Could Deep Blue play a smarter AI ?

[5cats]

My observation of one. For what it's worth. Cat, outside, staring intently at sliding glass door. Head and eye movement tracks another cats reflection in door (the other cat was behind him). Ears turned in general direction of other cat. Waved back an forth. Locked onto other cat with ears. Turned in perfect alignment to intercept other cat. My conclusion, cat knew what the reflection was, used it to get a bearing with it's ears.

I'd concur with this, I've seen similar events.
The main thing the mirror people are ignoring is that cats have acute senses. Hearing is waaay better than human, smell is almost as good as a dog. So when a cat 'sees' a reflection, it knows it isn't a real cat because it doesn't hear or smell another cat.

 

[Zombie69]

Cat followed by ear the only thing that made noise, and following by eye the only thing it could see. It never knew both were the same. Cats are very good at focusing on two things at once.

You want to really test a cat? Find a way to make a mark on its forehead (the one place on its body which it can never see) without its knowledge. Then place it in front of a mirror. It will see the mark. If it were self-aware, it would try to take it off with its paw (cats are notoriously clean animals). But since cats are not self-aware, i can already tell you that it wont touch it.

 

[Zombie69]

Have you ever had a cat chasing shadows? I've done it many times. Take an object at the end of a string. Make it move behind the cat so that all it can see is the object's shadow on the wall. It will chase the shadow for 10 minutes if you're patient enough to keep it up for this long, even after touching nothing but plain wall. It will never think of looking behind its back for the object itself.

 

[Zombie69]

I'd concur with this, I've seen similar events.
The main thing the mirror people are ignoring is that cats have acute senses. Hearing is waaay better than human, smell is almost as good as a dog. So when a cat 'sees' a reflection, it knows it isn't a real cat because it doesn't hear or smell another cat.

Actually, it probably thinks it's another cat behind the glass door, which is why it can't hear or smell it.

 

[5cats]

The mark on the forehead presumes a cat knows what it's forehead looks like. If it never saw it's own face before, why would it "know" there was a mark that shouldn't be there??? Why would it clean away something that it sees as a natural part of it's colouring?
Also a cat could easily be self-aware, and if familiar with mirrors would know that the reflection in the mirror wasn't real. There for it could conclude that the mark on the forehead isn't real either...
I read a couple of those links, very interesting. But it seems like they overlook the fact that Chimps count like this: 1, 2, many So for a Chimp, stringing together more than 2 words would be quite difficult. This is reflected in their results, as I read it.

This is why its so easy to capture wild Chimps. 5 hunters go into some bushes, in full view of the Chimps, then 4 come out. The Chimps think "many went in, many came out, the coast is clear!"

 

[5cats]

Have you ever had a cat chasing shadows? I've done it many times. Take an object at the end of a string. Make it move behind the cat so that all it can see is the object's shadow on the wall. It will chase the shadow for 10 minutes if you're patient enough to keep it up for this long, even after touching nothing but plain wall. It will never think of looking behind its back for the object itself.

My cats look, then they go on chasing the shadow! It's more fun! Also flashlight spots, if I turn the flashlight off, they turn and look at the flashlight first, then at me. They know the light-spot comes from the flashlight, and that I am somehow connected to the appearence & disappearence of the spot.
I've seen outdoor cats who, when a shadow of a bird is spotted, immediatly look up in the exact direction the bird is. They know not only that a bird is casting a shadow, but where that bird is based on the position of the sun & shadow.
They also tend to crouch down upon seeing a bird shadow, rather than attempt to chase the shadow itself.

 

[Zombie69]

A chimp (or a human for that matter) has never actually seen its forehead either, yet they'll instantly know it's theirs and will try to remove the mark.

Listen, it's pretty simple really. Many scientists, in many different places, have done the same experiment many times. Everytime, dogs and cats were found not to be self-aware, while some apes, and dolphins, were found to be. If you still disagree, take it up with all the scientists who arrived at the same conclusion.

