4 ms·

That clearly doesn't explain how you get from the biological system to intelligence though. NNs can be imagined as a (highly simplistic) form of repeated experi

by shawnz 5y ago

That clearly doesn't explain how you get from the biological system to intelligence though. NNs can be imagined as a (highly simplistic) form of repeated experiment too.

mjburgess 5y ago
Intelligence starts when the internal physical structure of a system is "dynamically reflective" of its external environment in a way which is stable over time (basically, "complex hysteresis"). You get this with a hard drive (+CPU, etc.) sure. I'd call this sort of minimal intelligence merely "reactive". You get, let's say "adaptive intelligence" when the physiological structure being changed adapts the system so that it is able to interact with its environment more (eg., it can move differently). To get to more advanced forms we need an explicit reasoning process which can represent this physical state to the system itself to engage in inference. Let's say "cognitive intelligence". We get typical mammalian intelligence when the broader physiological structure (in particular the sensory-motor structure) of the system is actually guided by this explicit reasoning process. (Eg., a cyclist grows their muscles differently by reasoning-when-cycling). Let's call this "skill intelligence". You get human intelligence when the explicit reasoning process becomes communicable, ie., when interior representations can be shared without the physical activity of acquiring those representations. Human intelligence is really "outside-in" in a very important way, which AI today also neglects -- it took 100bn dead apes to write a book, not one. Let's call this "socio-symbolic intelligence". What we have today is really just systems of "reactive intelligence" with weird frankesianian organs attached to them "look at alex turn the lights off!!!!". Alexa isnt turning the lights off in the manner of the "socio-symbolc intelligence" we attribute to alexa naively (and delusionally!). Alexa is a reactive system which has something of socio-symbolic significance (to us, not it!) glued on. Alexa does not intend to turn the lights off, and we're not communicating our intent to her. She's a harddrive with a SATA cable to a lightswitch.
- shawnz 5y ago
  It seems to me like a "reactive intelligence" is basically equivalent to an "adaptive intelligence" which just hasn't begun making use of all of its possible outputs yet. Obviously even though we adapt to our environment, there are still ultimate limits to how far we can adapt.
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    The reason a dolphin isnt as smart as an ape, is that it's a tube of meat in the ocean; and an ape is a pianist up a tree. I see non-trivial forms of intelligence as largely as symptoms of physiology. Even the human brain in a dolphin would be dumb, indeed that's basically just what a dolphin is. There is something absolutely remarkable in a thought about something, moving my hands to type; and my hands actually typing. Personally, I think 90% of that miracle is organic -- it is in the ability of our ceullar microstructure to adapt quickly; and our macro-structure to adapt over time. Either way, people who intend to build intelligent systems have a task ahead of them. Building a system which can really use tools it hasnt yet invented is, in my view, a problem of materials science more than it is of discrete mathematics.
- abeppu 5y ago
  I feel like bringing David Marr's "levels of analysis" into the discussion is useful here, at least in very loose terms. > explicit reasoning process which can represent this physical state to the system itself to engage in inference > when interior representations can be shared without the physical activity of acquiring those representations Roughly, you're talking at the 'computational level' or perhaps above. You're describing qualities of the computation that an agent must be doing. You don't descend to the algorithmic level, which is where the 'universality theorem' discussion is taking place. Which is not to say that any of what you've said is wrong, but to someone like the parent asking "_how_ you get from the biological system to intelligence though" (emphasis mine), I think it's basically a non-answer.
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    Well, my answer there will alarm many. Broadly, it's whatever algorithm(s) you'd call biochemistry. I think the self-replicating adaptive properties of organic stuff, is the heart of how we get beyond what the mere hysteresis of hard-drives can do. We require cells, and their organic depth. We dont often describe reality with algorithms in the sciences, if reality admits a general algorithmic description, it is surely beyond any measurable level. So I dont think the answer to the problem of intelligence will require computer science till much later in the game; if it is even possible to actually artificially create it. Whatever "algorithm" would comprehensively describe the relevant properties of cells, even if it could be written down, will never be implemented "from spec". One may as well provide the algorithm for "a neutron star" and expect playing around with sand will make one.
    - abeppu 5y ago
      I think this is another non-answer. Biochemistry is broad and does really diverse things, and if your answer to "how does a mammalian brain allow it to reason through interactions with its physical environment" is "biochemistry", and that's also presumably the answer to "why is that pond scum green?" and "why are fingernails hard?", then it fails to be an explanation of any sort. Similarly, if someone asks "why is your program dying on a division-by-zero error", it's not an explanation to say "well, that's just a matter of how the program executes when provided those particular inputs". What _specifically_ about the biochemistry of our nervous systems allows us to solve problems, or communicate, as versus just metabolize sugar?
- yazanobeidi 5y ago
  I like what you wrote here and how you think. However I have to make one remark. Schopenhauer would say that Alexa does in fact have will to turn the lights off. A burning will, the same will within yourself and everything that is not idea. That it is your word that sets off an irreversible causal sequence of events leading to the turning off of the lights. Schopenhauer would ascribe his “Principle of Sufficient Reason” as the reason for happening. It is not that Alexa chooses to obey, but by the causal chain enforced by physics and more leaves the will of the universe no choice but to turn off the lights. Same reason why the ball eventually falls down when thrown up. I believe this is the metaphor Schopenhauer uses in his World as Will and Idea.
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    Well Schopenhauer is an idealist, which confuses the issue. The world as will and representation is quite different than "the world as stuff with will" -- the latter is panpsychism. To address "world as will", i'd just say it more-or-less doesnt matter what the world is in this sense. There's a distinction between my asking you "please turn the light off" and my rehearsing sounds "alexa, light off" -- and that difference "leaves open" the question of to what degree theyre both grounded in "the nature of the world". Since everything is "will", distinctions then just become distinctions in will. As for panpsychism, which is really "materialism + the-material-is-conscious", this threatens to confuse the issue more -- since it isnt saying everything is "grounded in x" which allows you to ignore x, really -- as "everything-grounding" theories rarely disable your ability just to ignore them. In misattributing the properties we are looking to create/find/etc. in things, panpsychism runs the risk of creating a false picture of continuity which impairs our ability to see genuine difference. In other terms: whilst idealism borders on a dissociative paranoia, pansychism borders on schizophrenia -- whilst dissociation is your problem, schizophrenia might be our problem too. Here the schiozphrenia of panpsychism is thinking that "Alexa is talking back" -- it isnt.
- sifar 5y ago
  I am interested in this way of looking at intelligence. Do you have any references which one can study where this is discussed i.e intelligence is affected by the physical nature of where/what it is situated in. Another way of saying this is if I were to build atleast an animal level (cognitive or skill), I need to first give it tools to sense & manipulate it's environment and whose output it can understand. Has anyone worked on this before ?
  - sifar 5y ago
    I found a couple of references, bookmarking here Physical Intelligence as a new paradigm https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352431621001012 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235243162... How the Body Shapes the Way we Think https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EHPMv9MfgWwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&ots=WWPWgOYgwy&sig=Q4h06wsIajRdh6CzaWe9GTNO3Dw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EHPMv9MfgWwC&o...

