Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert From: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Making fires and making minds - the laws of physics prevail Message-ID: <2826@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> Date: 20 Apr 89 11:23:23 GMT References: <10992@bcsaic.UUCP> <16878@cup.portal.com> <2792@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <17374@cup.portal.com> Reply-To: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland Lines: 114 In article <17374@cup.portal.com> dan-hankins@cup.portal.com (Daniel B Hankins) writes: >In article <2792@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk > Which is to say, no choice at all. The illusion of choice is one of >the most pervasive fictions of Western thought, arising at least in part >from our inability to predict with any accuracy our own or other's actions. I see. And I presume the laws of physics give rise to this illusion. We are then, determined to believe in choice? >It would be more accurate to say that our self-models and other-models are >hopelessly inadequate for prediction purposes. And must remain so. If the laws of physics demand that we have the illusion of choice, then this illusion must persist. If the laws of physics must prevail over everything, then there must be no progress, no history. All is determined. > To put it another way: Those bounds of the laws of physics are much >tighter than you think. So I presume America's future decisions over abortion, school prayers and the budget deficit are all going to be determined by the laws of physics? > Sure you do. Preventing unwanted feedback in a system under study is >one of the first things considered. A simple example is that of a >high-power oscillator with the frequency driven by current. As soon as >you apply an old-fashioned voltmeter to the driving line to find the >current flow, the rate of oscillation begins to vary erratically. Why? >Because the output of the oscillator has induced an A/C current in the >voltmeter's probe wires. The system under study has altered its behavior >on being told what that behavior is. It has "sussed out what you're up >to." You understand this, and know the possible effects. > The psychology experiments are an example of feedback of a more >complex nature. By feeding the system under study (a person or group of >persons) information about the larger system (the subject-experimenter >system) you alter the behavior of the system. You cannot predict how though. The subjects range of choice (variation of response if you want) is not predictable. All knowledge here can only be post-hoc, and there is no immediate hope of this changing. I suggest you acquaint yourself with research methods in psychology, since the argument cannot be carried any further without some common knowledge here. > Is that 'CANNOT' a theoretical or a practical one? In practice, I >will agree with you. Working out the wave functions for systems of that >magnitude is clearly not practical in this universe, for logistical >reasons. A computer capable of doing the calculations would require more >atoms than exist in the cosmos. And by the time it finished working out >the answers, the question-askers would likely be extinct. What's the value of a concept like 'theoretical possibility'. It's of no real interest. Practice is the only thing which matters. There are already results that show that a digital computer cannot hope to apply AI techniques to massive rule-bases in real-time and achieve human performance (CACM paper, 1988, example was truth maintainance on a very fast computer). What is possible depends on the theory. The truth of any theory rests ultimately on what can be done with it. >What predicts what the movement of each of these particles will be? >Physical law. What therefore predicts the movement of the entire arm? >Physical law. What decides where to put the arm. Me, within my physical limitations. I've just tapped the desk twice. I presume the laws of physics forced me to do this here and now. > Specific knowledge of these areas is not germane to the problem at >hand; meta-knowledge (knowledge about knowledge of these areas) of them >is. Where does this meta-knowledge come from. Let's take psychology for example, and the history of Art. What counts as metaknowledge here, and how might it be relevant to the deterministic modelling of human agency, with special reference to drive for abstraction between the wars. Physics indeed. Sheer fantasy. This is marvellous example of the self-imposed ignorance of the AI type - I don't need to know the details, because I can tell, without looking at them, from my meta-knowledge, that I can ignore the details. For this poster at least, the complaint of self-imposed ignorance is apt. Epistemicly, it is as irrational a claim as any that comes from the 'religious' corners. (Note: some comp.ai readers take'ignorant' etc. to always be a pejorative, and their use an act of abuse. Neither is the case in my dialect of English, but to avoid future offence, I'll stick to "ignore", "don't know" etc., as in Maddox's lampoon :-)) > > All of these obey the laws of physics. Perhaps your point is that >they obey other laws. This is true, to some extent. But these other laws >are either approximations of combinations of simpler laws, or are directly >reducible to simpler laws. Not according to systems thinking, if I have understood it correctly. > That's an interesting opinion. I could just as easily say that >nothing useful comes of suppressing AI research. Yes it does, you can direct the resources to something useful :-) > AI's sole purpose is not to advance knowledge of human psychology. It >has many purposes. That's one. Perhaps it doesn't fulfill that one well. >Another is to come up with potentially useful applications. That one it >fills extraordinarily well. Examples please. Folk around here have been asking for them for years. To qualify applications must be in use, have a manual, a user base and be applied to real work. We'll begin with Prospector and Smart Network Management Systems. Any others? -- Gilbert Cockton, Department of Computing Science, The University, Glasgow gilbert@uk.ac.glasgow.cs !ukc!glasgow!gilbert