Merged: Cognitive Theory, ongoing progress

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by barehl

I will not discuss important details of my theory until it is completed and set for publication which is the same standard that every practicing scientist in the country uses today. You already know this.

What will you discuss, then?

In your OP you say, "[m]y work can't be verified until the theory is complete since it isn't functional until it's complete. All I can say right now is that the theory is consistent with evidence."

Will you discuss the evidence that is consistent with your theory? Will you discuss your theory in enough detail for us to see the predictions that are consistent with evidence?

I assume, of course, that you are talking about evidence that has already been observed, not evidence from experiments that have not yet been run. Will you at least discuss that evidence?

No goalpost moves or sliding definitions here. Just your own words, taken at face value. Will you discuss them?

[barehl]

Originally Posted by jrhowell

You started this thread to discuss your theory!

No, I've tried to discuss it before but I keep running into the double standards so this was only an update thread.

Quote:

Are you willing to post anything about it at all?

Yes, I could post a number of things, but then someone will say, "You haven't proved that yet." Of course, these same people will enthusiastically post and discuss claims with far less support by other people such as Elon Musk's mars rocket and hyperloop. Oddly enough I see suggested theories in physics, cosmology, and cognition published and discussed all the time without proof. Apparently, I'm a special case.

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So it will take hundreds of pages to explain your theory. Do you plan on publishing a book?

That is the idea.

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Having it published in a prestigious journal?

It wouldn't fit in a journal article. Origin of Species didn't fit in a journal article. And, you already know this.

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How do you see experimental confirmation coming about?

There is a large amount of supporting evidence. But I would imagine that grad students would be quite happy to conduct specific experiments once it is published. This would specifically prove or disprove it. I'm not sure what it is about this process that you aren't already familiar with.

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Do you plan to do your own research

This depends on what you mean by research. There are mountains of evidence already available. I've been looking for evidence for over two years that would disprove the theory. So far, that hasn't happened.

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Do you expect others to be so taken by your theory that they take it upon themselves to perform these experiments?

I think you misunderstand. IBM, Microsoft, Google, and many others are already working in this area. My theory would be just another item. If it was quickly disproved then it would be a footnote and nothing more. If it wasn't disproved then it would get more attention. But, again, you already know this.

Quote:

(So far I see no reason for this thread to be in Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and Technology.

As a sampling, for cognitive evolution I used behavior in fiddler crabs, honeybees, territorial fish, alligators, beavers, chimpanzees, and humans around age 1-3. I used baseball batters for decision constraint. I used experiments like change and attention blindness. I used computational theory, information theory, and decision theory.

If you can suggest a better place for the thread, be my guest.

[Jodie]

What about a general idea of what the theory is about? My own personal opinion with no proof to base it on is that we confuse intelligence with self awareness/consciousness.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Pixel42

It's very strange. He seems to be complaining that we're not discussing his theory, whilst refusing to tell us anything about it to discuss.

I've mentioned a number of things about it and I could mention more. People here complain when I do. I'm not complaining. I went over that in the community thread and no one there could explain the double standard so I gave up on that idea.

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The insistence that once it's published there will be nothing to discuss is even stranger. If it's borne out by experiment there will almost certainly be lots of implications to discuss, and even if it's disproved it might well provide insights and new possibilities to explore.

That isn't what I said. Once I publish the completed theory I won't be here to discuss it. In other words, no one here (you included) has come up with a scenario where I specifically would be discussing it here. From what you are saying, you won't value my ideas until I am no longer here to discuss them. That does seem very odd to me.

[wea]

<nitpick mode>

Originally Posted by barehl

Are you familiar with the logical fallacy of argumentum absurdum?

No, but I know what a reductio ad absurdum is. On the other side

Originally Posted by barehl

Once the theory is published there won't be any discussion here.

the sentence immediately above is a better example of "argumentum absurdum" i.e. "nonsensical justification"; not a logical fallacy, just a (possibly) wrong opinion.



</nitpick mode>

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Mojo

It's not just that: he also claims to have developed "knowledge theory", and used it to develop his other theory. So that's two theories, one of which is complete enough for him to use to develop the other.

No, that isn't what I said. I worked for nearly two years on awareness. I finally got a breakthrough on that. In other words, I finally had a hypothesis that fit with evidence. The problem was that my hypothesis wasn't grounded to anything else. It wasn't linked to any existing theory in physics, biology, or computation. So, I focused on information theory and I realized that there was a gap. So, I worked on this area until I had a formal theory for a restricted class of information, which for convenience I call 'knowledge'. That gave my cognitive work a proper foundation.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Cheetah

How about throwing us some small tidbits?