 

[Zombie69]

Humans are by far the animal that displays the most empathy. Unfortunately, we have so much empathy that we actually see feelings in things that don't have them. Your car is being stubborn because the motor won't start. Your computer is acting up on you. Your cat displays human feelings. The more a thing becomes common, the more you tend to antropomorphise. Your cat doesn't have human emotions, but it's very human to think that it does.

 

[5cats]

I'm just saying that cats are notoriously un-cooperative in most science experiments, and that there might be other explainations for the same results.
Why would some apes be self-aware, and others, like Gorillas (who are very smart!) not? I think the experiment itself is seriously flawed, which is not your fault of course
For example, the Gorilla may see the speck in the mirror, know that it's is in fact on it's forehead, but NOT clean it off because preening and grooming that area is best done by another Gorilla...

Edit: lol! We're cross-posting a lot
In my personal experience, I've come to recognize that cats have their own set of moods, emotions and responses which can be quite different than my Human ones. But you are totally correct that we Humans do go around antropomorphising everything!

 

[MxxPwr]

A musing:

If sexy Number Six (BSG) got struck by lightning and became 'alive' (ala the not so sexy Number Five), what proof, if any, could she give to us that she was alive/self-aware/sentient (souled)?

If there is such proof, could this proof be given in cases of what others believe are Strong AI that are alive? (Lightning strikes not withstanding)

 

[Brighteye]

Um, the wording in the numbered bullet section seems a little inconsistent, if not contradictory.

You end each statement that one's actions are:
(1) pointless; as in meaning/meaningless
(2) pointless again
(3) bad; as in moralilty
(4) correct; having neither the meaning/meaningless connotation of pointless nor the moral attribuate of bad

Also the wording used in the begininng of each statement is inconsistent. In your own wording (1) should read, 'The world does not exist as it appears, but I believe it does...' So, I'm going to try to clean up the wording. If you disagree with how I'm cleaning it up, by all means, let me know.

(1) The world = A+B; I think the world = A; so...
(2) The world = A+B; I think the world = A+B; so...
(3) The world = A; I think the world = A+B; so...
(4) The world = A; I think the world = A; so...

Leaving off the pointless/pointful(?) part for a minute. People of groups (1) and (3) are both incorrect. People of groups (2) and (4) are both correct. All this assumes of course that the world is whatever it is and it is our thought that is either correct or incorrect. And the correctness or incorrectness of our thought seems to be independent of our knowledge of what the world really is.

So, actually all of the thoughts are equally pointless, in that they don't change what the world is. But as for the correctness or incorrectness of the thoughts, that depends on what the world is.

It'd be best to have something like this, where '=A' means 'exists as it appears to do according to our senses'.
1. The world does not=A, I think the world=A. Therefore my actions are erroneous, because I am wrong, and my actions are pointless because the world does not =A
2. The world does not =A, I think the world does not=A. Therefore my actions are correct, but actions are pointless because the world does not=A.
3. The world=A, but I think the world does not=A. My actions are incorrect and bad for me, in that I could be acting in a way more beneficial to myself.
4. The world=A and I think it does. My actions are correct and beneficial.

As you say, my writing was a bit imprecise, but you seemed to understand what I was driving at. Pointless is not how much they'll change the state of the world (in terms of =A or not) but whether my actions benefit me (or help me achieve goals). If the world does not exist as it appears then all actions are equally pointless, whether based on a correct belief or not. If it does exist as it appears then actions that assume this are not pointless.
4 is the only option which has a double positive: correct and meaningful. There is no meaningful but incorrect, and so since having our actions be useful is the important factor, we must act as though the world exists as it appears, because this gives us the chance of being in category 4.

 

[Berrie]

Aw, my brain hurts from reading the whole thread
But some of it was really interesting (otherwise I would be a compulsive reader, ready for the nuthouse )
But the real question would be: why does a human waste so many time on writing about AI, quantum psychics and the existence of souls on a game forum (or reading it for that matter). That really puzzles my mind.

