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From: Ghod Dhammit on 5 Jun 2010 19:56
On 6/5/2010 1:29 PM, mrdilligent wrote:
> I can't follow who said what in this thread;

Mr. Illiterate, you've said all you need to say.
From: huge on 5 Jun 2010 22:38
mrdilligent :

> I can't follow who said what in this thread; Somebody said:
>
> << If an automaton can drive itself a distance of two hundred miles
>> > >> across a tremendously forbidding desert terrain, how can this feat
>> > >> be called merely a 'simulation"? It is certainly as genuine an
>> > >> act of survival in the hostile environment as that of a mosquito
>> > >> flying about a room and avoiding being swatted>>


As a reminder, let's have the whole quote:
Here is Hofstadter on Searle's philosophy of mind from "I Am a Strange
Loop, p. 81:

"...it makes perfect sense to discuss living animals and self-guiding
robots in the same part of this book, for today's technological
achievements are bringing us ever closer to understanding what goes on in
living systems that survive in complex environments. Such successes give
the lie to the tired dogma endlessly repeated by John Searle that
computers are forever doomed to mere 'simulation' of the processes of
life. If an automaton can drive itself a distance of two hundred miles
across a tremendously forbidding desert terrain, how can this feat be
called merely a 'simulation"? It is certainly as genuine an act of
survival in the hostile environment as that of a mosquito flying about a
room and avoiding being swatted."


>
> Apple-and-orange comparisons, conflations galore, and all manner of
> implied non sequiturs in this passage. Not to mention that one of the
> main non-scientific "scientific" questions of today raises its
> irrelevant and nonfactual head here: Do computers think?
>
> An automaton does not drive itself.

Automatons do drive themselves.



> It may seem to the spurious minded
> that it is doing just that, but just ask a few questions: How does the
> automaton fuel itself???

The questions discussed by Hofstadter are about *simulation,* not whether
a thing can be called alive or not. The thing is acting with a goal,
quite flexibly, protecting itself along the way. That is intelligent behavior
that is not a *simulation.*


> Answer: It doesn't; it takes HUMANS to provide
> it with its fuel. 200 mi is a long distance for even a car, so it must
> have to be refueled along the way. HUMANS must do this by prearranging
> fuel stops for it.
>
> And apart from the fuel, what DOES drive it? A HUMANLY written
> program.

The quote was about whether a thing is simulating
intelligent acts, not where a thing acquires its intelligence.


>
> How much do you guys know about computers?

In my case, I'd say a shitload,
doing professional AI and other related work beginning
more than 30 years ago.

>Their history? From Babbage
> to those giant boards with light bulbs which the women of WWII had to
> screw in for ON and out for OFF, to vacuum tubes, to transisters, to the
> present-day IC, the basic principle is one and the same: currents of
> electrons, better yet, photons, stream like water (only faster) from one
> "gate" to the next, according to the program written for it.
>
> Without fuel and the program, a computer is just a compilation of
> useless matter.

My poor dear cat, without bar-b-q and coffee, *I* am just a compilation
of useless matter. You are completely, absolutely off the topic that
the Hofstadter quote addresses.

> That goes for automatons and robots, too, as they are
> comeputer-run. Do you think the automaton feels the heat of the
> "forbbidding desert"? the cold of the frozen tundra? the wetnesss if
> any puddle it must cross? the flames of an unexpected forest fire?

Its performance indicates that it reacts with a certain amount of
both flexibility and intelligence
to cross the desert by itself. It is *completely* beside the point that
it must be fueled, that it has been programmed by humans or anything else --
besides its autonomous behavior when left alone. Its behavior is *not*,
indeed, a *simulation*. It was a very short paragraph -- why can't you
address what it said?


>
> No, none of that. Unless the HUMANS built avoidance maneuvers into the
> program, any metal of the automaton's makeup rusts, and/or the flames
> melt it into a lump. How's that for survival?
>
> "Extreme environment" has nothing to do with it; robots are utilized to
> go where living organisms, including humans, cannot go. That is one of
> their functions. They feel nothing, they experience nothing, know
> nothing.
>
> The difference between an automaton and a human, and for a mosquito,
> too, as far as that goes, is that the living being can EXPERIENCE,


*AGAIN*, goddamnit, the Hofstadter quote was *not* about experience.
It was about whether a robot can react intelligently in a *non* simulated
condition.

