Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 22:50:10 03/19/01
Go up one level in this thread
On March 19, 2001 at 23:16:40, Dan Ellwein wrote:
>On March 19, 2001 at 18:46:57, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On March 19, 2001 at 17:21:45, Dan Ellwein wrote:
>>
>>>On March 19, 2001 at 01:45:25, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>
>>>>On March 18, 2001 at 23:19:24, Robin Smith wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On March 18, 2001 at 21:47:16, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On March 18, 2001 at 15:29:12, Dan Newman wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On March 16, 2001 at 22:18:23, Robin Smith wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>On March 15, 2001 at 05:41:33, Dan Andersson wrote:
>>>
>>>snip
>>>
>>>>>>Sounds like chinese to me. :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Nice chinese BTW, but still... :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Seriously, I probably need to introspect a little bit more in order to try to
>>>>>>understand what some people find mysterious about "conscience".
>>>>>
>>>>>Imagine an alien race that flys to earth in a UFO and is studying humans. They
>>>>>hear humans talk about things being "funny", or "falling in love", or something
>>>>>is "beautiful" or that they are "afraid". But the aliens have no idea of these
>>>>>concepts. They have no equivalent to these concepts in their home world. So
>>>>>they decide they will disect a human to find out the meaning these words. But
>>>>>will they find "love" by disecting a brain or a neuron? Maybe, but not unless
>>>>>their technology is more advanced than ours. And if not, and when that doesn't
>>>>>work, lets say they study humans by doing a brain scan (MRI) of someone who is
>>>>>experiencing the emotion of fear. Will the brain scan help them understand
>>>>>fear? Sure, it will show what areas of the brain are active, or that the pupils
>>>>>of they eye have responded by dilating or that the sweat glands become active.
>>>>>But will they know what fear is like when it is *experienced*? Again, not
>>>>>unless their technology is more advanced than ours. Do you remember when you
>>>>>were young, learning the "facts of life" i.e. the mechanics of sex? You then
>>>>>knew all about what happens ... first you do this, then this happens ..... But
>>>>>when you *experience* it, it is something else again.
>>>>>
>>>>>Another way to think about it is in terms of computer programming. How would
>>>>>you go about programming a computer to feel afraid? Of course you have no idea,
>>>>>since no one does. You could program a robot to exhibit the same behaviors as a
>>>>>human that is afraid, but does this mean that the robot experiences the emotion
>>>>>of fear? Who knows. All we can see is the behavior. We don't know how to peer
>>>>>into and see the subjective experience of others.
>>>>>
>>>>>My grandfather used to pooh-pooh the idea of gravity. He would say "down is
>>>>>down and that is why things fall". Most people just accept the facts presented
>>>>>to them by their experiences without question. "Everyone knows" things fall
>>>>>down. But then someone asks "why" and if an answer to the mystery of why things
>>>>>fall is found, suddenly we have Newtons laws of gravitation.
>>>>>
>>>>>We all have these subjective experiences. But why? Brains, sensory organs,
>>>>>hormones, DNA; these all explain the mechanics of our existance, but NONE of
>>>>>this knowledge would lead us to inevitably conjecture the existance of
>>>>>subjective experiences unless we already knew about them. There is something we
>>>>>don't yet understand going on.
>>>>>
>>>>>Robin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Subjective experiences are defined by the states of the information processing
>>>>entity.
>>>>
>>>>It's no wonder they cannot be transfered "as is" in another entity (which has a
>>>>different structure). So you are bound to look at "feelings" from the outside
>>>>and deduce what these feelings are only by the behaviour of the entity.
>>>>
>>>>Your examples about love, fear, humour, beauty are certainly very romantic, but
>>>>it - again - sounds very old fashioned to me.
>>>>
>>>>Some of these "feelings" will probably appear in very complex computing machines
>>>>and it will be possible to see it from the outside.
