IUBio

Rickert on embedded computation (was re: science of consciousness.)

mentifex at scn.org mentifex at scn.org
Thu Apr 30 10:55:54 EST 1998


Once again, Oliver Sparrow sets the tone and flavor of Western Thought:

>Let me bore on, disnetiqettishly following my own post.

> Knowledge is expressed entirely in terms of other knowledge:
> some elemental (Ow! Yum!) and some declarative/symbolic.
> It is probably true that most elemental knowledge is somehow
> filtered and prioritised: certainly vision and other forms of
> perception [are] so managed. If everything is made of its
> embedding, its context, then this perhaps points to the
> architecture in which hierarchies of elemental percepts
> create primitives, primitives create a grammar in which
> entities are located and stored, structures are generated by 
> feed-forward from dynamically linked entities within dedicated
> task managers, priorities set by top down balancing agencies
> that operate between and over the task managers. All of these
> bits would be made from other bits, in different parts of the
> system.  Nothing would be entirely fundamental. [...]

>Oliver Sparrow

His Excellency has artfully described the empty-logicry situation
which threatens to obtain when Robot Mind.forth is up and running.

<a href="http://www.scn.org/~mentifex/aisource.html">Mind.forth</a>
is the URL of the public-domain distribution of the AI in Forth.

To translate the august philosophical oracula of O. Sparrow above
us all:  he seems to say that the artificial mind will be limited
to circular reasoning about its various propositions "P" -- all
defined in terms of one another, with no bedrock "primitives"
to ground the ratiocination in experiential reality.

Are you aware or cognizant, Sir (take your pick), of the finite
but unbounded inventiveness and original tinkery of the robot
makers who are the designated heirs of the free Mind.forth AI.
They are itching to attach cameras, smellers, feelers and Webcams,
etc., to their over-land, over-sea robots.  They shout to you,
"Primitives?!  We don't need no stinking primitives!"



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