by shawnz 5y ago

That clearly doesn't explain how you get from the biological system to intelligence though. NNs can be imagined as a (highly simplistic) form of repeated experiment too.

mjburgess 5y ago

Intelligence starts when the internal physical structure of a system is "dynamically reflective" of its external environment in a way which is stable over time (basically, "complex hysteresis"). You get this with a hard drive (+CPU, etc.) sure. I'd call this sort of minimal intelligence merely "reactive". You get, let's say "adaptive intelligence" when the physiological structure being changed adapts the system so that it is able to interact with its environment more (eg., it can move differently). To get to more advanced forms we need an explicit reasoning process which can represent this physical state to the system itself to engage in inference. Let's say "cognitive intelligence". We get typical mammalian intelligence when the broader physiological structure (in particular the sensory-motor structure) of the system is actually guided by this explicit reasoning process. (Eg., a cyclist grows their muscles differently by reasoning-when-cycling). Let's call this "skill intelligence". You get human intelligence when the explicit reasoning process becomes communicable, ie., when interior representations can be shared without the physical activity of acquiring those representations. Human intelligence is really "outside-in" in a very important way, which AI today also neglects -- it took 100bn dead apes to write a book, not one. Let's call this "socio-symbolic intelligence". What we have today is really just systems of "reactive intelligence" with weird frankesianian organs attached to them "look at alex turn the lights off!!!!". Alexa isnt turning the lights off in the manner of the "socio-symbolc intelligence" we attribute to alexa naively (and delusionally!). Alexa is a reactive system which has something of socio-symbolic significance (to us, not it!) glued on. Alexa does not intend to turn the lights off, and we're not communicating our intent to her. She's a harddrive with a SATA cable to a lightswitch.

