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MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

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Re: MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

#61

Post by ehsanu1 »

yc-kjh wrote: post #18
ehsanu1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are some things which are philosophical, yet not scientific, which was what I was alluding to. My experience is that these purely philosophical discussions tend to churn over the same issues repetitively without any resolution - because there is no clear way to reach one, unlike there is with science. In fact, philosophers write whole books addressing each others arguments without much in the way of changin…

> But there are some things which are philosophical, yet not scientific I think you are wrong here as well. There is an entire branch of philosophy dedicated to the study of what we (can) know, and how we know it: epistemology. Some philosophers get things wrong, just like some people get their mathematical sums wrong, and some scientists follow incorrect hypotheses for many years. But that is not a valid excuse for…

Epistemology itself is an example of a branch of philosophy that is basically unscientific. That doesn't mean it's of no worth, or anything of the sort. It just means that it makes no falsifiable predictions. This is typical of philosophy - things that are scientific end up outside the purview of philosophical argument, as a scientist can just test it at that point. All that remains in philosophy are thus the unanswered, and possibly unanswerable questions.

> The laws of logic are very clear

Clear logical laws do not imply that truth can always be reached by application of it. Differing (and untestable) premises are also problematic: see all the opposing schools of thought in various branches of philosophy.

Re: MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

#62

Post by ehsanu1 »

glenstein wrote: post #46
yc-kjh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you accept materialism as true, then by the Church-Turing hypothesis it is a necessary and foregone conclusion that computers will achieve full human intelligence, and even more, because they do not get tired and are not distracted. But the hypothesis of materialism is what is in question here, both by my citation of the difference between syntax and semantics, and the obvious (to anybody who understands what a co…

If a bright-line distinction between syntax and semantics requires a rejection of materialism, to me that is a pretty compelling reason to not draw a distinction between syntax and semantics. Maybe "most people" ignore the evidence, but I think anigbrowl gave a pretty good response and I'd reiterate his suggestion that Hofstadter and Dennett have given adequate replies to Searle. I would go so far as to say Hofstadte…

There is clearly a distinction between the two, and we don't know how to use symbols to represent meaning [1]. But the fact that we don't know how to do so yet obviously does not mean that that is no way, or that our brains are not doing it right now.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding

Re: MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

#63

Post by ehsanu1 »

iamevil wrote: post #56
yc-kjh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You apparently don't understand how computers work. There is no "meaning" associated with any variable or its value, and there cannot be.

What is this thing we call "meaning"? Can it be a point in a vast and complex "pattern space" and the meaning of that point is the structure of all the "paths" that map that point to other points in this same pattern space? Our act of arbitrary categorization of patterns into "syntax" and "semantics" just seems to obscure that fact that they are just two arbitrary encodings of patterns. How can we know that one patte…

> Can it be a point in a vast and complex "pattern space" and the meaning of that point is the structure of all the "paths" that map that point to other points in this same pattern space?

That's the exact point of contention, whether semantics can be represented by syntax is unknown currently, though it must hold in a materialistic world. If it can't, as some believe, then it isn't an arbitrary categorization.

Re: MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

#64

Post by olalonde »

slacka wrote: post #52
anateus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I applaud your clever replacement of the now trite "paradigm shift" with "Kuhnian". I haven't read the latest from Nagel so can't speak to that, but Searle's arguments work against only the most simplistic approaches to symbolic AI (which is no longer a very common framework) and his continued willful misunderstanding of how people in the field tend to think about cognition betray a lot of essentialism on the topic.…

> but no one cares that "Watson doesn't know it won". I care, especially that Watson doesn't know when it lost or learn from its mistakes, because it doesn't actually understand anything. Watson's fragile intelligence relies on the programmers tweaking its algorithms for every particular subject. It's a glorified search engine, as opposed to a true advance in general AI.

I doubt parent meant that literally. It was probably more a catchy way of saying "we don't care what happens in the Chinese room". Of course IBM Watson, specifically, doesn't exhibit human level intelligence.