Put my hand in the hornets nest again? Why not?

When it comes to the idea of robots people seem to want a personal assistant with the loyalty of Lassie but smart enough to perform first aid or make suggestions about investments or fashion. So, I've worked on that and these are my conclusions:

• Machine cognition. This only gives you a personality like a human with no more loyalty or reliability. This seems completely possible but not what people want. Secondly, I couldn't get it to work with the personality in a box scenario like the movie, Her, or the book, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
  
• Fractional theory. This is an attempt to use computational theory to constrain a cognitive agent. This would be similar to the Robocop scenario. I couldn't get it to work.
  
• General AI. If this worked then it would solve the constraint problem since you could just program in the limitations. This was the scenario with Asimov's Three Laws. However, I'm pretty sure that computational general intelligence is impossible.
  
• Multi-specialist or collected AI. Google is putting a lot of money into this. The idea is that an advanced AI is like a Swiss Army knife. In other words, you develop an AI that works well in one specialized area and then you combine these together into a collection. The AI would then switch to whichever one was applicable. The main problem with this is that it doesn't have any understanding so something external has to cause it to select the right AI.
  
• Restricted window cognitive analysis. Having failed to find any theoretical basis for what people would like to have I arrived at this. It might allow an AI to mimic understanding if you keep the decision space small enough.

I haven't yet been able to find a way to get human-level smarts without human-level free will.

[Beelzebuddy]

Originally Posted by barehl

I will not discuss important details of my theory until it is completed and set for publication which is the same standard that every practicing scientist in the country uses today. You already know this.

That is the opposite of how pretty much every practicing scientist works. Generally before a big theory is published it's presented as posters, talks, innumerable bull sessions over beer to anyone who'll listen, and probably a bunch of predecessor papers with much weaker evidence that's used to assert the theory in the discussion anyway to try and test the waters. The problem is getting them to shut up about it.

Discussing important details of your theory is how it becomes a theory instead of a crazy rant half-divorced from reality. The only thing publication brings is the implication that you aren't pulling it completely out of your ass. And we're fine with crazy rants pulled completely out of our asses here, right? So there's no need to be shy.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Jodie

What about a general idea of what the theory is about? My own personal opinion with no proof to base it on is that we confuse intelligence with self awareness/consciousness.

The definitions I use:

Intelligence: the ability to perform logical, mathematical, and set manipulations on information. Consciousness is not required.

Awareness: the ability to perceive the environment at an abstract level sufficient for navigation or manipulation. Consciousness is not required.

Cognition: the ability to generalize (or find the highest abstraction level of) sets, relationships, and action sequences. This does not seem to be possible without the ability to manipulate knowledge. Knowledge manipulation seems to require consciousness.

Problem solving is related to Awareness. Strictly speaking it doesn't require consciousness.

We don't tend to see higher level intelligence occurring naturally without consciousness since intelligence isn't of much value if you can't learn and learning above innate levels seems to require consciousness.

Consciousness seems to be the simplest solution to operating in an open environment with unbounded decision space. It's the only solution I've found that bypasses Goedel's Incompleteness problem. Computational theory tends to become intractable as the decision space becomes larger.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

That is the opposite of how pretty much every practicing scientist works.

No. Andrew Wile worked on a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem in complete secrecy from mid 1986 until it was published in May, 1995. In fact, when Wile submitted an incorrect proof in 1993 he was asked for permission to publish his work up to that point so that other mathematicians could also work on the problem. Wile refused and continued to work on the problem in secret until he solved it in September 1994.

Charles Darwin started working on natural selection in 1837 and had the concept worked out by 1838. His first publication was in 1858 and Origin of Species wasn't published until 1859.

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Discussing important details of your theory is how it becomes a theory instead of a crazy rant half-divorced from reality. The only thing publication brings is the implication that you aren't pulling it completely out of your ass.

Your claim doesn't fit with the well documented examples of Wile and Darwin. Please stop being dishonest.

[Mojo]

Originally Posted by wea

<nitpick mode>



No, but I know what a reductio ad absurdum is. On the other side



the sentence immediately above is a better example of "argumentum absurdum" i.e. "nonsensical justification"; not a logical fallacy, just a (possibly) wrong opinion.



</nitpick mode>

He only asked if I was familiar with it. He didn't say that he was familiar with it.

[theprestige]

barehl, I've asked you several times to discuss the experimental consistency you refer to in your OP. Will you discuss it?

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by barehl

No. Andrew Wile worked on a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem in complete secrecy from mid 1986 until it was published in May, 1995.

