers to important questions, they often give some >> anyway. >> What controls the brain? The Mind. >> What controls the mind? The Self. >> What controls the Self? Itself. >> .... >> It cannot help for you to think that >> inside yourself lies someone else who does your work. This notion of >> "hommunculus"--a little person inside each self--leads only to a paradox In article <686@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> (Tony Meadors) writes: >An infinite regress. >One of the challenges of psychological explanation is >to explain our overall intelligent behavior and cognitive >abilities with a model whose parts are not themselves possessors of >those abilities...this is how homunculi can creep into real world models. > What Minsky is doing in the quoted passages is simply noting how >commonsense notions such as self and mind entail the idea of a "detatched >controller" and this quickly leads down the homunculi trail. I would like to humbly express my opinion about the way Marvin Minsky describes "hommunculus" as "leads only to paradox". Using the word "only" is misleading, like there's something wrong with hommunculus or even having a paradox. Or as you have stated, "simply noting how". Personally, these kind of statements in any explanation are not very satisfying, in fact, I start to get uncomfortable. All I'm saying, considering the subject matter, is simply that things never to turn out so simple. Or at least, seem so simple to me. "The idea of a single, central Self doesn't explain anything. This is because a thing with no parts provides nothing that we can use as pieces of explanation!" MM. If to explain something, you must have parts, then at some point you got to reduce down to physics. I think our knowledge in physics is great, but limited. Physicists might have egos as big as atomic blasts, but unfortunately God is still alive. This bothers me and is why I have problems with reductionist thinking. Einstein said God does not play dice, or was it God that said Einstein does not play dice. Anyway, as far as I know, according to our current knowledge of physics, God does play dice and is probably living in Atlantic City. Who knows, maybe Donald Trump is the second coming of Christ. :-) Seriously, is there anyone out there who really thinks reductionism can explain everything there is to be explain? >>In the book "Bridges To Infinity" Michael Guillen (Ph.D in physics, mathema- >>matics, and astronomy from Cornell University) writes (p.98): >> ........ >> From there he goes on, however, to create an infinity of in-between numbers, >> such as the number whose left set contains zero, {0}, and whose right set >> contains one through infinity {1, 2, 3, ...}. >> This defines a number somewhere >> numbers, is embellished by an interminable number of in-between volumes. >> And it doesn't stop there. >> >> Pursuing the logic of his method, Conway is able to create between in-between >> numbers, then numbers between *these*, and so on, literally ad infinitum. >> The result is limitless hierarchies of in-between numbers, never before >> named in mathematics. >I'm no mathematician, but if I take >the numbers 2 & 3 and stick a bunch of >new items between them (no matter how cleverly) >I certainly won't have created "numbers never >before named in mathematics." Numbers seem rather fixed to me, those that >might be found on a simple numberline; the labels I attach to various >points shouldn't make any difference...Unless these new numbers are not >expressable in decimal form at all. If this is the case I missed the >point but my point is below anyway... Don't waive this off, spend some time with this. What Conway does is really awesome. If fact, it defines the word awesome. The idea of "nothingness" as opposed to "nothing as something", i.e. the set {0}, is really neat! And then boom, all the rational and irrational numbers spring to life. To say "Numbers seem rather fixed to me" seems fixed or closed minded to me. >> points. Conway's theory, however, asks us to imagine numbers that fall >> somehow between unimaginable cracks in this blur of points, and between >> the cracks left behind by those numbers, and so on and so on. With his >> theory, Conway has made credible what many persons before him had merely >> speculated about: there is conceptually no limit to how many times an object >> can be divided. > >Cosmic cracks eh. >Again, Im not a numbers man, but was there ever any doubt that a given two >points on a line one may always be found which lies between them? "Cosmic", interesting word choice. When you were younger, did you ever get the feeling while you were half asleep that you were falling off your bed? You suddenly wake up as you slam your hand down on the mattress. I have this feeling all the time, but nothing to slam against. :-) And mathematically speaking, the way Conway generates numbers is the closest thing I've seen to expressing this feeling. >> People >> who are deprived of their senses by being floated in silent, dark tanks >> of water warmed to body temperature will hallucinate. It is as though >> the human mind will not be stilled of its propensity to make something >> of nothing even, or especially, when immersed in nothingness. > >Yes people do eventually have all sorts of wild experiences. How does this >relate to the mind being like a null set or the mathematical discussion at >all? I knew I should have left the float-tank part out. People have all kinds of prejudices. Tony, have you ever floated? I haven't, but maybe Guillen has. Apparently, Guillen thought the experience related to the discussion to use the analogy. You think the analogy doesn't apply, okay. I still think it's a neat idea and I'll reserve judgement until after I've floated. > Does the null set notion PREDICT that those in such cahmbers will >hallucinate? THERE IS ONLY A VERY CRUDE SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN >THE NULL SET AND SENSORY DEPRIVATION. "Oh, like both