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Author
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Topic: Intelligence -- what is it?
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 06. May 2002 06:58
James,
Let me start by saying that I agree with almost everything you say. I also agree that the really interesting part of all this is understanding how all the pieces fit together produce life. Let me also note that my work, although it didn’t start with this issue, does directly address it.
My area of interest might be described as mathematical modeling. I started modeling information processing in neurons and human decision making. By a somewhat circuitous route, this led to the concept that the smallest unit of information processing is a ‘dynamic or programmable causal relationship’ that I call an ‘adaptive reaction’. In a simple form, an adaptive reaction is a causal relationship of the form "S causes R1" where S is some type of environmental stimulus, and R1 is a response or reaction causes by S. Life forms are capable of generating many different responses R1,R2,…,Rn to stimulus S. ‘S causes R1’, is an adaptive reaction when it is more likely to increase the likelihood of survival than ‘S causes R2’ etc. [It is easily demonstrated, or at least it can be demonstrated. that ‘programmable causal relationships’ and ‘adaptive reactions’ are mathematical transformations of the standard ‘permanent and universal causal relationship.]
Life forms involve many different physical manifestations of adaptive reactions. These adaptive reactions can be identified at the level of human and animal behavior, at the level of information processing in neurons, and at the level of chemical reactions in cells.
Starting with the concept of the programmable causal relationship, I then considered the logical processes or operations that impact adaptive reactions. There are, I believe four such processes- preservation, execution, modification and creation. I then identified and defined a paradigm, or a complex set of causal relationships, which generates these four operations on adaptive reactions. [The definition of this paradigm is expressed as a logic machine program. I will make the program available for review and comment to anyone interested.]
The paradigm I have defined, is of direct relevance to the discussion here, I believe, because:
1. The paradigm exhibits ‘intelligence’ in that it solves problems and creates information.
2. The paradigm creates intelligence or creates new forms of intelligence. This is possible because the paradigm operates on itself. The process operates on causal relationships including the causal relationships making up the paradigm (This is difficult to visualize intuitively, but can be demonstrated mathematically.
3. It can be demonstrated that each of the causal relationships making up the paradigm has demonstrable and testable physical manifestations.
JB: The question is, though, if we eliminate (1), Darwinism, and (2), humanlike design, as possibilities, then what choice have we but to try to investigate (3), the intrinsic properties of living matter
In answer to your question, let me suggest the possibility that life is defined not by intrinsic properties of matter, but by a paradigm or by a complex set of causal relationships. The approach I have developed has obviously not been validated, but it does appear to offer some interesting possibilities for explaining a number of the differences between life and non-life. I would appreciate any comments you might have.
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James A. Barham
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Member # 50
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posted 06. May 2002 09:19
Warren:
It sounds like there has been a really interesting convergence between our ideas on the fundamental structure or logic of functional action. I am sorry to say that I am not familiar with your work, though, and I would really appreciate it if you could give send me some of your papers, or references thereto. (Perhaps we should move this to a private channel.)
I won't answer at length here, because I have already madeseveral detailed posts addressing these issues elsewhere on Brainstorms. Just in a nutshell: I have become convinced that the fundamental tenet of the philosphical doctrine of functionalism---namely, "multiple realizability," or the idea that function derives from the organization of matter alone without regard to the underlying material "substrate"---is at the heart of all our problems.
To try to explain the functionality of a manmade machine and the functionality of an organism in the same terms is already to foreclose the possibility of any naturalistic explanation for the latter, in my view. Matter just doesn't sponataneously organize itself into functional forms according the presently known laws of physics. What moral should we draw from this?
Well, the Darwinians say, Don't worry, be happy. But Darwinism is just an intellectual anaesthetic that prevents us from feeling the pain of puzzlement in regard to the manifest teleology of life, it is not really a coherent explanation of anything. The only trouble with the anaesthetic approach is that pain is necessary for scientific progress. Darwinism is the biggest obstacle in the path of scientific progress at present, or so I believe.