No. That is the opposite of how pretty much every practicing scientist works. Cherry-picking an irrelevant mathematician and Charles Darwin who did not publish until needed does not change the fact that millions of scientists publish their work as soon as practical.

Not totally right. Andrew Wiles did not announce his work on Fermat's Last Theorem before 1993. However he at least told his wife. From memory of Singh's book, he and a colleague created an advanced math lass that resulting in only the 2 attending and bouncing ideas of each other. Wikipedia describes this as "near-total secrecy".

This post is a very distant relative of the Galileo Gambit (Galileo was ridiculed in his time but was right). This is the irrelevant fallacy that smart people in the past did work in secret and were right and so I will work in secret (with the implication of being right). You list Wiles and Darwin. You missed out Newton and to a lesser extent Einstein.

It is a fallacy because there are millions of scientists who have not kept their work secret.
It is irrelevant because you have broken your secrecy with this thread .

[barehl]

Originally Posted by theprestige

barehl, I've asked you several times to discuss the experimental consistency you refer to in your OP. Will you discuss it?

Hypothesis: human cognition and intelligence evolved over time from non-cognitive and lower intelligence organisms. To avoid lots of random, lucky jumps in brain structure, elements that are used at each level must be present in previous generations. And more than likely these elements will still be found in modern organisms that have lower cognition/intelligence.

I studied fruit flies, fiddler crabs, and honeybees and was able to document many elements that are needed to build cognition. I used these non-cognitive organisms because I can infer brain ability from behavior. This isn't a perfect choice because arthropods are not ancestral to humans; fish actually descended from round worms. But, I would expect that people who are more expert in these areas can find similar elements in round worms.

I studied territorial fish. I've seen many documentaries on reef fish. However, I used to keep aquarium fish like Dempseys and Oscars, so part of that is from personal observation. This seems consistent because I did not see these characteristics in smaller fish like guppies, mollies, or tetras.

Up from fish would be amphibians. However, there don't seem to be any surviving species of amphibian with behavior more complex than fish. Presumably there were prior to reptiles.

I had a ball python and an iguana. However, nothing in their behavior came to mind as interesting so I studied alligators. I found additional complexity over fish. There are suggestions that monitor lizards are smarter.

The only remaining link we have between reptiles and mammals are the monotremes so there isn't much to study.

I studied beavers because they seem to have more complex behavior than other mammals except primates and a few mammals like honey badgers and raccoons. Beavers seemed to be a good choice because of the social organization which we don't see with raccoons or badgers and because beavers are in the same super-order, Euarchontoglires, as humans whereas raccoons and badgers are in the order Carnivora. I used some dog behavior.

I've seen a number of documentaries on chimpanzee behavior and that was an obvious choice.

And then you have the behavior of very young children and some experiments like change and attention blindness.

Then I compared behavior to brain size, for example mice versus rats, but particularly for animals larger than humans.

Then I did multiple surveys of information complexity, volume, and speed and neural length and speed, and sensory volume and complexity, and things like embryonic development. And I compared with computational theory, information theory, decision theory, and evolutionary theory.

My ideas about cognition are consistent with the evidence that I've studied and consistent with theories that are not related to consciousness. I'm not aware of any existing theory of consciousness that agrees with mine but I have been able to disprove everyone that I'm aware of.

[Beelzebuddy]

Originally Posted by barehl

No. Andrew Wile worked on a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem in complete secrecy from mid 1986 until it was published in May, 1995. In fact, when Wile submitted an incorrect proof in 1993 he was asked for permission to publish his work up to that point so that other mathematicians could also work on the problem. Wile refused and continued to work on the problem in secret until he solved it in September 1994.

Charles Darwin started working on natural selection in 1837 and had the concept worked out by 1838. His first publication was in 1858 and Origin of Species wasn't published until 1859.


Your claim doesn't fit with the well documented examples of Wile and Darwin. Please stop being dishonest.

Your examples of practicing scientists you aspire to are a hermit mathematician and a guy who's been dead for a century? I'm not the one being dishonest here. Remember that they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Look, you are talking to academics about this at least, right? At the very least I'd strongly recommend making friends with cognitive scientists at your local uni. Send them an email, buy them some coffee. You'll find them more receptive than you think.

Originally Posted by barehl

Hypothesis: human cognition and intelligence evolved over time from non-cognitive and lower intelligence organisms. To avoid lots of random, lucky jumps in brain structure, elements that are used at each level must be present in previous generations. And more than likely these elements will still be found in modern organisms that have lower cognition/intelligence.