have to do with >complete nothingness man..." This California surfer stuff is indicative of your close mindedness and adds nothing to the conversation. Which is appropriate considering the subject matter. When you say "there is only a very crude semantic relationship between the null set and sensory deprivation" are you speaking from experience? >> In this sense, the human mind is the real null set in Frege's and Conway's >> number theories; the mathematical null set is but a subordinate entity >> created after the mind's self-image." > >1 THE HUMAN MIND IS NO MORE "THE REAL NULL SET IN...NUMBER THEORIES" > THAN IT IS A BASEBALL BAT OR A TORNADO. > >2 The notion that the null set arose as a mathematical concept due to > man's perception of some nothingness within his psyche is absurd. Considering the quality of your comments, your mind is a perfect example of the null set. All you've really said is this is bullshit with bullshit reasons. Maybe this is all we can ever say about this subject. If you see something that is blatently wrong then say so and state why. However, if these interpretations are simply contrary to your own interpretations or intuition, then don't come off so condescending with words like "absurd". Like you know better, maybe you do. Personally, my belief system is evolving. I remain open to new ideas. >> Transcending the Cartesian model will amount to a major revolution in medical >> science, and since current medical research is closely linked to research >> in biology--both conceptually and in its organization--such a revolution >> is bound to have a strong impact on the further development of biology." > >Yeah this sounds like Capra. I don't know what it would mean to "transcend >the cartesian model", and no explanation of what that would be like is >offered in this passage. If what is meant is to "look for causes and >processes outside the normal realm of measurable cause and effect >then I would say that its hogwash. I think what Capra means by "transcend the cartesian model" is that a human being as an organism is affected by the environment in such a way that some processes will not be explanable out of that context. Things may be so interconnected that reductionism may be inadequate. I think this is interesting when you consider the relationship of the mind in respect to understanding the physics of the environment or the physics of the mind. > If its just a childlike hope that >taking new perspectives, sometimes a "systems" or "cybernetic" >perspective may yield new insight into complex systems, then >point taken. Childlike? I don't understand. What distinguishes childlike from adultlike? >>Paradoxically, these three people's thoughts may sound unrelated. It is up >>to you to decide, any comments? > > Yes, not only unrelated, they are unremarkable. Then why did you make a remark. I was trying to show some ideas about and of the mind in respect to the reductionist approach. Some people liked it. > Dave, your postings remain without peer in being provocative and > interesting. But trust me, the > "deep stuff" concerning minds and brains, the meta-psychology, > is largely fluff. Trust you? Is it safe? :-) Some fluff hardens. I think alot of people have been a little hard on Guillen. This guy has some really neat things to say. Consider from his essay "Irrational Thinking" from his book "Bridges to Infinity" (p.38-39): "Despite this preeminence of rational numbers, science does need irrational numbers. For well over a century, scientists have been taking note of a growing inventory of special quantities whose appearance in nearly every scientific theory signifies their import in the modern description of space-time. These natural constants can be seen as nature's vital statistics, and right now it looks as though every one of them is an irrational number. For example, one of these constants, the speed of light, has been measured out to nine decimal places, and the digits have yet to show any pattern. (Expressed in millions of meters per second, our best measurement of the speed of light is the number .299792458.) Another constant is one that is descriptive of dynamic behavior at the atomic level. It is called the fine-structure constant, and there is no pattern to its digits even when measured out to ten decimal places. (Our best measurement of the fine- structure constant, which is a dimensionless quantity, is .0072973502.) In physics alone there are more than a dozen of these constants, which have been measured out to anywhere from a few to eleven decimal places, and not one of them has a pattern to its digits." When I read this I was astonished. Of course, some of these constants may not be irrational numbers. But what would be really awesome is to come up with some physics that would predict these irrational numbers. Anyway, some more fluff for the pile. > Move up the scientific foodchain a bit. You know > the old saying, fact is stranger than fiction. Its never been more true > than in psychology. Get down to real data and yet > keep these larger questions in mind. Read about the bizzare > dissociations brain damaged patients exhibit, study up on perceptual > illusions, investigate the cases of extraordinary memories (people can > literally tell you what shirt they wore or the change they made on > a given day in 1966, and its not a trick or learned ability). Well, > you get the picture...these sorts of phenomenon baffle > and challenge, and if there are secrets to be found and profound changes > to take place in how we understand the mind it will likely be fueled > by these inexplicable sorts of data. I try to get down to real data as much as I can. That's why I like USENET, after I read all the fluff, I can see what real people think. In reference to "move up the scientific foodchain", I'm currently reading Paul Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of Great Powers". I want to find out why it is so hard nowadays for a person my age to buy a house.