The ID folks understand this very well, and that is why I respect them greatly. On the negative critique of the mainstream, I agree with them completely. However, I must part company with them on their positive ideas, for many reasons (discussion of which belongs mostly in a different forum). But the main reason is simply that ID presupposes intelligence, and so cannot constitute a proper explanation of intelligence.
Now, this would all just be a formula for despair, were it not for the fact that there is a tremendous amount of ferment in science right now. I believe that the most promising science for these questions is nonlinear dynamics (esp. the work of F.E. Yates) and condensed-matter physics (especially the work of Herbert Frohlich, Emilio Del Giudice, Giuseppe Vitiello, Hans Frauenfelder, Peter Wolynes, Robert Laughlin, Mae-Wan Ho, and others).
Let me close with a quote from the Nobel-prize winning physicist (discoverer of the fractional quantum Hall effect), Robert B. Laughlin:
"There is reason to suspect that the laws of self-organization of matter may render the most fundamental equations of the universe both unknowable and useless." (Laughlin et al., "The Quantum Criticality Conundrum," Advances in Physics, 2001, 50: 361--365.)
If Laughlin and others (e.g., Philip W. Anderson) are right, and there is no "theory of everything" and universal determinism and reductionism are empirically mistaken, then our view of physics itself must fundamentally change. Out of this new view of physics, in which qualitatively new properties of matter emerge with change of length scale, I am convinced a new view of life will eventually come into focus, as well.
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Janitor@MIT
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Member # 125
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posted 13. May 2002 12:01
The “Skinner box” hypothesis of intelligence:
This famous experiment is one of the most bizarre conducted in the history of science. The reason I say this is because its not altogether clear whose intelligence is being tested—the experimenter’s or the rat’s? (It is because of experiments like this that I insist the experimenter always be explicitly regarded as a subject/object of all experiments.)
By far the most significant result of these rats-running-mazes experiments, IMO, is that the experimenter has to put a glass ceiling over the maze! That glass ceiling represents everything that’s wrong with the cognitive sciences and AI. It’s the glass ceiling in the thinking of the researchers. They don’t even stop to think for a second that the glass ceiling is the most significant result of the experiment, not that rats learn how to find the cheese. They have to put the glass ceiling over the maze to keep the rats from (intelligently) breaking the rules of the experiment! But this is exactly what intelligence is! Breaking the rules! It’s not finding the cheese. Its how we find the cheese!
One might think that of all people scientists would understand this, because science has never been advanced without breaking the rules!
If the rats were allowed to freely exercise their native intelligence, the philosophically defiant and scientifically illiterate vermin would flip off the researcher, climb over the maze, and feast! The rats are demonstrating that their own native intelligence far exceeds the researchers’ theory of intelligence. The rats outsmart the researcher! Our theories of intelligence are so unintelligent a rat knows better! This is something that demands scientific explanation: not the rats’ behavior, but the researchers’ beliefs. The presumption that intelligence can be reduced to mechanism, the paradigm of rule-based behavior, is nonsense. What is definitively intelligent is breaking the rules. Not abiding by them.
Intelligence (and evolution) cannot be scientifically treated in this ethos: they cannot be simulated, reproduced, modeled, or predicted, because that is exactly what they are not; something that cannot be simulated, reproduced, modeled, or predicted.
Like all evolutionary biology, the cognitive sciences are in mad pursuit of the null hypothesis. The life sciences are gigantic monument to Type II Error. What can be modeled or simulated in AI, e.g., is exactly what intelligence is not! What is modeled and simulated in EC, and the theory-laden observations of biologists are telling us, is exactly what evolution is not!
Of course this does serve a scientific purpose. Its as important in science to know what the answer is not as it is to know what the answer is. The exasperating thing is that we’ve known all along what the answer is…
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John Bracht
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Member # 5
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posted 13. May 2002 12:29
Janitor,
I loved your post. You hit the nail on the head, and brought out a very important point: intelligence is not a mechanism! This is a key problem that many people make when insisting that intelligent design theory must make predictions about the designer or the means of design. The whole point of intelligence is that it breaks out of our preconcieved boxes and "breaks the rules" to do things truly novel and amazing. Like it or not, that unpredictability is going to have to be a part of design theory, along with an understanding that intelligent agency is not a mechanism and cannot necessarily be modelled as such.
