AI, Aristotle, G-d and the bootstrap problem ...

Started by Baruch, December 31, 2016, 10:15:52 AM

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Jason78

Quote from: Baruch on January 03, 2017, 08:04:32 PM
Hakurei ... splitting computer hairs isn't a practical argument.

That's not splitting hairs.   That's a genuine concern within the field of computer science.  It's almost on the level of the P vs NP problem.
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drunkenshoe

Quote from: Jason78 on January 04, 2017, 02:06:29 AM
Do you imagine the little dog speaking with my deep voice or just the little fella yipping?

Deep male voice? Bastard. :lol: Well, now I am not imaginning a little doggie...
"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

Baruch

Quote from: Jason78 on January 04, 2017, 02:11:29 AM
That's not splitting hairs.   That's a genuine concern within the field of computer science.  It's almost on the level of the P vs NP problem.

I know what that is too, and you have a solution?  Or just a back of the napkin prediction of a solution some time in the future?

Practical computer science doesn't care.  Only the NSA needs unlimited memory, to store all your damn emails and cell phone calls.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Hakurei Reimu

Quote from: Baruch on January 03, 2017, 08:04:32 PM
Hakurei ... splitting computer hairs isn't a practical argument.  Yes, in any practical sense, memory is finite, but will execute most programs (most programmers design for the hardware).
Yes, but Turing machines are not called upon to do such tasks. Turing machines are used to explore the computable functions. There is no problem that a computer with finite memory can do that a Turing machine can't. Turing machines cannot compute whether or not a Turing machine will halt on any arbitrary input. Therefore, neither can practical computers with finite memory. You can compute it in special cases, but not in the general case. It is a computational equivalent to a Gödel statement.

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And there is a halt, or a loop.
No. The unlimited tape destroys that assumption. There are about 40 Busy Beaver machines of five-states that are unknown whether they halt or continue forever. Only five fucking states. Why do you think that is? The tape, man. It's not a precise, one-to-one loop where a single, discrete configuration of machine and tape is recapitulated. "There is a halt, or a loop" is a gross oversimplification of the issue.

There's also the fact that just because a Turing machine can compute some function, doesn't mean it will be quick about it. Believe it or not, the time taken to compute a solution is a practical concern. Any practical AI will have to not just be correct enough, but also fast enough.

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Of course sometimes the goal is some output, but sometimes more indirect, the side-effects of execution are what are sought.
Bullshit. "Halting" means practically that a procedure will exit having performed some task, including "side-effects" of execution. The tape of a Turing machine is exactly this sort of "side-effect". How do you guarantee that a computer really has finished your "side-effect" unless it successfully exits the procedure you bundled up for that task?

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Are you simply doing a "must have last comment"?  That doesn't address the OP.
I admit that we got off track, but your stupidity and google-scholarship annoys me.

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Marketing defines AI, that and the credulity of DARPA or venture capitalists or the completely ignorant computer user.
And yet we get useful applications of AI like Siri and expert systems. Just because the usual vision of a butler robot (a conventional, popular notion of AI) has not materialized doesn't make the investigation of AI something that "marketing" defines. We've had to tackle smaller, more foundational problems of AI (like navigating an unpredictable environment) before moving on to general intelligence. That's just what you have to do when a problem turns out to be harder to crack than you first thought.

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If moving ones and zeros are AI, then we have had AI for many decades now.  My programmable calculator in the 1970s was worthy of civil rights ;-))  Number 5 Is Alive!  Similarly if random atomic configurations are a life form, then the kitchen garbage I throw out is a life form (not just the mold on the overly old cottage cheese).
And now you just devolve into rhetoric. A life form is not a random atomic configuration. It's been through non-random selection. There's no purposeful top-down design involved, but it's not random. We are a general intelligence that evolved because as life forms we needed to solve problems dealing with an arbitrary and often hostile environment. Today's AI products are still very sheltered things, so it's not very surprising that when released into the wild they often fail spectacularly.

Intelligence wasn't something we crafted, but emerged naturally, so of course the definition of intelligence is kind of fuzzy when trying to characterize it after the fact, and artificial intelligence even more so.
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Baruch

#34
"Intelligence wasn't something we crafted, but emerged naturally, so of course the definition of intelligence is kind of fuzzy when trying to characterize it after the fact, and artificial intelligence even more so." ... yes, a perfect sales opportunity for science grifters and their followers.  Like polywater and cold fusion.  Actual fusion research is also still ... 20 years away, for over 60 years now.

All human words are just vocalizations of apes ... they don't mean anything (I am often told here that life has no meaning, or that it is purely subjective).  The thoughts behind the words are equally meaningless ... random sounds produced by random neural firings.

"Bullshit. "Halting" means practically that a procedure will exit having performed some task, including "side-effects" of execution. The tape of a Turing machine is exactly this sort of "side-effect". How do you guarantee that a computer really has finished your "side-effect" unless it successfully exits the procedure you bundled up for that task?"