I'm allowing you to draw me off topic, but:
The only things we can securely know about experience is the behavior,
and the physical states and processes of things that report them.
It is quite easy to have an automaton that reports 'experiences.'
If I write a program that reports 'experiences,' what kinds of rational
arguments can you resort to to claim that it is not really experiencing?
You will have to resort to examinations of its physical states, its reports,
its environment and how it reacts to it. I would maintain that human
experience is simply the reports of one high level process within the
brain about other high level processes in the brain.

Nothing supernatural, nothing magic, nothing world shaking.
It is just something that happens when physical objects interact in
particular configurations.


> and
> then try to come up with the best solution to any problems that
> arise---without a program to run it.


Many living things are definitely
more flexible than computers at the moment.
But feats like driving alone across a desert is a definite
exhibit of some amount of *non* simulated intelligence.


> No one has to anticipate in
> advance all the kinds of problems that might arise; only the individula
> human or mosquito can do that for itself.

The automaton driving across a desert can do that for itself.


>
> Let me put it to you this way: Is a river intelligent? It runs itself,
> and even makes "decisions" such as eroding the erodable where it meets a
> steep blockage, and thus reroutes itself. Except that it does NOT
> reroute ITSELF, gravity reroutes the flow of water by way of the lowest
> level of passage.. I am sure that few would say that a river was
> intelligent, yet a computer is also just a stream---of electrons or
> photons.

At the very base, *we* are just a stream of electrons and protons.




> The stream cannot flow through the "gates." but it can go
> around them---to the next "gate." It is the carefully coded program
> that steers the stream to the next "gate, " and to the next, and so on,
> so that the robot implements the program written (by HUMANS) for it. In
> general, if the human programmers failed to anticipate an obstacle, the
> robot will not be able to proceed. In a way, this is what happened to
> Spirit on the surface of Mars.
>
> There have been a few cases where computers "healed" themselves;


*AGAIN* not addressing Hof's claim. In general, 'healing' is not
associated with intelligence so much as biological things.
If you are going to define things that can act for themselves as things
that can heal, well that's quite a strange thing.



> a
> faulty program forced the stream where it could not go, so the stream
> headed for the nearest "logical" gate, and proceeded from there. To the
> human users' amazement, the computer had solved the probelem set for it
> despite the faulty program!
>
> Computers cannot survive

Whoah, pardner. The automaton that went across the desert *proved*
that automita *CAN* survive.


> or die;

Again getting off point.

> only living organisms can do that.
> Sure, a computer can rust, or melt, and eventually its material makeup
> will entropize, but only a living organism can die, and when it does,
> its material makeup entropizes rather swiftly under normal
> circumstances, It may become fodder for parasites, scavengers, and
> predators, or it may simply turn smelly or desicated. More importantly,
> though, a living organism can possibly come up with strategies for
> survival when it is threatened. A robot can do that ONLY when humans
> build a suitable strategy into its program.
>
> Finally, since computers don't have minds, there will never be another
> H.A.L.---unless we come to understand schizophrenia so well that we can
> program its surrogate into the computer.
>
> It is the unfortunate conventional misusage of language that leads us
> into such silly ideas as computers being the next stage of evolution,
> mastering the human race, etc.

We influence computers, they influence us. We can act, at times,
without the help of computers. Automatons can act, at times, without
our help.

> Cosmologists insist on speaking of a
> star's death and birth. Of course, stars are not born, nor do they die.

More non-attendance to Hofstadter's very specific claim.

> They come into existence, surely, and though they almost never go out
> of existence, their forms do change---from a bright star to a supernova,
> or perhaps to a brown dwarf, etc. Nor do galaxies canabalize one
> another! Owing to the characteristics of matter and the immutable laws
> of it, they do "collide," but it is perhaps more realistic to think of
> this as crosspartitioning of sets, since the hydrogen and other
> materials let loose form an area for new stars to come into existence.
> Chrosspartitioning inevitably leads to new sets.
>
> Another example of language misuse is the use of _language_ in
> connection with computers. Computers have no tongues, no oral
> appendages! HUMANS use codes for computers, and, at base, these are 0s
> and 1s.