About the only reliable prediction of intelligence that I've been able to find is that it leaves a characteristic mark of specified complexity behind. Thus, design theory predicts that nature will exhibit specified complexity in some (not necessarily all, or even very many) of its constituent components.
Anyway, Janitor, thanks for such a refreshing post.
John Bracht
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Micah Sparacio
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Member # 6
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posted 13. May 2002 13:17
I'm going to have to disagree with Janitor and John Bracht (or perhaps clarify my position).
Sure, I don't dispute the fact that "intelligence" is capable of coming up with novel, non-mechanistic solutions. However, you can't deny that there are certain components of intelligence which ARE mechanistic. Of course, if you define intelligence as being only those faculties which are not mechanistic, then you may well be right. But then you need to explain to me what we are to call so many of the features of the traditional intellect which are mechanistic. My understanding of the current AI world is that though some Utopians still exist (those who think that a general intelligence is solvable) most have come to terms with pursuing specialized intelligence, or simulated intelligence. Deeper Blue, google, expert systems, natural language interpreters.
My point is only that our understanding of intelligence is misguided if we think either:
1. it is only mechanistic or,
2. it is only creative
My sense is that intelligence is a combination of mechanism and creativity. In addition, I think that talk of a singular "intelligence" is misleading. Intelligence is the name we associate with a collection of cognitive and behavioral abilities, some of which display mechanism and some of which dispaly novelty.
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Berthajane Vandegrift
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Member # 272
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posted 13. May 2002 14:43
I might define intelligence as the ability to make fallible choices. (something a computer is not supposed to do!) Any process lacking fallibility would be automatic -- no choice involved. Any process lacking choice would be predictable -- no intelligence required. Surely, intelligent action can never be scientifically predictable!
Intelligent adaptation is the opposite of random. And while natural selection might eliminate complex biological structures, what role could selection play in their creation? One doesn’t have to be a scientist to ask that question. Most of what I read here on ISDIC is too technical and involved for me. However, ARN seems to be defunct. A couple of you seem to speculate about the role of intelligence in biology – suggesting that all living matter possesses some ability to make choices. Some of the posts which deserve repeating, IMHO , for the benefit of lurking laymen are:
James A. Barnham:
To try to explain the functionality of a manmade machine and the functionality of an organism in the same terms is already to foreclose the possibility of any naturalistic explanation for the latter, in my view. Matter just doesn't spontaneously organize itself into functional forms according the presently known laws of physics. What moral should we draw from this?
Well, the Darwinians say, Don't worry, be happy. But Darwinism is just an intellectual anaesthetic that prevents us from feeling the pain of puzzlement in regard to the manifest teleology of life, it is not really a coherent explanation of anything. The only trouble with the anaesthetic approach is that pain is necessary for scientific progress. Darwinism is the biggest obstacle in the path of scientific progress at present, or so I believe.
The ID folks understand this very well, and that is why I respect them greatly. On the negative critique of the mainstream, I agree with them completely. However, I must part company with them on their positive ideas, for many reasons (discussion of which belongs mostly in a different forum). But the main reason is simply that ID presupposes intelligence, and so cannot constitute a proper explanation of intelligence.
Now, this would all just be a formula for despair, were it not for the fact that there is a tremendous amount of ferment in science right now. I believe that the most promising science for these questions is nonlinear dynamics (esp. the work of F.E. Yates) and condensed-matter physics (especially the work of Herbert Frohlich, Emilio Del Giudice, Giuseppe Vitiello, Hans Frauenfelder, Peter Wolynes, Robert Laughlin, Mae-Wan Ho, and others).
Let me close with a quote from the Nobel-prize winning physicist (discoverer of the fractional quantum Hall effect), Robert B. Laughlin:
"There is reason to suspect that the laws of self-organization of matter may render the most fundamental equations of the universe both unknowable and useless." (Laughlin et al., "The Quantum Criticality Conundrum," Advances in Physics, 2001, 50: 361--365.)