Re: MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

#65

Post by [deleted] »

yc-kjh wrote: post #9

Idiocy: My thermostat has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right. Minsky is wrong about AI in the same way that McCarthy was wrong. McCarthy really "believed" that his thermostat had three possible beliefs, and that his thermostat really "believed" one of them at any given time. http://Books.Google.com/books?id=yNJN-_jznw4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA... Searle debu…

[deleted]

Re: MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

#66

Post by danbmil99 »

yc-kjh wrote: post #9

Idiocy: My thermostat has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right. Minsky is wrong about AI in the same way that McCarthy was wrong. McCarthy really "believed" that his thermostat had three possible beliefs, and that his thermostat really "believed" one of them at any given time. http://Books.Google.com/books?id=yNJN-_jznw4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA... Searle debu…

I cannot believe this misguided crap is second comment. Searle has been debunked so thoroughly and so many times, he's like the Kirk Cameron of AI.

Re: MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

#67

Post by ExpiredLink »

yc-kjh wrote: post #9

Idiocy: My thermostat has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right. Minsky is wrong about AI in the same way that McCarthy was wrong. McCarthy really "believed" that his thermostat had three possible beliefs, and that his thermostat really "believed" one of them at any given time. http://Books.Google.com/books?id=yNJN-_jznw4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA... Searle debu…

> My thermostat has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right.

Translated to the current scientific fashion:

My brain has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right

Re: MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

#68

Post by olalonde »

yc-kjh wrote: post #45
vidarh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since electromagnetism cannot cause intentions, or goals, and since the human obviously has both intentions and goals (teleology) You're begging the question here. If the world is materialistic, then physical processes can cause intentions, hence this claim is false if your conclusion is false.

No, I'm not begging the question. In another response, I readily admit that if materialism is true, then AI is a foregone conclusion. Please prove that mere electromagnetism can cause intentions, goals, and teleology. Limit yourself to Maxwell's equations, and the consequences thereof. I look forward to your response, but I am not hopeful that you will provide a cogent answer.

If you had told someone in year 1800 "computers are impossible, just go ahead and build one", said person wouldn't have been able to build one but you'd still be wrong. You can't just casually ask this in an argument about the theoretical possibility of AI.

Re: MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

#69

Post by pirateking »

yc-kjh wrote: post #18
ehsanu1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are some things which are philosophical, yet not scientific, which was what I was alluding to. My experience is that these purely philosophical discussions tend to churn over the same issues repetitively without any resolution - because there is no clear way to reach one, unlike there is with science. In fact, philosophers write whole books addressing each others arguments without much in the way of changin…

> But there are some things which are philosophical, yet not scientific I think you are wrong here as well. There is an entire branch of philosophy dedicated to the study of what we (can) know, and how we know it: epistemology. Some philosophers get things wrong, just like some people get their mathematical sums wrong, and some scientists follow incorrect hypotheses for many years. But that is not a valid excuse for…

The Truth you aim to arrive at, is the Truth you started from on your quest for the Truth. There is no escaping the Strange Loop.

Philosophy, Arts and Science create Truths to ride on to new places, like Silver Surfer on his surfboard. Finding the Ultimate Truth itself, I imagine, would be what some call Enlightenment.

The paradoxical wisdom taught in many of the ancient classics leads me to wonder if submission to the nature of Paradox really is at odds with the scientific method and desire for Truth, or if they are just two forms (passive and active) of reaching the same understanding.

Re: MIT professor Marvin Minsky wins $540,000 award

#70

Post by leoc »

davi wrote: post #8

“I don’t know what they think I do,” Minsky said. “I make up theories of how the mind works and when I’m lucky enough, I have some students who make careers out of that.” As a guy with a lab, the idea of thinking of how the mind works from time to time and then having students make a career of that idea is fairly humbling.

It's not exactly the whole story. Even in the '60s and '70s the AI labs faced big battles to retain their funding, and IIRC Minsky has a reputation as a pretty rough rider in those struggles.
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