And humans, with all their behavior are built up from simpler physical states
and processes. Computer languages do not display all the characteristics
of human languages, but in your lengthy finger-driven dysentery you forget that
the automaton being talked about was being evaluated for its *behavior* --
which did, indeed show clearly that it acted alone during its trip -- which
was *not* a simulation.


> The "higher level languages" used in computer programming are
> these binary codes elevated to a communication state which is more
> compatible with the human mind.
> The computer itself doesn't care a fig.

The automaton's behavior that interested Hofstadter was whether it
could act independently and not simply as a simulation. It did.


> All that is needed is Os for OFF and 1s for ON, and this is what guides
> the streams to or around the "gates."
>
> So pay no attention to statements such as "The computer does/doesn't
> understand," the computer learns," etc. etc.

This, again, is off point. Let's go back to what was claimed once more,
just so you don't forget:

Here is Hofstadter on Searle's philosophy of mind from "I Am a Strange
Loop, p. 81:

"...it makes perfect sense to discuss living animals and self-guiding
robots in the same part of this book, for today's technological
achievements are bringing us ever closer to understanding what goes on in
living systems that survive in complex environments. Such successes give
the lie to the tired dogma endlessly repeated by John Searle that
computers are forever doomed to mere 'simulation' of the processes of
life. If an automaton can drive itself a distance of two hundred miles
across a tremendously forbidding desert terrain, how can this feat be
called merely a 'simulation"? It is certainly as genuine an act of
survival in the hostile environment as that of a mosquito flying about a
room and avoiding being swatted."

Please, ***PLEASE*** address further comments as to this quotation
to the quotation, and not to your straw man characterization of it.

--
huge: Not on my time you don't.
From: mrdilligent on 6 Jun 2010 19:48
On May 30, 8:25 pm, Immortalist <reanimater_2...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

<<The center of attention has now moved from language to mind.
>
> > > Why? Well, first, I think many of us working in the philosophy of
> > > language see many of the questions of language as special cases of
> > > questions about the mind. Our use of language is an expression of our
> > > more biologically fundamental mental capacities, and we will not fully
> > > understand the functioning of language until we see how it is grounded
> > > in our mental abilities

Language is not a thing, and should not be studied, spoken of, or
otherwise treated as a thing. For example, "Language evolves" is a
blatent falsehood, and "Langage changes" is a misrepresentation of the
actual truth. PEOPLE change language, sometimes deliberately and for
good reason, sometimes by accident or a slip of the tongue which is
picked up by others (consider Woodrow Wilson's "normalcy" when the
perfectly good word _normality_ already existed), but most of all by
ignorance which is compensated for by picking up "meanings" from
cultural convention. Language does nothing by itself, a mistake made
by all linguists for at least nearly a century.

Another fundamental error lies in the confusion of what we mean by
"language." The word itself originated in the pidgin of Latin and
Frankish, the Latin word _lingue_ referring to the oral appendage, and
the Frankish _age_ the ancient I-E word which survived into all I-E-
based tongues as, essentially, the addition of things into a group.
Our own personal "ages" are but the cumulation and cumulative result
of the number of solar orbits our planet has made since our birth,
nothing else, as one example. Thus, "language" is the cumulation and/
or cumulative result of one or more oral appendages. Strictly
speaking, it could refer to ALL oral appendages, of any and all
animals that posess one. Of course, the Latins and most other
cultures of the day meant by, and called, the human oral appendage
"tongue" or its interlingual synonym, so meant by _lingue_ not only
the human oral appendage, but also the metanym for the modulating role
which that appendage plays in formulating speech. _Lingue_ became
_langua_ for the English because the Frankish, as today the French,
pronounced the "in" sound as "ahn." For a comparable case, take the
French _lingerie_ (pronounced lahnjeree) which in English has
errantly become "Lohnjeray."

Add into this confusion the oft-raised question of "How and when did
language begin?" Do we mean physical speech here? Or do we mean the
CODE we use the physiolgy of speech for?

The physiology of speech began shortly after the sea critters climbed
onto land and began breathing gaseous air. Moving air makes noise---
sound waves. So it wasn't long before these new land animals began to
seize this new material opportunity to make a code. As you all
probably know, all living organisms have been using matter to encode
their ideation for as long as there have been living organisms on
earth---nucleotides, espescially DNA, comprise a code. Everything
from pheramones (scents) to pigmentation (colors) to shapes. . . .
have been turned into coding devices as well as serving their original
physiological purposes. This new "whoosh" was no different.