>>>>
>>>>At the time there were no computers, and machines were made of gears, people
>>>>could have wondered how a machine could gather informations and do anything
>>>>useful with it, but now that we have computers of such complexity and that we
>>>>are foreseeing gigantic advances in this complexity, I think it is time to
>>>>update our way of thinking...
>>>>
>>>>I'm not trying to contradict you by all means. It's just that I don't see
>>>>mysteries where you see them.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Christophe
>>>
>>>hmm...
>>>
>>>maybe Gambit Tiger is really the human...
>>>
>>>and Christophe is the computer...
>>>
>>>:)
>>>
>>>PilgrimDan
>>
>>
>>:)
>>
>>I understand that what I say might sound a little bit too "dry".
>>
>>It's just because I start at the bottom (at the low level, simple components)
>>and try to go in the ascending direction (high level, complex entities).
>>
>>I assume as little as possible and try to see if it is enough to make a step in
>>the ascending direction. I don't add a new concept until it is absolutely
>>necessary.
>>
>>I do that also with computer chess. I have expressed several times this idea,
>>and rejected a number of common assumptions, on the ground that these
>>assumptions were not necessary and were just there to add complexity and
>>confusion to an otherwise rather simple model.
>>
>>One might disagree, but that's just the way I look at a new problem, generally.
>>
>>
>> Christophe
>
>well... i must admit Christophe...
>
>your reasoning does make sense...
>
>sort of like the ol' addage that says...
>
>'too many cooks spoil the broth'
>
>chess gets so complicated at times...
>
>that we miss the sure and clear path...
>
>we let distractions get in the way and that clouds our reasoning...
>
>for instance,
>
>something as simple as asking a basic question:
>
>"what can happen on a move in chess?"
>
>sounds easy... we say, well... a piece can move from here to there... or a piece
>can capture another piece...
>
>but, wait a minute... there is also those special cases...
>
>en-passant, castling, and pawn promotion...
>
>and all of a sudden a simple question does not have such a simple answer...
>
>so we try to reduce this down to its basic elements...
>
>with something like the following:
>
>A Side B Side
>
>P1 (a-b) --
>P1 (a-b) P2 (b-0)
>P1 (a-b) P2 (c-0)
>P1 (a-b), P2 (c-d) --
>P1 (a-0), p2 (0-b) --
>
>
>the first one is simply a piece moving from one square to a different square
>the second one is a piece capturing the opponent's piece
>the third one is en-passant (a variation of the 2nd one)
>the fourth is castling
>the fifth is pawn promotion
>(0 = off the board)
>
>notice that a piece moving, a piece being captured, and pawn promotion involves
>2 squares...
>
>en-passant involves 3 squares and castling involves 4 squares...
>
>not sure if this is what your gettin' at,
>
>but i gave it a shot... :)
>
>PilgrimDan
That's it.
Let me give another example, for which I have fought here for quite some time.
If a player A is better than player B at fast time controls, I just begin to
assume that player A will be better than player B at longer time controls.
From that point, if I notice that it might not always be the case, I might work
to provide evidence that it is not the case.
But my first idea is to keep things simple and see if it works. So I would first
assume that time controls do not matter. I change my mind and add complexity to
my model only if I can prove that my "simpler" model does not work.
I do that because I noticed a long time ago that general concepts are much more
powerful. A general concept (or "idea" or "principle") is one you can apply in a
large number of cases. So I try to keep my ideas as general as possible. It
hurts me when I have to add special cases to an otherwise "clean" (simple)
model.
I do not know what to do with the concept of "conscience". I don't need it to
cover a hole in the big picture of "intelligence", and it explains nothing
anyway. Worse: those who talk about it find it mysterious and impossible to
explain. So in short it raises questions you cannot answer, or that you do not
need to answer! I fail to see how it helps me to understand anything about
"intelligence" (a concept supposed to be closely related).
So I just drop it for now...
Christophe
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