From: Paul Hughes (planetp@aci.net)
Date: Thu Dec 10 1998 - 02:23:39 MST
"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote:
> I have to agree that Wilson's hierarchy is total gibberish,
cognitively
> speaking. Any attempt to characterize one mental state as
"higher" than
> another usually is.
This a perfect case of the "pot calling the kettle black", as I
quote from your 'Coding a Transhuman AI':
"The modules sum together to form abilities; the abilities sum
together to form intelligence."
If that is not another way of saying -- "lower" modules sum
together to create "higher" abilities, those "higher" abilities
sum together to create an even "higher" intelligence -- I don't
know what is. It is saying *EXACTLY* the same thing. Get past
the petty semantic difference and see what is actually being
described. The last time I checked, the menu was not the meal.
Please read Alfred Korzybski!!!
I'm aghast that you and Damien (both whom I respect highly by the
way) can't see past the 1977 hippie prose to see the obvious fact
that manipulating genes (circuit 7) which created the neural
structures to begin with, is more flexible than simply playing
with those neurons themselves (circuit 6). Or that manipulating
genes is inherently less flexible compared to
nanotechnology's (circuit 8) ability to manipulate the atoms that
compose those genes. Minsky's 'Society of Mind' provides a
useful metaphor of "higher" vs. "lower" functioning, when he
describes large numbers of "lower" or dumber minds on the
hierarchy composing "higher" more intelligent minds in the
hierarchy. Which seems to me the same metaphor your 'Coding a
Transhuman Mind' is depending on. Here is a facsimile of a chart
from his book, illustrating the hierarchy of higher (smarter) vs
lower (dumber) minds:
HigherMind
|
------------
| |
Medium Medium
| |
---------- -------------
| | | |
dumb dumb dumb dumb
> Where does genius come from? From computation. What kind of
> computation? See
> "Coding a Transhuman AI".
I've read it, and have failed to find anywhere where you're
fundamentally saying anything different than poor Tim Leary or
RAW was struggling to back in 1977, with a hell of a
lot less computer and technologically terminology from which to
choose from. Not to mention the fact that they were/are
psychologist after all, not computer scientists. One of Tim
Leary's greatest wishes before he died was to see his 8-circuit
model re-written
by someone like you, with a more articulate and precise command
of scientific and technological language. As I suggested
earlier, this thread is a perfect example of why such a revision
is increasingly necessary for a more cyber-savvy generation.
Paul Hughes
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:56 MST