Since there was no voice box as yet, the first sound-wave codes were
issued as a kind of hissing sound; you can still hear birds in fright
making their version of this sound, and we all know about snakes. I
believe the purr of the cat and the "sneeze" or "blow" of dogs and
horses have their origin in this hissing sound. In any case, soon the
body produced "reeds"----the voice box or larynx, we humans call
them---against which the exhaled air could make a more tangible sound,
and even vary it. Insects are too tiny for any exhaled air to make
audible sound waves--i.e., waves that could travel far---so they
advantaged themselves, as necessary, of leg-rubbing or other sounds
that could be heard by audition-endowed organisms. But for our line
of descent, it was the larynx and eventually the tongue's modulation
of exhaled air that became "speech." Even these proved not distancing
enough, so man took to drum-beating and smoke signals, both of which
travel very far to ears and eyes. But make no mistake, these, too,
are code-sending devices by which man sent certain of his ideas.

So what DO we mean by "language"? by "speech"?

The physiolgocial mechanisms of "language" or "speech" are one thing;
if the mind had anything to do with these, it is far too obscure; the
CODING aspect of both (or either) is definitely a product of the
human mind, however, and to speak of "language" as a stand-alone
thing, to be studied independently of the human mind, is IMO one very
SERIOUS error, whether in science or in philosophy.

From: mrdilligent on 6 Jun 2010 20:05
Date: Fri, Jun 4 2010 12:25 pm
From: John Stafford


<<The Ancient Greeks considered vision a deep mystery and the source
of
insight, knowledge. To 'see' something was the human being casting
his
vision upon an object, illuminating it as if the eyes were
penetrating
the darkness of reality. Look to their concept of aletheia which
means
something becoming unhidden, seen. Aletheia is not the thing being
seen,
but the becoming visible - the very moment of the unveiling by human
vision. So the Forms never become seen, but aspects of them are
seen.>>

Oh wow. How far afield we must go to grasp a simple truth!

"To see," when it does not mean physical eyesight, nor even cognitive
perception, refers to UNDERSTANDING something. You know, explaining
something to someone who then says, "Oh, I see,." when literal vision
is in no way involved.

[Although once upon a time, this "understand" meaning of the English
verb "to see" MAY have been metaphoric, it has for so long been one of
the verb's definitions that it can no longer be thought of as
metaphoric---or idiomatic. To do so is an active choice by some
contemporaries. And no, I do not need to look up "to see," or any
other everyday word, in a dictionary. Usage in historical context will
do just fine.]

I don't know about the ancient Greeks and "mystery," but I am fairly
sure they understood understanding---better than we do! They had
their words; we have ours; let's not "see into" a foreign word what
probably isn't even there.

Like aletheia---something IS "hidden" (from conscious mind) when it
is not understood; when it is and consciously so, one understands, or
"sees." Big Deal.

One thing that always makes me mad is when the biblical passsage about
being "pure in heart will see God" is construed literally in all
possible ways. But "pure in hearrt" just means not pathelogical of
mind, not even neurotic, though few can get away with no neurosis at
all. It refers to the NATURAL mind with which we were all born----
until culture and convention buried it beneath books and memorization
from an early age. "Seeing" means understanding, not eye sight, and
"God" (it is a West Germanic word and was never known by the biblical
Hebrews) refers to the cosmos itself---what is behind it all. Not the
galaxies and solar systems (only 4% of the universe, ya know). It
does NOT refer to an invisible anthropomorph, superior or otherwise.

That 96% is unavailable to the physical senses, thus "invisible."
Only the 4 % is available to the physical senses. There is no way in
proverbial heaven or hell that we as a culture will ever understand
the universe by peering forever into that 4 %. To traslate that
botched translation of the OT into our modern words for the same
truth: "Only those who still have relatively natural minds, and who
use them, on experience, will in time come to understand the
intangible universe, and what life is really all about."