If Laughlin and others (e.g., Philip W. Anderson) are right, and there is no "theory of everything" and universal determinism and reductionism are empirically mistaken, then our view of physics itself must fundamentally change. Out of this new view of physics, in which qualitatively new properties of matter emerge with change of length scale, I am convinced a new view of life will eventually come into focus, as well.
(and)
warren bergerson:
In their basic forms, both Darwinian evolution and ID suggest that the processing which defines a complex organism occurred before the organism came into being. The adaptive approach, by contrast, suggests that that is impossible. The adaptive approach suggest that most of the complexity in a complex organism is created or reinvented during the organisms lifetime. Most of the ‘intelligence’ needed to create such a complex organism exists within the organism. Both ID and Darwinian theory can, of course, by made consistent with the adaptive approach by assuming that evolution or external designers created the ability to create complex designs, rather than the complex designs themselves.
(and)
Janitor@MIT:
The traditional view is that evolution “just happens” to life, but I take the opposite view, evolution is what life does. If evolution is what life does, than a restricted teleological perspective occurs quite naturally. That something “just happens” is not a scientific theory at all. It’s a placeholder for our ignorance of what’s really happening. The traditional view is subtly but profoundly misinformative, and it could use the injection of some fresh and original insights and possibilities. A “rational reinterpretation” of biology is past due. Evolution is not fact, and its not theory: Evolution is applied science.
[I should include a disclaimer here. I haven’t a clue that Mike Gene’s (or anyone else's) and my thoughts correspond on any detailed level. But I have nothing but words of encouragement. Look at things differently. It’s the scientific way.]
Bertvan:
Should science only consider that which is predictable and fully understood?
As a layman, one of my favorite biologists is MaeWanHo:
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/MaeWanHo/freewill.html
One distinguishing feature of the living system is its exquisite sensitivity to weak signals. For example, the eye can detect single photons falling on the retina, and the presence of several molecules of pheromones in the air is sufficient to attract male insects to their appropriate mates. That extreme sensitivity of the organism applies to all levels and is the direct consequence of its energy self-sufficiency. No part of the system has to be pushed or pulled into action, nor be subjected to mechanical regulation and control.
In a very real sense, the organism is free to decide its own fate because it is a sentient being who has moment to moment, up-to-date knowledge of its own internal milieu as well as the external environment.
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 13. May 2002 16:32
Berthajane,
BV: I might define intelligence as the ability to make fallible choices. (something a computer is not supposed to do!) Any process lacking fallibility would be automatic -- no choice involved. Any process lacking choice would be predictable -- no intelligence required. Surely, intelligent action can never be scientifically predictable!
I have a rather interesting little experimental design that would, at least in one sense, contradict your assertion that intelligent action can not be scientifically predictable. The experiment is based on the assumption that human decision making is based on intelligence. The experiment tests the hypothesis "A certain type of machine logic can produce as good or better decisions than any human decision maker".
In performing the experiment, a decision process is selected, and the goals that the decision makers are attempting to achieve are determined. Then, using information generally available to all decision makers, the machine decision logic is determined. The decisions generated by machine logic are then compared to the decisions made by actual decision makers, including decision making experts.
The results of the experiment have been interesting. Under appropriate conditions, human decision makers can match, although seldom surpass the decisions generated by machine logic. However, under normal conditions the machine logic often dramatically outperforms human decision makers, even so called expert decision makers. At the very least, the experiment raises some interesting questions on the nature of human intelligence. [Note these studies are unpublished, but they can be replicated. ]
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Berthajane Vandegrift
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Member # 272
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posted 13. May 2002 18:04
Hi Warren,
Machine generated decisions would only be superior where goals, and all relevant information, are programmed into the machine. Confronted with changing goals, and drastically differing circumstances than the machine’s designer ever imagined, the machine would be stymied. Creative intelligence has the potential to come up with an answer in all circumstances. If the universe is finite, and all circumstances and goals are knowable, front loading - machine like intelligence - would produce a superior design. Otherwise, creative intelligence, while fallible, is like democracy. It is only better than all imaginable alternatives.