That's... not a hypothesis. That's literally just evolution. Maybe you want a neuroanatomy class? There has to be some free ones around the internets. Look up the structure of octopus brains, it'll blow your mind.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

No. That is the opposite of how pretty much every practicing scientist works. Cherry-picking an irrelevant mathematician and Charles Darwin who did not publish until needed does not change the fact that millions of scientists publish their work as soon as practical.

Bandwagon fallacy. Thank you.

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However he at least told his wife.

And I've mentioned it here. I can't tell my wife because I'm not married. I have told relatives and mentioned it online.

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"near-total secrecy"

Yes, as I said.

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This is the irrelevant fallacy that smart people in the past did work in secret and were right and so I will work in secret

This has nothing to do with me. I keep my ideas confidential because:

1. I want to get credit for my ideas.
2. If I publish an incomplete theory and others work on it they might solve it before I do and there goes my credit.
3. Under no circumstances would I publish the theory even if complete with the current political situation in the US.

If you can counter any of these reasons, have at it.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

Your examples of practicing scientists you aspire to are a hermit mathematician and a guy who's been dead for a century?

No, I never mentioned aspiring to anyone.

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Look, you are talking to academics about this at least, right?

No, I'm not.

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At the very least I'd strongly recommend making friends with cognitive scientists at your local uni.

There aren't any.

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Send them an email

I've probably sent out two dozen. I did get a reply from one who said that he would be afraid of a machine with human intelligence.

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You'll find them more receptive than you think.

That hasn't happened yet.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by barehl

Bandwagon fallacy...

And we get:

• Ignoring that you cherry picked an irrelevant mathematician and Charles Darwin.
• A "Bandwagon fallacy" lie.
  The real world fact is that pretty much every practicing scientist describes to other people, announces in conferences and publishes their work as soon as practical. Cherry picking 1 scientist who did not does not change the fact.
• Ignorance of what you wrote -"complete secrecy" is not "near-total secrecy".
• A couple of baseless fears that sound more like excuses to hide that you do not have a theory.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

This post is a very distant relative of the Galileo Gambit (Galileo was ridiculed in his time but was right).

Okay, I did get a good laugh from this. From Wikipedia:

A form of the association fallacy often used by those denying a well-established scientific or historical proposition

Can you tell me what well established scientific or historical proposition I disagree with? This should be good.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by barehl

Okay, I did get a good laugh from this. From Wikipedia:

From not underdamping Wikipedia: Galileo Gambit

Quote:

Galileo Gambit[edit]
A form of the association fallacy often used by those denying a well-established scientific or historical proposition is the so-called "Galileo Gambit". The argument goes that since Galileo was ridiculed in his time but later acknowledged to be right, that since their non-mainstream views are provoking ridicule and rejection from other scientists, they will later be recognized as correct too.[2]

You refuse to describe your theory. It could be a pile of crank fantasy that denies well-established scientific propositions. It could be valid usage of well-established scientific propositions.
There is the trivial hypothesis: "human cognition and intelligence evolved over time from non-cognitive and lower intelligence organisms.".

[barehl]

Let me see if I can clarify this.

If I had a grant to do experimental research then credit wouldn't be much of an issue. Whatever conclusions I came up with would have to be supported by the experimental evidence. Someone could try to publish the conclusions but unless they had copied the data, procedures and results they would have no evidence to back it up. And, if they did copy these things you would still have your lab notebook as evidence. It would be very difficult for someone to steal your research and try to take credit for it. I assume this is what Reality Check was talking about when he mentioned 'baseless fears'. Unfortunately, this isn't what I'm doing.

I'm trying to create a high level model of the brain. I'm not doing basic research and conducting experiments. There are already vast quantities of information available that no one has been able to interpret. I look through the same evidence and try to find patterns. The patterns form hypotheses and these are then tested against other evidence. Hypotheses that fit with the evidence are included in the model. Then I look for more evidence that will support or disprove the model. This is what Charles Darwin did to create evolutionary theory. It wasn't based on laboratory experiments; it was based on interpreting existing evidence. The problem though is that if your ideas are based on existing evidence then only the ideas themselves have value. It was only the threat of being scooped by Wallace and losing credit that forced Darwin to publish. The great majority of people working on cognitive theory gave up on the idea of a high level model years ago. The current effort is based on either extended AI (which hasn't worked) or neural networks (which hasn't worked) or neural modeling which failed spectacularly in the Blue Brain Project. So, while I'm far from the first to work on this I don't know of anyone else who is still doing it.

