Re: Protean Self-Transformation

From: David McFadzean (morpheus@lucifer.com)
Date: Sat Mar 29 1997 - 18:58:47 MST


> From: Gregory Houston <vertigo@triberian.com>
> Date: Saturday, March 29, 1997 5:25 PM

> Can you merely program a computer to see without creating optical
> hardware? No! You can program pattern recognizing neural nets day in and
> day out, but until you give the computer hardware [optics] to see with,
> it cannot see ... no matter how hard you try to program it to do so.

What if the images that the computer analyses were generated with
a ray-tracing program? No optical hardware needed.
 
> Can you merely program a robot to walk? No! You have to give the thing
> "legs" if you want it to walk, or wheels if you want it to roll. No
> matter how much time you invest in programming a computer to either walk
> or roll, that computer will do neither without the required hardware.

Randall Beer and his students successfully taught (programmed/trained/
evolved) a simulated cockroach to walk though it had no real (hardware)
legs. When the neural nets were later downloaded into a real robot it
could instantly walk in the real world.

--
David McFadzean                 david@lucifer.com
Memetic Engineer                http://www.lucifer.com/~david/
Church of Virus                 http://www.lucifer.com/virus/


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