Programming not for doing accounting or physics, usually involves loops these days (to check for new input in a dynamic way from some human acting asynchronously).  That is the basic difference between old world programming and modern graphical windows programming (vs the days of punched cards).  And no, in that case, with say a web site ... it isn't supposed to exit, it is supposed to be up and available 99.99% of the time.  Halting is a fault, not a success (though maybe necessary for periodic maintenance).  In an interconnected system (how much more complex than a single cpu Turing machine) ... the side effects don't stop there (see first computer worm).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Baruch on January 04, 2017, 07:07:56 PM


All human words are just vocalizations of apes ... they don't mean anything (I am often told here that life has no meaning, or that it is purely subjective).  The thoughts behind the words are equally meaningless ... random sounds produced by random neural firings.
Now you are sounding downright christian.  I don't think many said that life had no meaning--I believe they said quite clearly that life has no universal meaning, or meaning given to us from 'above'.  All meaning comes from within.  If you feel you have no meaning then you are probably correct.  Why does it follow that thoughts are meaningless?  I would also suggest that it is possible for some to have thoughts be random sounds produced by random neural firings--but most would call that mental illness.  Or being christian.  But I think mostly those comments are simply you being Baruch. :)
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Baruch

I am rhetorical at all times, but with complete honesty and sincerity ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Hakurei Reimu

Quote from: Baruch on January 04, 2017, 07:07:56 PM
"Intelligence wasn't something we crafted, but emerged naturally, so of course the definition of intelligence is kind of fuzzy when trying to characterize it after the fact, and artificial intelligence even more so." ... yes, a perfect sales opportunity for science grifters and their followers.  Like polywater and cold fusion.  Actual fusion research is also still ... 20 years away, for over 60 years now.
Heh, joke's on you. Fusion used to be 50 years away. That number has improved over my life time. (Polywater and cold fusion were never established. You get no points for them.)

Quote from: Baruch on January 04, 2017, 07:07:56 PM
All human words are just vocalizations of apes ... they don't mean anything (I am often told here that life has no meaning, or that it is purely subjective).  The thoughts behind the words are equally meaningless ... random sounds produced by random neural firings.
More rhetorical bullshit. The neural firings of your brain and your words are not random. You are an intelligent being with goals and desires, thus you have purpose for assembling words together and having the thoughts that you do. It just that "meaning" does not extend outside beings we would call intelligent.

Quote from: Baruch on January 04, 2017, 07:07:56 PM
Programming not for doing accounting or physics, usually involves loops these days (to check for new input in a dynamic way from some human acting asynchronously).  That is the basic difference between old world programming and modern graphical windows programming (vs the days of punched cards).  And no, in that case, with say a web site ... it isn't supposed to exit, it is supposed to be up and available 99.99% of the time.  Halting is a fault, not a success (though maybe necessary for periodic maintenance).  In an interconnected system (how much more complex than a single cpu Turing machine) ... the side effects don't stop there (see first computer worm).
More bullshit. What you say is only true for the fact that you don't know really know what input set you are going to be working with ahead of time, being that you are reacting to what the computer is doing. However, if you were to record your reactions on tape and play them back to the computer under identical conditions, the computer wouldn't be able to tell the difference, and behave exactly the same way. (This is a concept that is used to great effect in UNIX with its piping and redirection mechanisms, as well as its descendants.) So, yeah, everything said about the relationship between a Turing machine and a regular computer still applies. Interactivity makes the scenario more difficult to analyze, but it does not dismiss the original point.
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Baruch

The universe is a Turing machine, therefore any machine of any complexity (including networking and human input) is necessarily within the bounds of a Turing machine?  That is circular logic.  A mass of size X is stable gravitationally ... but a mass of many times greater is not stable gravitationally, but falls into its own black hole.  Tell me again that scale doesn't matter, and I will sail a sailing ship, that I have in a bottle.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Hakurei Reimu

Quote from: Baruch on January 04, 2017, 10:05:26 PM
The universe is a Turing machine, therefore any machine of any complexity (including networking and human input) is necessarily within the bounds of a Turing machine?  That is circular logic.
No, you simply too far out of your depth. Nobody but simulation loons have ever said that the universe is a Turing machine, and I don't know how you got the above from what I said. An interactive session can be simulated by one where one side is prerecorded. This completely specifies your side of the interaction and makes analysis possible on the problem, and subject to all the theorems of Turing machines.

Or you can break down the program into discreete components such that, while the program as a whole loops infinitely, the individual calculations you need to do your assigned task all should halt, and are subject to all the theorems of computer science. A main event loop of an interactive program is not where the interesting stuff is happening anyway, and is so simple in construction that is behavior is easily characterized.
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Cavebear

The universe cannot be a Turing Machine.  A Turing Machine involves self awareness or the simulation of such.  I have yet to see an argument supporting the idea that the "universe" has self-awareness.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Hakurei Reimu

^ Sorry, Cavebear, you're wrong. Turing machines are state machines. Nothing about the definition requires or implies self-awareness or simulation of the same. (Though this may actually be the case for some Turing machines.) No, the universe isn't a Turing machine because the number of states is bounded.
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Cavebear

Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on January 04, 2017, 11:27:07 PM
^ Sorry, Cavebear, you're wrong. Turing machines are state machines. Nothing about the definition requires or implies self-awareness or simulation of the same. (Though this may actually be the case for some Turing machines.) No, the universe isn't a Turing machine because the number of states is bounded.

Not sure what you mean by "state machines".
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on January 04, 2017, 11:18:45 PM
The universe cannot be a Turing Machine.  A Turing Machine involves self awareness or the simulation of such.  I have yet to see an argument supporting the idea that the "universe" has self-awareness.

It was a rhetorical question, and it worked to elicit response from who it was directed at.  I agree, even my target calls proponents of this "simulation loons".  The first simulation loon was Pythagoras.

The universe may not have sentience as a whole, but it does express sentience locally, thru sentient creatures.  But that is the crux of the issue ... the metaphysical debate over whole vs part, analysis/reductionism vs synthesis/assemblage.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on January 05, 2017, 12:27:20 AM
Not sure what you mean by "state machines".

He needs to define terms (he likes to teach anyway) and give us a full course in theory of computation ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_computation

I agree with him, that Turing machines aren't sentient ... in which case AI is a fraud.  If he claims that some Turing machines are sentient, he needs to produce one, and test it with something better than the naive Turing Test.  Most people won't pass the Turing Test.  They actually have this test from time to time, and it is a joke, an exercise in human projection or anthropomorphism ... which dates back to the Eliza program (an online psychologist).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.