Greetings --
"Using this analogy, and correct me if I am wrong, your theory seems to address what the peaks should look like, how to identify one, not how they are made or what they are made of."
Yes, that is correct.
"I don't want to distract from discussion of your presentation, but I cannot help but compare it to mine, which would, in this case, be more about how they are made."
I would love to see your own "presentation", please where can I find it ? As for "how they were made", I am unclear whether you mean what causes the pattern, how the pattern causes life, or how we build machine life with my Theory as a basic template.
"Yours seems more behaviorist, more diagnostic, than analytical."
I can accept that assessment. Although if you don't know exactly how an Agent must behave in order to be alive and intelligent, you would have to be pretty lucky to build one successfully.
"You may be more hardware while I am more software (not that there's anything wrong with that, it's a good thing)."
Actually, I'ld have to say it's the opposite. I work more with software and integration with hardware, and only a little in the building of new hardware.
"I assumed (and infer from your more recent posts) that you use your diagnostic theory to assist you in the more developmental work that you allude to."
Absolutely correct, yes. But again I reiterate, I think that my Theory still opens up huge areas of exploration in metaphysics, etc.
"Truthfully, yours is a codification of what I and many others probably subconsciously assumed, but never got around to verbalizing,..."
Yes, one of the big problems is that some people write that my Theory has already been laid down, because it just seems like it should have been. But when I challenge them to produce anything that resembles my Theory, they can not.
"...and mine, if I get it summarized into intelligibility, will also be seen as what everyone already knows intuitively."
I truly look forward to seeing this !
"The first person to invent the wheel was probably in the same boat, his brother-in-law said, "Yeah, yeah, round things roll... so what?"."
I have faced since I published a pretty much endless stream of people with exactly the attitude you describe. It is frustrating, for sure. I am hoping to set the record straight here in these forums so that MAYBE 10 or 15 (with my luck, it will be 50) years from now I might actually get credit for some insights. In the meantime, I am a tough old goat - I am to stubborn to quit.
"Then suddenly his brother-in-law is making wheels for a living and the Universe is forever changed."
HA ! That was hysterical ! And by the way, you have an awesome and very pleasant writing style. Your work, when you publish - will be not only lucid, but very humorous and uplifting as well.
"You have set a clear method of discovering if that has happened..."
If the Agent in question contains any of my Elements, then it has happened. That's my method.
"...which can be of significant value only if we ever figure out how to make it happen!"
I believe we long ago crossed that threshold, we are easily making "it" happen.
"Asserting a complex enough system gives us so many switches that there are not enough Chronons in the Multiverse to test a statistically significant portion of the possible combinations. Random chance alone requires a blase' invocation of the Large Anthropic Principle to get past.
While I don't require a personified Designer for the Design, I would like to see a mechanism. The Final Anthropic Prinicple asserts that Intelligence must form in any universe like ours, but cannot explain how that might happen."
A great metaphysical exploration. There are a few terms there with which I am unfamiliar, but nevertheless interesting.
"While I don't require a personified Designer for the Design, I would like to see a mechanism. The Final Anthropic Prinicple asserts that Intelligence must form in any universe like ours, but cannot explain how that might happen."
Again, awesome questions to explore. But I must add they are irrelevant to actually building an MLAI Agent. And that is the purpose of my Theory.
"My cat requires me to feed it or it will die."
So ? If your cat runs away and becomes feral, your point is mute - it will feed itself. But even if this were not so, an Agent does not have to exhibit an Element in it's perfection. In fact even individual humans would not score perfectly on every Element if we benchmarked them. All of the Elements are gradients. Your well fed cat still cleans itself and (hopefully) poops in it's box, etc. And it's body heals itself, and healing is another aspect of this Element.
"Handy, but not required? If it is made to work right to begin with, it will work right...."
Perhaps for the most simple of Agents. But for extremely advanced ones it would be almost impossible to pre-program every single environmental possibility.
"That establishes evolution, not Life. Many things were alive which could not adapt and have now died."
I do not understand the allusion to evolution. But procreation is just one Element of Life, and as I have said - not all the Elements need be present for the Agent to be alive. And finally, being alive and being successful as a species are two different things.
"This restates 1 and 2 combined, doesn't it?"