So rather than being childish and daring me to provide more detail, someone would need to explain why credit concerns would not be valid. No one has even attempted to do that. If you actually believe that it isn't a concern then it should be easy for you to explain why. Just saying that the concerns are baseless is not much of an explanation.

Secondly, I have great concerns about publishing a theory like this with an obviously, incompetent fool like Trump in the White House, and Republican majority control of the House and Senate. So, I'm not anticipating publishing until these things change. No one has attempted to explain why this also shouldn't be a concern.

[fagin]

So you've got nothing?

[Myriad]

Originally Posted by barehl

Secondly, I have great concerns about publishing a theory like this with an obviously, incompetent fool like Trump in the White House, and Republican majority control of the House and Senate. So, I'm not anticipating publishing until these things change. No one has attempted to explain why this also shouldn't be a concern.

There can be no attempt to explain why this shouldn't be a concern, because you haven't explained the nature of your concern.

Do you fear government reprisals for publishing a theory of cognition that the President or Congressional majority might (piling speculation upon speculation) disagree with?

Are you hoping that publication will result in government funding or other support for your work, which would less likely be forthcoming from the current administration than from some future one?

Are you concerned that the Republican Party might misuse your findings, to the detriment of the public? (If so, couldn't they and other questionable political regimes around the world any time subsequent to publication, misuse it anyhow even if they're not in power at the time of publication?)

Is it your intent to punish the world for permitting the U.S. to elect an executive and representative body that you disapprove of, by withholding your valuable discoveries?

I speculate the above four possibilities because you have not specified a reason. My purpose is not to attempt to win a guessing game but to demonstrate where the available information falls short of sufficient clarity for a coherent rebuttal. None of those reasons seem very plausible to me, but I haven't been able to concoct any others that are any more so.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Myriad

Do you fear government reprisals for publishing a theory of cognition that the President or Congressional majority might (piling speculation upon speculation) disagree with?

Well, obviously Pubs will immediately disagree with it because it refutes life after death and is based on Evolutionary theory (clearly a tool of the Devil). I think condemnation from evangelicals and religious fundamentalists is a given. Death threats from Trump supporters wouldn't be out of the question.

But, let's say that the theory is correct. We could expect Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, and western Europe to jump on it. I couldn't expect any kind of coherent response from Trump so the US would be delayed, possibly by years. Nor would other Pubs (who routinely kiss the ring of the president of Liberty University) be eager to spend money on something anti-Christian.

I suppose some would argue that greed would win out but some elements of the theory don't favor big business.

[Pixel42]

Originally Posted by barehl

I've mentioned a number of things about it and I could mention more. People here complain when I do.

You need to tell us enough for it to be possible to have a meaningful discussion of what you've told us. The only complaints I've seen are complaints that you haven't done that. If you don't feel you can do that that's fine, but you can't then be surprised that we aren't discussing things you haven't told us.

Quote:

From what you are saying, you won't value my ideas until I am no longer here to discuss them. That does seem very odd to me.

No, I'm saying we can't value your ideas if we don't know what they are. And I don't understand why you could not return to discuss them after you've published them and we finally have something to discuss.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by barehl

Hypothesis: human cognition and intelligence evolved over time from non-cognitive and lower intelligence organisms. To avoid lots of random, lucky jumps in brain structure, elements that are used at each level must be present in previous generations. And more than likely these elements will still be found in modern organisms that have lower cognition/intelligence.

I think to some extent that's quite reasonable and likely to be true.

I don't think it's a particularly original revelation, however. For instance, it bears considerable resemblance to the Triune Brain model:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain

Quote:

The triune brain is a model of the evolution of the vertebrate forebrain and behavior, proposed by the American physician and neuroscientist Paul D. MacLean. MacLean originally formulated his model in the 1960s and propounded it at length in his 1990 book The Triune Brain in Evolution.[1] The triune brain consists of the reptilian complex, the paleomammalian complex (limbic system), and the neomammalian complex (neocortex), viewed as structures sequentially added to the forebrain in the course of evolution. However, this hypothesis is no longer espoused by the majority of comparative neuroscientists in the post-2000 era.[2] The triune brain hypothesis became familiar to a broad popular audience through Carl Sagan's Pulitzer prize winning 1977 book The Dragons of Eden. The theory has been embraced by some psychiatrists and at least one leading affective neuroscience researcher.[3].

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by barehl

Let me see if I can clarify this.