Keep up the good work

 

[Brighteye]

And that is why you are not logically correct. A scientific law is not a logical certainty.

Scientific laws change as our experiences and observations change. Logical certainties never change.

You should not treat scientific laws as logical certainties. If you do so, then you are behaving illogically. But should you choose to behave illogically then so be it.

We have an understanding of the world that is based on the principle of cause and effect. We have reached this principle through logical reasoning. We understand that the world may be made of cream cheese mixed with treacle and just appear not to be, but we have only one option, and that is to assume that this fundamental law holds true. This fundamental law is not a law like quantum physics, which is built on top of science. It is a fundamental law on which our understanding of the world, and all of science, is based.
This is as close to a logical certainty as we can get when discussing the world. If we are not allowing these fundamental assumptions then any thought experiment at all is not allowed, because every thought experiment is thought to take place in the physical world, and therefore is subject to these underlying assumptions.
You cannot use this argument to destroy just my thought experiment.

And you may use scientific laws as the basis for scientific experiments. But you were not proposing a scientific experiment. You were proposing a thought experiment with a logical conclusion. The conclusion you proposed may follow from scientific laws (though it has not been tested an proven scientifically). But it is not a logical certainty.

It is as much a certainty as anything in this world is. If I cannot assume that what we take to be physical laws hold, then the sun might not rise tomorrow. However, there is no asteroid coming to knock the earth of course, the sun isn't about to disappear (we think), so we're all fairly certain the sun will rise. If you disagree, your doubt of scientific laws must lead you to the only certainty we can reach by logic alone: you think, and so you exist. This is all you can know.

Your logic here sounds like the logic used by some to convince others that souls exist. I am shocked that you offered the statement. Just change a few words and notice what you sound like:

The principle that souls exist is accepted by a large majority; hence my example of a person on the street.
If your argument is that I cannot prove this principle, that's fair enough. I can't.
But since most people's understanding of the world is based upon the existence of souls, it's up to you to replace it with something else that explains how the world works.

People's understanding of the world is not based on the existence of souls. They may believe in souls, but they do not base their understanding of the world on them. Mostly, anyway. And not if they're logical. My point was that for everyone who bases their understanding of the world on physical laws my argument will hold. Anyone who does not accept these fundamental concepts has greater problems than whether we can ever make AI.

You did not simply assume how the world works. You proposed a hypothesis about how the world WILL work. Your hypothesis has not been proven correct by scientific experiment. And it does not logically follow from your thought experiment.

I believe that everyone shares my assumptions about cause and effect. This is how the world works. If the world works in this way then my hypothesis is true, without the need for proof by actually doing the experiment.

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.

Yes, he tries to go further, but his reasoning is flawed. All that he showed was that he knows he exists. I gave him credit for inventing 'universal doubt' and getting as far as 'cogito ergo sum' (or cogito ego sum, as I've seen it written. An insight suddenly becomes a boring statement). I could have phrased it better.

If you think that a scientific law is a logical certainty then it is solely your personal opinion. And it is incorrect.

There is a difference between scientific laws of the type that are being proposed today, based on experiments, and the fundamental laws by which we allow ourselves to reach conclusions from our experiments. The fundamental laws are, as far as most people are concerned, certainties.

I never said what I thought the result of an actual experiment involving two brains would be. I may very well agree with your hypothesis that they would act the same. But I am not going to make the mistake of claiming that they MUST act the same, either due to logical certainty or scientific law. We may be 99.99% sure that they would act the same. But we are not 100% certain.

We're not certain, but within our view of the world, we can be certain that this is the only way things could be.

Your justification is interesting. But as you point out, it's just based on personal experience / preference. It's based on your personal beliefs. And your personal beliefs are irrelevant in a thought experiment, or a scientific experiment.

Scientific laws change based on experiences. The earth is not the center of the solar system. Bacteria do not spontaneously generate. You said, "[scientific laws] have more evidence than any other option and are therefore the best option." And that's true if you're conducting a scientific experiment. But we aren't doing that here. We're engaged in a thought exercise.