1 and 2 do not make any mention of components or their relationship to each other. I can not grasp the connection you see between procreation and complexity. I suppose certain adaptions might work towards increasing the Agents complexity - along with many other factors of course. Certainly I disagree that it is a restatement in any way.
"This is our limited idea of what is required to accomplish 1,2,3 and 6. We are probably right, that we need to sense our world to Eat, Grow, Breed and Run for our lives! But there may be another way, such as be created in a universe with a handy human to do all that for us."
This statement is true, though I struggle to see the relevance.
"Assumes dangers exist."
Danger always exists. The universe appears fundamentally designed to tear this pattern to shreds via entropy and chaos. Somewhere someone asked me why I would want to build fight or flight into the skittering little insect bots, etc. that I have running around my place here, well - it's simple. My dog Bethoven HATES them. I have learned a great deal about fight or flight from trying to teach/program these little guys to not get killed by my dog. Have to say it's just a blast to watch, to.
"Agree with "preserve information", but suggest that "organize and utilize" are not necessarily part of memory."
What possible use could a memory be to an Agent if he can't recall the data at a later time ? And recall would therefore be the "utilization", and that process would in turn require that it be somehow organized to enable this. A tape recorder "preserves" information, but can it recall that information and make use of it to it's own benifit ?
"I find this a harsh limitation of "Self Awareness"."
It's not meant to be. It's meant to be very minimilistic though. The absolute resolution of the Element.
The dictionary defines self awareness simply as knowledge of one self. I actually take it a step further, requiring at least two objects. This is pretty much all self-awareness is. But most people do tend to take it as common knowledge that self-awareness is some big esoteric thing. But like all the Elements, it's a gradient. I have stated the bare minimum necessary to be self-aware, but if you continue to add objects and increase the Agents resolution of those objects - it could become "a higher order of abstraction, where a process can monitor its own process".
"Again, a human limitation. I would allow it based upon the idea that we need at least this level of anthropomorphism to be able to recognize anything, but I would like to see a more universal standard. I think you approach it in your 6)."
You are correct, and have hit upon the only modification I have so far considered based on these critiques. Based upon your own and others thoughts on this, I am tentatively considering adding a single word to my Theory and changing the name of that Element to "Higher Intelligence". And that is because I think that lower intelligence, or whats often referred to as "animal intelligence" is inferred by the other Elements - which elucidate many behaviors that could be deemed intelligent.
"Show me an average human!8-)"
CLICK HERE"This is the whole problem, we have to use our standards to measure "The Other".... a basic fallacy."
I agree, but until we run across some other sentient races, it's the best we can do.
"Here we come to Self Awareness. For an Agent to choose a new state, it must, on some level, apprehend its current state."
I agree with this statement.
"And here is where the rest of your "Memory" above might belong. Because unless you are talking about reflex and instinct, which I think you are not, organization and utility come after reduction."
I agree that a properly working memory would be required for the reductions to be stored and utilized. But that would be just one thing the Agent would be using it's memory for. Remembering where it's food (or electricity plug) is located, remembering how to run away from the huge slobbering hairy monster that wants to chew your head off, etc.
"I think you need to define a threshold level. Perhaps values could be assigned which are additive, allowing scoring on a numerical basis."
I have done all of these things. I have devised a graded testing regimen for all of the Elements. I have been using it successfully in my own work now for almost a year. But the Theory purposefully does not draw a line in the sand, and allows for the fact that we can not currently resolve the boundary between life and not-life by leaving it up to the tester to set the parameters. I am releasing the Theory first, because the testing regimen is irrelevant to the logical defense of the Theory itself, and I don't want to get bogged down in defending them both at the same time (this is hard work ! I released this in 10 of the biggest MLAI forums and I am now spending 10 to 12 hours a day writing these posts !). Once this process dies down a little, I will tidy up my lab notes and release the testing regimen and criteria I am using. But anyone can devise simple tests to do as you state above. Several such tests are mentioned in the works of Turing, Von Neumann, and Wagman. First the Theory, then it's defense and explanation, then it's application. I am to old to do it all at once !
"IN the threshold spectrum, we need to realize that we are only in the visible rainbow range. Perhaps there are levels under us that we can't see, and levels above."
He, he - okay. :rolleyes
"Our ability to measure requires that our definitions only include that which we can measure. Perfect circle of logic."
A central pillar upon which my Theory is based.
YOURS -- Christopher Doyon :cheesy