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James A. Barham
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Member # 50
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posted 13. May 2002 18:55
Berthajane:
I am a big fan of Mae-Wan Ho's, too (I have been trying to figure out how to get hold of a copy of her "Bioenergetics" textbook that is used at the Open University---any suggestions?).
What do you make of the fact that so many of the greatest theoreticians working now---Ho, and Sunny Auyang, and Lynn Margulis, and Susan Oyama, and Evelyn Fox Keller---are women? (I think that there are only a handful of men in the same class with either Ho or Auyang, who will surely be remembered as among the greatest thinkers of our time.)
Do you think it shows a "feeling for the organism," in some sense, that women are more in touch with, or just that being an outsider with respect to the male establishment makes one more likely to think in an original way?
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James A. Barham
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Member # 50
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posted 13. May 2002 22:30
Lest anyone should feel that my strictures against Darwinian obstructionism amount to attacks on a straw man, I refer everyone to the remarkably obtuse review by Lewis Wolpert of Evelyn Fox Keller's new book in yesterday's NY Times Book Review (5/12/02, p. 24).
In it, Wolpert grandly pronounces that "a cell, we now know, is no more than complicated chemistry," while at the same time speaking in several places of cells' doing "the right thing at the right time in the right place."
Has no one ever informed Professor Wolpert that chemistry knows nothing of right and wrong?
(BTW, Keller's last book, "The Century of the Gene," was excellent, and I am looking forward greatly to reading the new one, which is called "Making Sense of Life.")
[ 13 May 2002, 22:32: Message edited by: James A. Barham ]
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 14. May 2002 09:12
Berthajane,
Several of your comments on what machine intelligence can and can not do are directly contradicted by the experimental findings:
BV: Machine generated decisions would only be superior where goals, and all relevant information, are programmed into the machine.
The experiment shows that a machine can make near-optimal decisions based on a relatively limited amount of knowledge or information. Human beings, under ideal conditions, can match, but generally not surpass the machine decision making. Even though they have the same information, and strong incentives to make ‘good’ decisions, humans often make what can be called bad or stupid decisions.
The experiment demonstrates that 1)machine logic can simulate and predict good or near-optimal decision making under a specified set of conditions, and 2)human intelligence, despite the presence of the required information and incentives, is, as, at times, very inefficient.
BV: Confronted with changing goals, and drastically differing circumstances than the machine’s designer ever imagined, the machine would be stymied. Creative intelligence has the potential to come up with an answer in all circumstances. If the universe is finite, and all circumstances and goals are knowable, front loading - machine like intelligence - would produce a superior design. Otherwise, creative intelligence, while fallible, is like democracy. It is only better than all imaginable alternatives.
As you point out, intelligence is not decision making logic, but a process for ‘adapting’ decision making logic to whatever set of conditions that may arise. You are incorrect in assuming that this adaptive-intelligent process can not be expressed, modeled or simulated in terms of machine logic. The adaptive paradigm can express, model, and simulate the process by which decision logic is adapted to different sets of conditions. Since human intelligence is inefficient, and it is, at least in theory, possible to program a machine to perform this process with a higher degree of efficiency than humans, then it is possible to outperform humans at ‘using intelligence to modify and redesign’ decision making logic. [There are technical issues involved here that are difficult to explain in this a short note like this. My claim is that 1)the use of human intelligence to redesign decision making logic can be modeled and simulated by the adaptive paradigm, 2)human intelligence in this task is inefficient, and 3)I can demonstrate a process for redesigning human decision logic which is significantly more efficient than process typically used by humans. ]
It is interesting to note that the adaptive paradigm which can be used to model how "human decision making logic adapts or evolves" is exactly the same paradigm that can be used, I claim, to model and simulate the evolution of bacterial flagellum. Human intelligence and cell intelligence, while they involve very different physical mechanisms, involve the same logical process or paradigm.