But we're not dealing with laws based on observations within our world-view. We're dealing with a law about our world-view. If you doubt this law, it's not just a question of saying 'the rest of the world is fine, but I don't think this idea is a good one', as you might regarding bacteria. It's saying 'The whole world is not as it appears. We need to change everything we know to accommodate my idea'. This is because, as I said (in passing) before, this law is a fundamental on which everything else is based, rather than a conclusion from everything else.

Logical certainties never change, they are always true. If you want to continue an attempt to combine the two then so be it. But such an attempt is illogical.

Cause and effect is central to the world. To deny that it is a certainty is metaphysics, not science or logic. Metaphysics is a branch of thought where the only arguments can be about consistency, because it is all based on belief. In my view of the world it is a certainty. In anyone else's view of the world it is a certainty: hence my example of asking people whether the car steered left will turn left. Those people watching the car might include people who believe in souls. Their belief in souls is not a fundamental principle of how the world works.
I brought up other people because I saw that this was turning into metaphysics, and I wanted to make the point that it certainly looks like almost all the world agrees with me, and so my point is a reasonable one to bring up, because it will be relevant to a lot of people.

I had assumed that the person I was debating was logical. The idea that scientific laws = logical certainty is absurd and illogical.

Indeed. Since making the claim that cause and effect is a scientific law I have pointed out what makes it a certainty but not other scientific laws. As I said previously in this post, it is because cause and effect is a fundamental basis for science, rather than a conclusion from it. We assume it's a certainty in everyday life. It's an assumption that we cannot live without, and that makes it as close to certain as anything in this world can be.
My father, senile and demented though he is, likes to say 'If you don't believe in scientific laws, go throw yourself off a tower. If you don't believe in gravity, there's no danger.'

 

[Dusty Monkey]

Some thoughts:

I do not know of a reason to suppose that a 'soul' exists other than because 'someone else said so' -- Scientists specifically, and critical thinkers in general, really frown on invoking such unjustified ideas in productive discourse.

While its true that scientists from time to do invoke ideas seemingly out of thin air, its almost always due to an assumption that may or may not be correct.

For example, Einstein invoked a cosmological constant under the false assumption that one was justified to keep the (at the time) known universe from collapsing. He later retracted the idea when Hubble discovered an underlying pattern in the red shift of galaxies.

In these enlightened times, scientists are now working to put something extremely similar to a cosmological constant back in, calling it 'dark energy' (distinct from dark matter which is a different subject.) - The difference is that THIS time there is evidence to justify its re-introduction (the measured accelerating inflation of the visible universe)

Einstein had called his cosmological constant assumption the biggest mistake of his life.

There is no good reason that I am aware of to suppose that a 'soul' exists.

As for 'self-awareness' and the idea that a single-celled organism doesnt posses this property, please note that at least some multi-celled organisms (such as humans) DO exhibit this property - so far there is no reason to suppose that the higher complexity of multi-celled organisms will not fully account for the phenomenon we call 'self-awareness' - and there is ample evidence to justify the idea that high complexity can infact cause emergent behavior that is extremely non-intuitive (ie: just because you can't think of a way for simple rules to produce self-awareness is not evidence that it wont or doesn't happen)

Simple rules can and do produce very complex emergent behavior (programmers even exploit this fact)

As for the "existance" of logic as "outside" the bounds of the universe - it appears to be UNIVERSAL, not PARANORMAL - there is no reason to suppose that there is any "outside" -

If you invoke an unjustified premises to show why some other premise is justified, then you really have not justified anything at all. Hence you cannot get from "logic" to "souls" - justify AT LEAST one of them first.

-----

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/

 

[Brighteye]

Nice website DustyMonkey.
I had a look, and I find this link relevant:
http://www.philosophyofmind.info/interactionism.html

jar2574 is experiencing the well-known problems of dualism.