Followed by no clarification.
Grants do not establish credit for work
What you imagine you are doing is nice but irrelevant unless you can give a coherent description of the status of this "high level model of the brain".
Describing or publishing science has nothing to do with who is president, etc. Donald Trump does not control every forum in the world. Donald Trump does not control every journal in the world.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by barehl

Well, obviously ....

nothing is ever published on evolution because "condemnation from evangelicals and religious fundamentalists is a given. Death threats from Trump supporters wouldn't be out of the question." !
You need to have a look at my user name and check the reality of the many evolutionary theory papers, articles and forum posts that have been written, even in the last year.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

I don't think it's a particularly original revelation, however.

Why would it be? It seems to me to be a fairly obvious idea from evolutionary theory. Is that what you think I was referring to as my theory?

Quote:

For instance, it bears considerable resemblance to the Triune Brain model:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain

I'm not seeing any connection. For example I am not trying to map sections of the brain. Secondly, I don't agree with his generalizations. If you think it has "considerable" resemblance you'd have to explain to me where.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Pixel42

You need to tell us enough for it to be possible to have a meaningful discussion of what you've told us.

I listed what I currently think about general AI and ran through the types that I had investigated. There was not a single response to that. So, what is it you want me to tell you?

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are complaints that you haven't done that.

That I haven't done what?

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And I don't understand why you could not return to discuss them after you've published them and we finally have something to discuss.

That seems highly unlikely.

[barehl]

To be honest, I'm having trouble figuring out who or what you think you are responding to. You seem to believe that you are replying to me, but I'm not seeing much connection between what you wrote and what I've posted.

Originally Posted by Reality Check

Grants do not establish credit for work

Why would they? I never said they did.

Quote:

What you imagine you are doing is nice but irrelevant

So, why are you involved with this thread?

Quote:

unless you can give a coherent description of the status of this "high level model of the brain".

What do you mean by "status"?

Quote:

Describing or publishing science has nothing to do with who is president, etc.

Yeah, that's obvious.

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Donald Trump does not control every forum in the world.

Again, obvious.

Quote:

Donald Trump does not control every journal in the world.

And, again, obvious.

None of your statements add anything; they were a complete waste of time. You did have one question which I'll try to answer if you can explain what you are asking for.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by barehl

Why would it be? It seems to me to be a fairly obvious idea from evolutionary theory. Is that what you think I was referring to as my theory?

I understand that it's not the whole of your theory. I also think it's, as I said, quite a reasonable conclusion of evolutionary theory, though not one that I think would hold true always, I think it's a good general principle.

However, you were asked about evidence consistent with your theory and you presented this, it seemed that the implication was that there was something interesting here: that this was evidence specifically connected to your ideas and not simply to ideas that are already well understood in evolutionary theory. Did I misunderstand?

Quote:

I'm not seeing any connection. For example I am not trying to map sections of the brain. Secondly, I don't agree with his generalizations. If you think it has "considerable" resemblance you'd have to explain to me where.

The connection is simply that he presented a theory based on the idea that modules of the brain evolved sequentially over evolutionary time and that evolution can be traced through our ancestry, which seemed to be the same idea that you were presented. I wasn't suggesting that it was the same in the specifics. I don't know the specifics of your idea, but I wouldn't expect you to have been presenting the same specific model as the Truine Brain, and I apologise if I gave you that impression.

My point was the the general idea that you did present is also present in the Triune Brain model.

[Pixel42]

Originally Posted by barehl

I listed what I currently think about general AI and ran through the types that I had investigated. There was not a single response to that.

Around here that usually means that what you've posted is not news and no-one particularly disagrees with it.

What response were you expecting?

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So, what is it you want me to tell you?

Anything that might actually prompt a discussion. Around here that usually means something original and/or controversial.

Quote:

That I haven't done what?

Told us enough for it to be possible to have a meaningful discussion of what you've told us.

Quote:

That seems highly unlikely.

Why?

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

However, you were asked about evidence consistent with your theory and you presented this, it seemed that the implication was that there was something interesting here: that this was evidence specifically connected to your ideas and not simply to ideas that are already well understood in evolutionary theory. Did I misunderstand?

Is intelligence an advantageous trait?
If it is then why isn't everything intelligent?
Why were there no dinosaur civilizations?
Where do abstractions come from?
What gives abstractions value?
How do humans understand things?
Why can't computers understand things?
Could humans be super smart someday?
Could we encounter aliens vastly smarter than us?
Could a computer suddenly become conscious?
Could a network become conscious?
How much processing power would be required to duplicate the human mind?
How much memory?
Why do people have emotions?
Can you build a box with a human personality like in the movie, "Her"?
How does the brain overcome the frame problem?
How does the brain solve the binding problem?
Can we build smart and loyal robots?
Could singularity happen?
Could you upload your mind to a computer?
What is awareness?
Is it the same as consciousness?
How does problem solving work in the brain?
Is Hofstadter's feedback loop model correct?
Is Integrated Information Theory correct?
Is Dennett's Multiple Drafts model correct?
What about the Chinese room?
What about Mary's room?

