Could Deep Blue play a smarter AI ?

[NapoléonPremier]

The first two I have not proven wrong; I have merely said that they are not certain. For as long as it remains possible that free will exists and awareness is a supernatural phenomenon your conclusion that we have souls that give us these properties remains possible. However, it is perfectly possible to suggest (and be consistent) that humans are only material creatures.

Absolutely. It would even make sense under the "principle of economy" of scientific method. However, it just is not the case. And the good news is that anybody intereted to verify can do so, not only with "belief" (which are for the most part meaningless) but with fact.

 

[NapoléonPremier]

@ Brighteye :

To elaborate on your Gedankexperiment (which has already caused more trouble than actually replicating a brain for real ) :

do you think that if we could get a "virgin brain", and replicate in it all the neural cablings from the brain of another person (in exact detail), we would get the exact same person, with the same personnality, same memories, same beliefs, etc. ?

 

[5cats]

I'm on the "undeterministic" side here, but for information, what were these tests that indicated true undeterminism ? How can you positively rule out hidden variables ?

Well, using Occam's Razor helps, let me elaborate:
The 'double slit' experiment defies all our current understanding. All the 'traditional explainations' we come up with are both inconsistant and/or extremely complex. (alternate realities, time travel, electrons having free will... ) SO we conclude that there's something else governing it that we currently don't understand.
That to me makes more sense than an electron having free will. (although that might be the actual answer, but currently we don't understand it, eh?)
Non-locality also falls into this catagory. It looks like it defies all current theories, but since we don't know, we don't discard our theories just yet, and try to keep an eye out for a possible explaination.

 

[5cats]

@ Brighteye :

To elaborate on your Gedankexperiment (which has already caused more trouble than actually replicating a brain for real ) :

do you think that if we could get a "virgin brain", and replicate in it all the neural cablings from the brain of another person (in exact detail), we would get the exact same person, with the same personnality, same memories, same beliefs, etc. ?

Lol! More trouble!!

I think it might be possible to transfer all these things. But would the resulting 'person' be the 'same'? I'd say no. Even if all the data leading up to a point in time might be the same, the choices made after that point could well be different.
Just like the double slit experiment (ie: it defies our ability to predict the outcome)

 

[NapoléonPremier]

As Descartes showed, if we only trust logic, and not even our senses, I can only know that I exist, and nothing more.

You misunderstand Descartes. His statement that "I think, therefore I am," is only the beginning. He attempts to show other things based logically on that.

I think you are both right. "Je pense donc je suis" (cogito ergo sum) paves the way for many more conclusions.
However, Descartes also examined the possibility that, in pure logic, a conscious being can only be completely sure of this one thing (I think, therefore I am). It's called solipsism.

(Wow, finding a part where everybody wins is pretty rare... )

 

[Brighteye]

Another fundamental principle behind science is that a hypothesis must be tested for it to become a scientific truth. If a hypothesis (souls can not create AI) has not been tested (or is untestable, as this one appears), then that means it cannot become a scientific truth.

I haven't read all the posts after this one, because it seems that this the cause of our disagreement. Yes, science must create testable hypotheses, and these must be ones that can be disproven. As long as a hypothesis is not disproven, and Occam's razor is applied, it is considered legitimate.
My experiment was not a hypothesis. It was demonstrating the inconsistency with our fundamental view of the world of believing that one brain has intelligence and another does not. It was a thought experiment, not an experiment that we cannot do. Thought experiments make a point based on principles, and by being an example rather than an abstract argument they make the point more comprehensible. I failed at making my point comprehensible, but that does not make it less valid.
My point was that within a view of the world that accepts causality souls are irrelevant to making AI because either they do not cause intelligence or a soul will be in our AI, due to the very nature of causality.
I did not originally say 'within a view of the world that accepts causality' because I took it as a given that none of us was worried about universal doubt.
I have subsequently justified why we should accept causality and why quantum anomalies should be accepted within the framework of causality because the justification for them comes from within causality, but other postulated breaks of causality rely on doubting causality. This is applying the principles of universal doubt, against which nothing can be proven. For all the usual definitions of proof, we ignore the possibility of universal doubt (coupled with subjective opinion), and assume that we are living in the real world.

 

[Brighteye]

...Here's the important part: I won't ask them to justify their belief that souls exist unless they make a positive claim that involves souls as a premise. If they make such a positive claim, then I ask them to prove that souls exist, because then souls must exist for the conclusion to be true.
...