These are good too:
http://www.theoryofknowledge.info/foundationalism.html

http://www.theoryofknowledge.info/coherentism.html

My ideas are more coherent with people's other views of the world than not agreeing with them, and therefore coherentism supports me.
My ideas are also the best basic beliefs for foundationalism, because they justify basic beliefs that do make sense.
Thus, according to either of the two main theories of knowledge we know that the universe is based on cause and effect.

 

[5cats]

Wow, those are some good sites! Perhaps this 'internet' thing could be used for some sort of research...
Plenty of room in the nuthouse Berrie, make yourself at home. Nut, berrie, nuts & berries! Lmao!

You keep repeating "the universe is based on cause and effect" and I keep saying that 'based upon' is not the same as 'limited to'. Thus there ARE things in the universe NOT based on cause and effect.
Consider Strong Force and Weak Force:
We know that StFo is always greater than WeFo, and both are constants. According to the 'laws' of cause and effect, the greater force always defeats the lesser force. Right? Yet WeFo does, every now and then (randomly as far as we know) overcome StFo and cause a molecule to break apart. It's not that WeFo even becomes stronger, or StFo ever becomes weaker, so how do we explain it? We don't! It remains a mystery AND outside of the 'laws' of cause & effect.
Don't quibble about it being Quantum, either! If you exclude whatever doesn't fit in your theory, of course your theory will 'look' right.
Also, if there are seperate laws for Quantum, which are outside the 'universal laws', which iirc has been stated a few times here, then why cannot other states of existance, like 'souls' also have their own set of laws? Eh?

I don't deny that cause & effect is real, and that it applies to virtually everything in the whole universe, but NOT 100%. Cause and effect is an observation which holds true, but is not the only 'law' there is.

My point? If one thing isn't ruled by cause & effect, then it is possible that there are other things as well. So saying thet there's no 'logic' to souls is irrelivent. There's no 'logic' to StFo and WeFo either, in the cause & effect world...

Sorry for any typos, my cat helped me with this...

 

[warpus]

A musing:

If sexy Number Six (BSG) got struck by lightning and became 'alive' (ala the not so sexy Number Five), what proof, if any, could she give to us that she was alive/self-aware/sentient (souled)?

If there is such proof, could this proof be given in cases of what others believe are Strong AI that are alive? (Lightning strikes not withstanding)

If she could pass the Turing test, I'd say that that would be a good indication that she might be self-aware, but it wouldn't be ultimate proof.

Perhaps a more elaborate Turing test could be devised to test for this.

 

[warpus]

My point? If one thing isn't ruled by cause & effect, then it is possible that there are other things as well. So saying thet there's no 'logic' to souls is irrelivent. There's no 'logic' to StFo and WeFo either, in the cause & effect world...

Yes, but we can easily measure strong and weak forces and examine how they affect various objects.. can you say the same about this supposed soul?

 

[jar2574]

@ Brighteye

A thought experiment is based on logic.
You proposed a thought experiment, not a scientific one.
Logical certainties and scientific laws are not the same.
Your thought experiment's conculsion was based on scientific laws, not logical certainties.
The conclusion you drew to your thought experiment was not logically certain.

It's really that simple. Try to conflate and confuse scientific laws with logical certainties all you want. You're just being illogical, and the conclusions you derive in your thought experiment are therefore illogical. Claiming that scientific laws are "the best we can do in this world" is irrelevant. That does not make your thought experiment logical.


If you had proposed a scientific experiment, I may have agreed with your hypothesis. I would never have claimed that it could be proven 100% under current scientific laws. Current science does not allow us to test your hypothesis, so it will remain a hypothesis and not a proven conclusion.

The idea that science and scientific laws won't change dramatically before we can test whether a man-made brain acts identically to an identical human brain is simply absurd, and does not deserve further comment. Even if laws do not change, your hypothesis will remain a hypothesis until it is tested.

 

[Brighteye]

Wow, those are some good sites! Perhaps this 'internet' thing could be used for some sort of research...
Plenty of room in the nuthouse Berrie, make yourself at home. Nut, berrie, nuts & berries! Lmao!