These are the types of questions that concern me.

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The connection is simply that he presented a theory based on the idea that modules of the brain evolved sequentially over evolutionary time and that evolution can be traced through our ancestry, which seemed to be the same idea that you were presented.

That's basically what Darwin said. That isn't a significant point.

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Pixel42

Around here that usually means that what you've posted is not news and no-one particularly disagrees with it.

Well, I know for a fact that some here disagree with it.

Quote:

What response were you expecting?

A response.

Quote:

Anything that might actually prompt a discussion. Around here that usually means something original and/or controversial.

I'm the only person who has ever claimed to be able to refute Idealism. I guess that isn't original enough. I know what mistakes Kurzweil made in his estimate of hardware to duplicate the brain. I don't know of anyone else who does. I'm the only one working on a high level model. Not original. Interesting claim.

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Told us enough for it to be possible to have a meaningful discussion of what you've told us.

I still don't know what this means.

Quote:

Why?

Because I would almost certainly be discussing it elsewhere.

[Pixel42]

Originally Posted by barehl

Well, I know for a fact that some here disagree with it.

Then they either didn't disagree enough to think it worth arguing about, hadn't seen the thread, or didn't think an argument with you would be fruitful.

Quote:

A response.

What response? What did you expect people to say?

Quote:

I'm the only person who has ever claimed to be able to refute Idealism. I guess that isn't original enough. I know what mistakes Kurzweil made in his estimate of hardware to duplicate the brain. I don't know of anyone else who does. I'm the only one working on a high level model. Not original. Interesting claim.

Yes, that would merit considerable discussion. But you not only didn't post any of it, you declared you had no intention of posting any of it. So what was there to discuss?

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I still don't know what this means.

Sorry, I can't put it any more clearly.

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Because I would almost certainly be discussing it elsewhere.

And it would then be beneath you to visit this forum. I knew that was the explanation, I just wanted you to come right out and say it.

[Beelzebuddy]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

Look, you are talking to academics about this at least, right? At the very least I'd strongly recommend making friends with cognitive scientists at your local uni. Send them an email, buy them some coffee. You'll find them more receptive than you think.

Originally Posted by barehl

No, I'm not. There aren't any. I've probably sent out two dozen [emails]. I did get a reply from one who said that he would be afraid of a machine with human intelligence. [Finding them receptive] hasn't happened yet.

Yet:

Originally Posted by barehl

Please stop being dishonest.

Originally Posted by barehl

So rather than being childish and daring me to provide more detail, someone would need to explain why credit concerns would not be valid.

Originally Posted by barehl

None of your statements add anything; they were a complete waste of time.

Gee I wonder why.

Originally Posted by barehl

I listed what I currently think about general AI and ran through the types that I had investigated. There was not a single response to that.

"If you don't have anything nice to say..."

I, at least, have been waiting for you to get through your manifesto to what you actually think is new. So far you haven't said anything that couldn't be found in a textbook, more often than not as an example of how alluring wrong ideas can be. If this is how the rest of it goes as well, you don't need to worry about credit because the people who deserve the credit are already dead.

[W.D.Clinger]

Originally Posted by barehl

Quote:

And I don't understand why you could not return to discuss them after you've published them and we finally have something to discuss.

That seems highly unlikely.

It does indeed seem highly unlikely that you will publish your results and give us something to discuss.

Originally Posted by barehl

These are the types of questions that concern me.

Okay, I'll play your game.

Originally Posted by barehl

Is intelligence an advantageous trait?

At times it may be.

Stupidity may also be advantageous, at times. If it weren't, why do we see so much of it?

Originally Posted by barehl

If it is then why isn't everything intelligent?

When bacteria rule the world, it makes more sense to ask why isn't everything stupid.

Originally Posted by barehl

Why were there no dinosaur civilizations?

A lot of dictionaries define "civilization" as something like "The stage of human social development and organization which is considered most advanced." That, by definition, rules out dinosaur civilizations.

That same dictionary goes on to give this example: ‘the Victorians equated the railways with progress and civilization’. For all we know, some of the dinosaurs equated their nests and trails with progress and civilization. Who are we to argue?

Originally Posted by barehl

Where do abstractions come from?

Depends on the abstraction. Your question may have been too abstract.

Originally Posted by barehl

What gives abstractions value?