Absolutely. Someone made the positive claim that AI is not possible because it won't have a soul. I denied that souls mattered, taking it as given that this was being considered within a normal understanding of reality involving cause and effect.
If this is not a given, then nothing is, for reasons given in my previous post.

 

[Brighteye]

So your "proof" is based on "if". Hummm, mighty suspect. Also, you have some proof of this amazing statement?

If you read what I had written correctly, the proof is not based on that sentence at all. Nor is the relevant part of the sentence based on the 'if'. I said 'if' because I was leaving open the other explanations of the world, there having been three options presented. Which of the three is true does not matter for the point

Yet this is a point you refuse to grant to my theory!

I'm sorry, but making ONE exception allows ALL exceptions. By simply allowing an "exception" you're demonstrating that it isn't a "law" in any way. Say both A=B and A does not =B is not "consistant". YOU say causality governs all things. THEN you say causality governs all things except...
Which is it? There is no room for "except" in "all things".

So, if one exception, cannot be factored into a rule then most of our laws are utter rubbish. You've committed a crime if you kill someone unless it was in self-defence. But no! Exceptions aren't allowed, so according to you, I can then justify killing someone on this basis. 'You've allowed the exception of self-defence, so you can allow the exception of the murder I've committed'.

As long as the exception is still within the principle, it's a principle. If even one exception proves the principle wrong, then the principle is wrong entirely.

I doubt the universality of causality, not it's individual applications. Get that straight.


Except, of course, for the evidence I've presented, which you have ingored and therefor can pretend does not exist...

What evidence have you presented that proves causality to be flawed in just one more respect? If you say that quantum proves that causality is flawed, then causality is flawed. Quantum is irrelevant to souls causing intelligence, so you cannot use it as direct justification for this specific exception to causality.
I could equally say that, because of quantum, turning my computer on restarts the world. It's just a subjective belief based on the entire elimination of causality. You cannot argue that quantum specifically justifies your extra exception but the rest of causality is alright. If you say that quantum destroys the whole idea of causality then we are in a situation of universal doubt and subjective opinion.

Repeating yourself does seem like a cognative statement...

"logically justified" in your own mind, at least.
"if...then" yes so far this is correct.
Did you not say that nothing can be "proven"? Therefore nothing IS "certain". All the knowledge in YOUR world requires it. ('it' being causality)

Yes, nothing is certain, but if we allow ourselves causality then lots of certainties follow from this assumption. The 'certainties' are uncertain because causality is not certain, not because each one of them is individually doubtable.

Internally consistant, except for those little inconsistant parts...
Funny, I define true as "fits all available data as best as is possible"... but you go ahead and define it however it fits your own little world-view...

For your definition of true my argument is true as well. My version of true was simply clarifying one part of the definition; hence using the word itself in my definition:
'The commonly used 'true' ' = 'the precise 'true' + 'notwithstanding universal doubt.
Using precise true, nothing is proven true. Using the commonly used true, my point is proven.

 

[Brighteye]

@ Brighteye :

To elaborate on your Gedankexperiment (which has already caused more trouble than actually replicating a brain for real ) :

do you think that if we could get a "virgin brain", and replicate in it all the neural cablings from the brain of another person (in exact detail), we would get the exact same person, with the same personnality, same memories, same beliefs, etc. ?

You've missed a few important factors out, such as ion and transmitter/hormone distribution, quantity of cellular stores of these, density of receptors....

But yes, if we did create an identical brain, it would have the same personality, memories etc. It would have a different soul.

 

[Brighteye]

Atreas corrected me about the Greek use of the word 'psuche'. I was startled that my memory was so bad, so I looked it up.
Psuche (in ancient Greek, not modern Greek) does not have to mean soul.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=#115888

Check out meaning 4. Mind/personality.

Meaning 3: soul

Meaning 1: life!

 

[atreas]

Atreas corrected me about the Greek use of the word 'psuche'. I was startled that my memory was so bad, so I looked it up.
Psuche (in ancient Greek, not modern Greek) does not have to mean soul.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=#115888

Check out meaning 4. Mind/personality.

Meaning 3: soul

Meaning 1: life!

You are wrong again, because these meanings are "metaphores" of the main meaning. To translate from an ancient greek dictionary:

1. The living power of any living being
1b. A supposed non material substance that, in connection with the body, is the main "material" and reason for life.
1c. The same (1b) "material" that still continues to exist after death.