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James A. Barham
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Member # 50
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posted 14. May 2002 10:09
On the debate between Berthajane and Warren about machine intelligence:
I basically agree with Berthajane that living intelligence cannot be fully captured by machine intelligence (which is only a simulation of intelligence, not the real thing). But I also agree with Warren that human intelligence is finite and failure-prone. Is this a contradiction?
I don't believe so. Here is how I reconcile the two viewpoints in my own mind.
It is not surprising that we can build computers that outperform humans cognitively in certain limited areas: pattern recognition, diagnostics, even chess playing. Warren's optimal decision making algorithms fit into this category, if I understand him correctly. But none of this is any more surprising than the fact that my pocket calculator can outperform me in arithemetic ability.
All that this proves is that certain aspects of human cognition can be expressed in algorithmic form, and that machines can perform these algorithms more efficiently than humans. The question is, What is the metaphysical lesson from this with respect to our self-understanding? Well, I guess it demonstrates that we are not angels who operate by sheer clairvoyance, but then I for one never supposed that we were. But does it prove that Berthajane is wrong? I don't think so.
The crucial point, as I see it, is value. None of these machines or algorithms has any intrinsic tendency to seek answers, because none of them feels problems internally to begin with. They are all nothing more than tools that we have constructed for our purposes. It is we who set the boundary conditions that define the funtional states (the desired outputs). They---the machines themselves---neither know nor care what they are doing. I like to call this the "Rhett Butler Problem". Like Rhett, machines just don't give a damn.
Intelligence is not just a matter of following a rule, it is a matter of caring about a given goal state and finding the appropriate actions that will bring it about. Only living matter does this---how, exactly, we do not know. But that it does it is a simple empirical fact. The fact that we can describe the instrumental actions living things take to achieve their goals in terms of algorithms or rules, and then program these rules into computers in order to run simulations of intelligent behavior, has no bearing whatsoever on the issue of what constitutes value (or conation or striving) in the first place. And without intrinsic value, there is no function, no intelligence, no nothing except mechanism---billiard ball physics. So, in this sense, I agree with Berthajane.
(The fact that I also believe that there must exist a "physics of value" may sound contradictory, but to go into the distinction between linear or Newtonian mechanics and nonlinear or qualitative dynamics here would take us too far afield.)
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Berthajane Vandegrift
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Member # 272
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posted 14. May 2002 11:32
Hi James,
You remark that many of today’s women biologists are pursuing non materialistic ideas. (How could anyone resist such an invitation to indulge in generalizing and stereotyping?) It’s hard to avoid the impression that some women scientists are more understanding of holism, and that with age, some young materialists think more holistically. (Obviously, young materialists would regard the latter as deterioration :-) ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ) Those observations may only be valid in Western culture at this particular time. I’m convinced that healthy intellectual pursuance profits from both philosophies, that a conflict and interaction between materialism and holistic thinking produce true creativity.
To Warren:
I am trying, but I don’t really understand your ‘adaptive paradigm’. You are apparently suggesting an alternative to RM&NS, and I’ll keep studying your posts. Any idea must eventually gain some understanding by laymen to attain acceptance. Are you suggesting that a machine like intelligence can be creative? Machine like intelligence might prove superior at choosing between known alternatives. But could it come up with a new unprecedented alternative?
[ 14 May 2002, 12:12: Message edited by: Berthajane Vandegrift ]
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John 3
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Member # 269
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posted 14. May 2002 14:26
"The presumption that intelligence can be reduced to mechanism, the paradigm of rule-based behavior, is nonsense. What is definitively intelligent is breaking the rules. Not abiding by them." Janitor@MIT
I cannot reconcile that. Let me try to explain it with a hypothetical situation.
Imagine a system of a hundred or so particles with certain attractive properties. Let it be a rule that two particles will always orbit each other at a given distance from one another, will never get any closer, and seldom come apart. The binary particle synergy is inherent to the sytem because of the rules of the particles themselves. The particles move so fast that the pairs only look like transparent spheres about one inch in diameter. These cannot exceed the one inch diameter with out loosing their orbit. This is all we know about the system.