I've been told that the value of something comes from individuals' willingness to exchange or pay for it, but this is the wrong subforum for extended discussion of that.

Originally Posted by barehl

How do humans understand things?

Poorly.

Originally Posted by barehl

Why can't computers understand things?

My computer understands many sequences of bits a lot faster and more reliably than I do.

Originally Posted by barehl

Could humans be super smart someday?

It might depend on the human.

Originally Posted by barehl

Could we encounter aliens vastly smarter than us?

Sure. Whether we should encounter them is often discussed in the US Politics subforum.

Originally Posted by barehl

Could a computer suddenly become conscious?
Could a network become conscious?

That might depend on what you mean by "conscious". In the past, I have asked you what you meant by that word, but I never understood your answer. As I recall, that discussion did not turn out well.

Originally Posted by barehl

How much processing power would be required to duplicate the human mind?
How much memory?

Some people have tried to answer those questions, but I don't think we know enough about the human mind to answer those questions at this time.

Originally Posted by barehl

Why do people have emotions?

Partly because their brains, including identifiable regions of their brains, have evolved to create emotions. We believe emotions are evolutionarily advantageous because some people who are abnormally unemotional suffer from it and may be classified as mentally ill.

Originally Posted by barehl

Can you build a box with a human personality like in the movie, "Her"?

I have enough trouble just building a box. Besides, I haven't seen the movie. Do you recommend it? Why? (No spoilers, please.)

Originally Posted by barehl

How does the brain overcome the frame problem?

Ah, the frame problem. I vaguely recall Marvin Minsky going on about that in an AI course I took long ago.

My personal opinion is that the frame problem is primarily relevant to expert systems and applied artificial intelligence. Brainful creatures generally avoid resort to logic until it becomes obvious that habit, training, prejudice, emotion and other preferred tools aren't getting the job done. Even then, most people have trouble using logic.

(I'm generalizing from my students, of course, but they've been selected in part for their ability to employ logic, and they've taken courses that are supposed to teach them logic.)

Originally Posted by barehl

How does the brain solve the binding problem?

I believe most of the experimental research has involved vision, but I don't feel qualified to discuss that research in detail.

Originally Posted by barehl

Can we build smart and loyal robots?

We've built cell phones, and those cell phones have created loyal owners. If some of those owners are smart, we can classify them as robots and declare victory here.

Originally Posted by barehl

Could singularity happen?

To a mathematician, that's like asking "Could zero happen?"

If you're talking about what the popular press sometimes refers to as an AI singularity, that's a concept whose value lies primarily in the revenue it generates for the popular press.

Originally Posted by barehl

Could you upload your mind to a computer?

I doubt it, but I've never tried.

Originally Posted by barehl

What is awareness?

Huh? Oh. It might be related to attention and comprehension.

Originally Posted by barehl

Is it the same as consciousness?

That might depend on what you mean by "consciousness", in which case the question will remain unanswerable until you explain what you mean by "consciousness".

Originally Posted by barehl

How does problem solving work in the brain?

For the most part, brains solve problems similar to problems they have solved before, mostly by employing tactics that have worked before.

Most people who ask that question in the context of AI are asking about very artificial sorts of problems. Any good answer to that question will start by noting that those are the sorts of problems people seldom have to solve, often fail to solve, and normally have trouble with even when they do eventually arrive at a solution.

Originally Posted by barehl

Is Hofstadter's feedback loop model correct?

It's been years since I last talked to him, so I am not familiar with the current details. In general, though, the correct answer to questions of the form "Is model X correct" is "Not entirely."

Originally Posted by barehl

Is Integrated Information Theory correct?
Is Dennett's Multiple Drafts model correct?

See above.

Originally Posted by barehl

What about the Chinese room?
What about Mary's room?

Mary's is not the room that interests me.

I am aware that some philosophers delight in finding clever ways to define problems in such a way that the problem, by definition, has no solution, and then use an obfuscated form of equivocation to get people to think they've made some kind of profound contribution to the theory of knowledge or intelligence.

[Beelzebuddy]

Originally Posted by barehl

How does the brain solve the binding problem?

Originally Posted by W.D.Clinger

I believe most of the experimental research has involved vision, but I don't feel qualified to discuss that research in detail.

Hierarchical topographic maps. The binding problem was only a problem in the context of the hypothetical computer architecture doing the binding, which had to pick between global concepts devoid of spatial context, or localized information with no unifying architecture. Turns out nested topologies can translate between the two just fine.

If you're familiar with deep learning, it operates on a similar principle.

[W.D.Clinger]

Thanks.