2. The logical part of soul (note: this is what you mean by mind/personality, but it's a bit deeper and can't be translated).

3. courage

4. (Metaph). The life (in the meaning of what you get through it).

5. appetite

6. The whole spiritual and sentimental feelings of a human

7. The power that provokes an action.

Note also that, both in ancient and in modern greek, this word is used extremely often when we want to show the value of the human being. It's a matter of connotation - for example, it's different to say "spare these souls" that "spare these men" in a poem.

Edit: PS. 2-7 are only used in idiomatic ways. The meaning of the word is the 1.

 

[Brighteye]

Fair enough. But can't the psychiatrists be using it in one of the recognised metaphorical meanings?

While I was looking I saw that it derives from 'breath (of life)'. Is this right? The Greeks believed that your soul exited the body in your last breath, so maybe soul was originally a metaphorical meaning too.

 

[jar2574]

I denied that souls mattered, taking it as given that this was being considered within a normal understanding of reality involving cause and effect.
If this is not a given, then nothing is, for reasons given in my previous post.

Nothing is given in a "normal understanding of reality" of the physical world.

Science exists to test testable hypotheses. Science holds no sway over untestable hypotheses within our "normal understanding of reality."

In a "normal understanding of reality" the conception of souls has not been proven or disproven. Neither cause and effect nor any other theory of science has proven that souls do not matter to intelligence. Science cannot prove the untestable.

 

[jar2574]

My experiment was not a hypothesis. It was demonstrating the inconsistency with our fundamental view of the world of believing that one brain has intelligence and another does not... I failed at making my point comprehensible, but that does not make it less valid.

I understand now. Yes, you presented a valid argument at the end. Your logic seems sound. Your argument will be true if we assume the premises are true. I thought you were still trying to prove that it had to be true, sorry.

 

[atreas]

Fair enough. But can't the psychiatrists be using it in one of the recognised metaphorical meanings?

While I was looking I saw that it derives from 'breath (of life)'. Is this right? The Greeks believed that your soul exited the body in your last breath, so maybe soul was originally a metaphorical meaning too.

It is right. You can't separate a word from its origins, because it carries many things "inside it" that can never be translated. That is also the case with the word "logic", which was very popular in this thread. Your can see the "translated" meaning of the base word ("logos") here http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2363773.

Note especially the meaning IV - it's very interesting in comparison to the whole thread.

 

[Clownfish]

In reply to the OP and the first replies (I haven't read all of the rest!) : I DO think it's possible to make near perfect AI! The reason Warpus reasoning is unnecessarily pessimistic is that AI doesn't have to work like a tree-building chess-computer. It can reduce the number of possible moves tremendously by adding RULES, the kind of rules that we humans call COMMON SENSE. It can be noticed that it doesn't take much intelligence to have som common sense, thus some of these rules can be pretty simple. For example:
1. Do not create a unit and then immediately destroy it
2. Do not go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth
3. Do not build a farm, then build a cottage, then a farm, then a cottage on the same tile.
4. Do not attack a city protected by 10 very modern units with 1 single archer.
5. Do not try to build a great wonder in a city with only one hammer.
etc, etc

Rules can be defined by some optimized set limits and weights, and these can be further tweaked via experience of other AI-Civs via internet. This is actually how much of bioinformatics work! Huge calculations are simplified by rough simplifications of the problem, then, the finer algorithms are tried on that framework...

I'm optimistic!

 

[warpus]

I understand your point of view. Having seen no evidence of "souls", and no need for them in science, the question just seems to you irrelevant. But what I've been hinting to you (and others), is that if one day you decide to investigate the subject, and find out if you are a "soul" or not, you can actually reach conclusions based on evidence, and not only on "belief" or "there's no way to know" attitude.

Sure, if I saw any evidence of any sort that souls exist, I'd consider it. I don't see how I can investigate the subject any better than a scientist working in a lab could, though.

Evolution? Random chance? What part of "irrelivent" do you fail to understand?

Are you really trying to postulate that natural events could give rise to something supernatural?

Since that's not what I'm saying at all. Although others try to make it sound like I'm saying it... I'm saying that is ONE thing can exist outside the laws of causality, then it is possible for other things to exist as well. If you're hung up on the word "soul" (because of the association with religion perhaps) use another term, like "life essence" or "spirit force" since I've stated they all refer to the same thing (within MY definitions)

The only thing we know of that exists outside of the laws of causality are the random quantum fluctuations I was talking about. Are you basing your entire argument on "Well, there COULD be other things that lie outside of the laws of causality" ? 'COULD BE' doesn't sound like a very strong premise to base your entire argument on.