You keep repeating "the universe is based on cause and effect" and I keep saying that 'based upon' is not the same as 'limited to'.

And the difference is? With many things you can say that based apon and limited to are different, but not cause and effect. I never saw you say this anyway. See later for my explanation.

Thus there ARE things in the universe NOT based on cause and effect.
Consider Strong Force and Weak Force:
We know that StFo is always greater than WeFo, and both are constants. According to the 'laws' of cause and effect, the greater force always defeats the lesser force. Right? Yet WeFo does, every now and then (randomly as far as we know) overcome StFo and cause a molecule to break apart. It's not that WeFo even becomes stronger, or StFo ever becomes weaker, so how do we explain it? We don't! It remains a mystery AND outside of the 'laws' of cause & effect.
Don't quibble about it being Quantum, either! If you exclude whatever doesn't fit in your theory, of course your theory will 'look' right.
Also, if there are seperate laws for Quantum, which are outside the 'universal laws', which iirc has been stated a few times here, then why cannot other states of existance, like 'souls' also have their own set of laws? Eh?

Quantum is poorly understood. From what I can gather a few physicists even doubt whether it really is random. If it is random it isn't intelligent. We have to accept quantum theory because the evidence shows us that it is true. We can only accept quantum theory if we accept that apart from the exceptions on the very small scale cause and effect still holds true: otherwise our experiments that give us the evidence are actually no evidence at all! Therefore quantum theory is an exception forced apon us by following the standards of cause and effect.

However, souls are not. There is no evidence for souls, or anything else, having huge effects on the physical world such that for objects of a brain's size causality does not hold. Quantum is a necessity to explain results obtained from within the framework of causality. Souls that give intelligence to one identical object but not to another are a direct denial of causality with no evidence at all.

I don't deny that cause & effect is real, and that it applies to virtually everything in the whole universe, but NOT 100%. Cause and effect is an observation which holds true, but is not the only 'law' there is.

My point? If one thing isn't ruled by cause & effect, then it is possible that there are other things as well. So saying thet there's no 'logic' to souls is irrelivent. There's no 'logic' to StFo and WeFo either, in the cause & effect world...

Sorry for any typos, my cat helped me with this...

So strong force and weak force lead to free will? Hmmm. Hasn't someone suggested that random quantum effects are due to a general background level of energetic noise? A background level of noise causes the quantum effects we see. Sure, we can't postulate a cause for it, any more than we can postulate a cause for the universe. It's how things are. What's the cause of gravity? You might redefine gravity as a version of St/wefo or just one unified force, but some things are just how we think the world is. The cause of these things is the same cause as whatever caused the universe; these things are part of the definition of what the universe is. They define our world.

However, our actions are not background noise. They are not quantum scale fluctuations. If they are decided by quantum fluctuations they are still not decided by supernatural souls.
Our actions take place in the world. They are not defining features of the physical world; they just follow those rules. Causality applies to us at a human scale. Causality is a principle that must be disproven, not denied at whim.
I have agreed that we cannot be absolutely certain that souls do not cause intelligence, or that they cause intelligence solely in me but not in you, but as far as we are certain about anything, my proposition holds.

If causality is only an observation that we cannot be certain about, then so is almost all current 'knowledge'. I was working within the framework of current knowledge. I even tried to show how this framework is the most reasonable one to adopt. To invoke your concept of doubt is acceptable, but if you invoke doubt you must do so universally, and deny the whole framework which is based on the principle that you deny.
I can allow an exception to this principle in the form of quantum because application of the principle itself leads us to this exception. Allowing quantum is being consistent, because I am applying this principle to the experiments that support quantum. However, choosing a specific part of this principle to doubt, with no evidence for this arbitrary decision, is not consistent.

Therefore despite your admirable presentation of your point, I still disagree, and still think that you are the one being inconsistent, and not me.

Given the discovery of quantum, and the concept that some things are not part of causality, you could use this as evidence that causality as a whole is flawed. You aren't doing this. You are using it as evidence that the one part of causality that you don't like is flawed, and this is a fallacy.