Suppose we didnt realize that three binary sets also have a synergistic property of a perfect balance of orbit. But only if one fourth binary set orbited around the three. Let this be true based only on the inherent rules and properties of binary sets. But all of this, we do not yet know.
The next day we come back and, wait a sec, there's a dark ball two inches in diameter with a transparent shell around it. Huh, according to our rules of particles, this is not possible.
And then there was a synergistic balance in the orbital of three eight particle sets only if two eight particle sets orbited around them. The next day we are suprised to see these one foot in diameter balls.
To make it worse, imagine that we never even new that these binarys sets were binary and we thought that they were the smallest particle--- the transparent one inch ball. This would make our fourty particle system look even more absurd.
My point is not that this proves intellingence, but as the conditions change, so do the rules. No rules are being broke per say -- but new games with new rules are being made.
At such a level, its not intelligent but just fortuitous and deterministic. Perhaps intelligence is just this fortuition at such a seemingly undetermined and chaotic scale of the world.
Unless there are spirits that actively organize matter irrespective of physics, there must be natural processes, right? This idea that "life breaks the rules" somewhat conradicts our notions of process itself, does it not?
[ 14 May 2002, 14:31: Message edited by: John 3 ]
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 14. May 2002 15:37
Berthajane,
Yes, the adaptive paradigm could be described as an alternative to RM&NS, and yes I claim it is capable of producing creative solutions. To get a rough understanding of the adaptive paradigm you start with the concept of the dynamic or programmable causal relationship. A permanent causal relationship has the form " A always causes B". In very simple terms, a dynamic causal relationship has the form "A causes B1 at t=0 can change to A causes B2 at t=n"
Real world examples of dynamic causal relationships would include "An individual neuron which processes information at time t=0 by function f1 and by function f2 at time t=n". A decision process or decision logic is another example of a dynamic causal relationship. A cell where various chemical processes are active or inactive at different times represents a third example of a dynamic causal relationship.
Now to the concept of the dynamic causal relationship, you add the concept of purpose. If you have a dynamic causal relationship of the form "S causes R’ where S can be S1,S2,…,Sn and R can be R1, R2,…Rn then under ideal conditions, the form "Sx causes Ry" which is present at time t is the form that has the highest expectation of resulting in achieving goal G.
Dynamic causal relationships which satisfy or partially satisfy the above are called teleological or purposeful. In biological systems, the goal G is always some variation of ‘survive and reproduce’. The three types of dynamic causal relationships listed above are all purposeful or teleological dynamic causal relationships. I use the term ‘adaptive reactions’ to refer to the teleological dynamic causal relationships.
The adaptive paradigm can be described as a process or set of processes operating on adaptive reactions. The adaptive paradigm performs the following four basic types of operations:
PRESERVATION- Storing ‘S causes R’ so the relationship can recur in the future.
EXECUTION- Generating R when S occurs
MODIFICATION- Change the Sx or Ry in ‘S causes R’ as appropriate
CREATION- Splitting ‘S causes R’ into ‘S causes R1 and S causes R2" or "S1 causes R and S2 causes R" as appropriate
I have a four page logic machine program, I call it a Life Force Simulator which provides at an explicit expression of the operation performed by the adaptive paradigm. Four pages of code is a bit more complex that mutate-select. [It should be noted that even moderately complex applications of the LFS would require computing and storage capacities far beyond those of current computers.]
It can be demonstrated (I believe) that the adaptive paradigm is capable of generating creative solutions. Of more practical interest, is the ability to demonstrate that the adaptive paradigm can explain or simulate known occurrences of creativity, such as the design of the bacterial flagellum.
The adaptive paradigm has one especially interesting feature that explains the ‘evolution of new evolutionary processes’. The nervous system and ‘the discontinuity between primate and human intelligence’ are considered important examples of this type of evolutionary process. The explanation of this phenomena starts by noting that some of the processes making up the adaptive paradigm are themselves adaptive reactions. The adaptive paradigm has the ability to operate on these adaptive reactions. The adaptive paradigm thus has the ability to operate on itself.
I am afraid that the above explanation will raise more questions that it answers, but thanks for asking.
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