IF and only if, one assumes the only source of "soul" is God. I don't.

I would love to hear your hypothesis on the nature of the soul, if it does not come from God. (most people who believe in souls attribute them to a deity)

I'm on the "undeterministic" side here, but for information, what were these tests that indicated true undeterminism ? How can you positively rule out hidden variables ?

Apparently quantum physics makes certain statistical predictions that would be violated if hidden variables existed.

I got the following from Wikipedia:

Some people have argued that in addition to the conditions humans can observe and the rules they can deduce there are hidden factors or hidden variables that determine absolutely in which order electrons reach the screen. They argue that the course of the universe is absolutely determined, but that humans are screened from knowledge of the determinative factors. So, they say, it only appears that things proceed in a merely probabilistically determinative way. Actually, they proceed in an absolutely determinative way. Although matters are still subject to some measure of dispute, quantum mechanics makes statistical predictions that would be violated if some local hidden variables existed. There have been a number of experiments to verify those predictions, and so far they do not appear to be violated

I'm not too familiar with these tests, but you can read more about it here

 

[warpus]

In reply to the OP and the first replies (I haven't read all of the rest!) : I DO think it's possible to make near perfect AI! The reason Warpus reasoning is unnecessarily pessimistic is that AI doesn't have to work like a tree-building chess-computer

The only thing I was being pessimistic about was creating civ AI that works like chess AI - namely, using a decision tree and brute force.

 

[Zombie69]

I can prove it wrong. The 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics:
1) heat is work and work is heat
2) you cannot take heat from the cooler to the hotter

SO: If you go infinitely forewards in time, eventually all motion, even on a sub-atomic level, will cease. Entropy theory.
Thus if one were to go infinitely BACK in time, there would be a point of infinite motion Reverse Entropy theory.
Since infinite motion can never be lower than infinite, the universe could not exist, since in OUR universe motion is FINITE.
Period.

That's a very weak argument that would only work for people who don't quite understand infinity and limits (i.e. tending towards zero, and tending towards infinity).

When going backwards in time, entropy could become smaller and smaller, without ever reaching zero. We call this "infinitely small", but to be more precise, it's a value "approaching zero".

When going forward in time, it could become bigger and bigger. It would always remain finite of course, but for all intents and purposes it could be considered "infinitely big". This doesn't mean it's ever actually infinite, and it still could get bigger by going forward in time some more. A more precise term would be "approaching infinity".

 

[Brighteye]

Nothing is given in a "normal understanding of reality" of the physical world.

Science exists to test testable hypotheses. Science holds no sway over untestable hypotheses within our "normal understanding of reality."

In a "normal understanding of reality" the conception of souls has not been proven or disproven. Neither cause and effect nor any other theory of science has proven that souls do not matter to intelligence. Science cannot prove the untestable.

From your subsequent post it seems as though we're finally getting some sort of agreement/understanding.
I disagree with your first sentence here. An intrinsic part of the normal understanding of reality is causality. Following directly from accepting causality as a principle, combined with specific laws that act in conjunction with it (such as gravity), and are also intrinsic to our understanding or reality, we can make a great many logically justified conclusions.
This is a key point in what I've said to 5cats. These conclusions follow directly from causality, and are not individually deniable; to deny one of them one must deny the principle on which they are based.
5cats seems to be tending to the idea that quantum proves that one such conclusion is wrong, and therefore the particular conclusion that 5cats dislikes (and which was the point of my initial argument) could also be wrong. I say that either quantum shows all of causality is wrong, or it shows that causality does not govern quantum effects; there is no middle ground between these two opinions.
To accept the second opinion means that my argument still holds. To accept the former is more commonly known by the description of universal doubt. When I say that something is true (such as my conclusion), I, and most of the rest of the world, generally discount that possibility of it not being true that is due to universal doubt. If one does not, then nothing is provable.

If you were picking up on this less than precise definition of proven, then you are correct and no, my conclusion is not certain. However, I think it was reasonable of me to use the definition in the imprecise, more common way. If there is some means of doubting my conclusion (other than this universal doubt) then you (or 5cats) has yet to phrase it clearly enough for me to pick up on it and be convinced by it.