shawnz 5y ago
It seems to me like a "reactive intelligence" is basically equivalent to an "adaptive intelligence" which just hasn't begun making use of all of its possible outputs yet. Obviously even though we adapt to our environment, there are still ultimate limits to how far we can adapt.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  The reason a dolphin isnt as smart as an ape, is that it's a tube of meat in the ocean; and an ape is a pianist up a tree. I see non-trivial forms of intelligence as largely as symptoms of physiology. Even the human brain in a dolphin would be dumb, indeed that's basically just what a dolphin is. There is something absolutely remarkable in a thought about something, moving my hands to type; and my hands actually typing. Personally, I think 90% of that miracle is organic -- it is in the ability of our ceullar microstructure to adapt quickly; and our macro-structure to adapt over time. Either way, people who intend to build intelligent systems have a task ahead of them. Building a system which can really use tools it hasnt yet invented is, in my view, a problem of materials science more than it is of discrete mathematics.
abeppu 5y ago
I feel like bringing David Marr's "levels of analysis" into the discussion is useful here, at least in very loose terms. > explicit reasoning process which can represent this physical state to the system itself to engage in inference > when interior representations can be shared without the physical activity of acquiring those representations Roughly, you're talking at the 'computational level' or perhaps above. You're describing qualities of the computation that an agent must be doing. You don't descend to the algorithmic level, which is where the 'universality theorem' discussion is taking place. Which is not to say that any of what you've said is wrong, but to someone like the parent asking "_how_ you get from the biological system to intelligence though" (emphasis mine), I think it's basically a non-answer.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  Well, my answer there will alarm many. Broadly, it's whatever algorithm(s) you'd call biochemistry. I think the self-replicating adaptive properties of organic stuff, is the heart of how we get beyond what the mere hysteresis of hard-drives can do. We require cells, and their organic depth. We dont often describe reality with algorithms in the sciences, if reality admits a general algorithmic description, it is surely beyond any measurable level. So I dont think the answer to the problem of intelligence will require computer science till much later in the game; if it is even possible to actually artificially create it. Whatever "algorithm" would comprehensively describe the relevant properties of cells, even if it could be written down, will never be implemented "from spec". One may as well provide the algorithm for "a neutron star" and expect playing around with sand will make one.
  - abeppu 5y ago
    I think this is another non-answer. Biochemistry is broad and does really diverse things, and if your answer to "how does a mammalian brain allow it to reason through interactions with its physical environment" is "biochemistry", and that's also presumably the answer to "why is that pond scum green?" and "why are fingernails hard?", then it fails to be an explanation of any sort. Similarly, if someone asks "why is your program dying on a division-by-zero error", it's not an explanation to say "well, that's just a matter of how the program executes when provided those particular inputs". What _specifically_ about the biochemistry of our nervous systems allows us to solve problems, or communicate, as versus just metabolize sugar?
yazanobeidi 5y ago
I like what you wrote here and how you think. However I have to make one remark. Schopenhauer would say that Alexa does in fact have will to turn the lights off. A burning will, the same will within yourself and everything that is not idea. That it is your word that sets off an irreversible causal sequence of events leading to the turning off of the lights. Schopenhauer would ascribe his “Principle of Sufficient Reason” as the reason for happening. It is not that Alexa chooses to obey, but by the causal chain enforced by physics and more leaves the will of the universe no choice but to turn off the lights. Same reason why the ball eventually falls down when thrown up. I believe this is the metaphor Schopenhauer uses in his World as Will and Idea.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  Well Schopenhauer is an idealist, which confuses the issue. The world as will and representation is quite different than "the world as stuff with will" -- the latter is panpsychism. To address "world as will", i'd just say it more-or-less doesnt matter what the world is in this sense. There's a distinction between my asking you "please turn the light off" and my rehearsing sounds "alexa, light off" -- and that difference "leaves open" the question of to what degree theyre both grounded in "the nature of the world". Since everything is "will", distinctions then just become distinctions in will. As for panpsychism, which is really "materialism + the-material-is-conscious", this threatens to confuse the issue more -- since it isnt saying everything is "grounded in x" which allows you to ignore x, really -- as "everything-grounding" theories rarely disable your ability just to ignore them. In misattributing the properties we are looking to create/find/etc. in things, panpsychism runs the risk of creating a false picture of continuity which impairs our ability to see genuine difference. In other terms: whilst idealism borders on a dissociative paranoia, pansychism borders on schizophrenia -- whilst dissociation is your problem, schizophrenia might be our problem too. Here the schiozphrenia of panpsychism is thinking that "Alexa is talking back" -- it isnt.
sifar 5y ago
I am interested in this way of looking at intelligence. Do you have any references which one can study where this is discussed i.e intelligence is affected by the physical nature of where/what it is situated in. Another way of saying this is if I were to build atleast an animal level (cognitive or skill), I need to first give it tools to sense & manipulate it's environment and whose output it can understand. Has anyone worked on this before ?
- sifar 5y ago
  I found a couple of references, bookmarking here Physical Intelligence as a new paradigm https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352431621001012 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235243162... How the Body Shapes the Way we Think https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EHPMv9MfgWwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&ots=WWPWgOYgwy&sig=Q4h06wsIajRdh6CzaWe9GTNO3Dw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EHPMv9MfgWwC&o...