And if you doubt that, go read (with your mind turned "on") in
comparative religion; it is clearer in the major Oriental thought
systems than it is in Occidental Judeo-Christianity, the many
metaphors of which have for so long been translated literally that we
are hopelessly lost. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism don't use
metaphor so much, and what they do use is in a very different way, but
you will notice that they ALL feature use of the mind! They even have
exercises for the mind, exercises which do NOT involve memorizing
books.

And note that in some, what we call "Heaven" and envision with "pearly
gates," is called Nirvana, which is total nothingness. Read
that :NoTHING-ness, i.e., no res, no matter. Not zilch.

Civilized culture, they all say in their own words, is a poison (for
the natural mind). The trick is to extricate oneself from it ("the
world" not meaning the planet or life on it) bit by bit and then one
will be able to see. Again, not with their eyes as they do a chicken
or a computer, but with their MINDS in understanding.

"Oh, now I see!"
From: mrdilligent on 6 Jun 2010 20:06
Date: Fri, Jun 4 2010 12:25 pm
From: John Stafford


<<The Ancient Greeks considered vision a deep mystery and the source
of
insight, knowledge. To 'see' something was the human being casting
his
vision upon an object, illuminating it as if the eyes were
penetrating
the darkness of reality. Look to their concept of aletheia which
means
something becoming unhidden, seen. Aletheia is not the thing being
seen,
but the becoming visible - the very moment of the unveiling by human
vision. So the Forms never become seen, but aspects of them are
seen.>>

Oh wow. How far afield we must go to grasp the simple truth!

"To see," when it does not mean physical eyesight, nor even cognitive
perception, refers to UNDERSTANDING something. You know, explaining
something to someone who then says, "Oh, I see,." when literal vision
is in no way involved.

[Although once upon a time, this "understand" meaning of the English
verb "to see" MAY have been metaphoric, but it has for so long been
one of the verb's definitions that it can no longer be thought of as
metaphoric---or idiomatic. To do so is an active choice by some
contemporaries. And no, I do not need to look up "to see," or any
other everyday word, in a dictionary. Usage in historical context will
do just fine.]

I don't know about the ancient Greeks and "mystery," but I am fairly
sure they understood understanding---better than we do! They had
their words; we have ours; let's not "see into" a foreign word what
probably isn't even there.

Like aletheia---something IS "hidden" (from conscious mind) when it
is not understood; when it is and consciously so, one understands, or
"sees." Big Deal.

One thing that always makes me mad is when the biblical passsage about
being "pure in heart will see God" is construed literally in all
possible ways. But "pure in hearrt" just means not pathelogical of
mind, not even neurotic, though few can get away with no neurosis at
all. It refers to the NATURAL mind with which we were all born----
until culture and convention buried it beneath books and memorization
from an early age. "Seeing" means understanding, not eye sight, and
"God" (it is a West Germanic word and was never known by the biblical
Hebrews) refers to the cosmos itself---what is behind it all. Not the
galaxies and solar systems (only 4% of the universe, ya know). It
does NOT refer to an invisible anthropomorph, superior or otherwise.

That 96% is unavailable to the physical senses, thus "invisible."
Only the 4 % is available to the physical senses. There is no way in
proverbial heaven or hell that we as a culture will ever understand
the universe by peering forever into that 4 %. To traslate that
botched translation of the OT into our modern words for the same
truth: "Only those who still have relatively natural minds, and who
use them, on experience, will in time come to understand the
intangible universe, and what life is really all about."

And if you doubt that, go read (with your mind turned "on") in
comparative religion; it is clearer in the major Oriental thought
systems than it is in Occidental Judeo-Christianity, the many
metaphors of which have for so long been translated literally that we
are hopelessly lost. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism don't use
metaphor so much, and what they do use is in a very different way, but
you will notice that they ALL feature use of the mind! They even have
exercises for the mind, exercises which do NOT involve memorizing
books.

And note that in some, what we call "Heaven" and envision with "pearly
gates," is called Nirvana, which is total nothingness. Read
that :NoTHING-ness, i.e., no res, no matter. Not zilch.

Civilized culture, they all say in their own words, is a poison (for
the natural mind). The trick is to extricate oneself from it ("the
world" not meaning the planet or life on it) bit by bit and then one
will be able to see. Again, not with their eyes as they do a chicken
or a computer, but with their MINDS in understanding.

"Oh, now I see!"
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