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AIList Digest Volume 8 Issue 113
AIList Digest Monday, 24 Oct 1988 Volume 8 : Issue 113
Artificial Insects (2 messages)
Consciousness (2 messages)
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Date: 14 Oct 88 20:56:27 GMT
From: lethin@athena.mit.edu (Richard A Lethin)
Subject: Re: Looking for contacts at MIT AI labs ("artificial
insects")
In article <321@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) writes:
>A sizable horde of artificial insects would make a good weapon (see
>Stanislaw Lem, _The Invincible_). We send a few billion of them over
>to the asian steppes, where they hide in the trees and bushes around
>all the missile silos. When the lids swing open and the babies start
>arming, all the bugs buzz on over and climb in, gumming things up...
>
Also see _Engines of Creation_ by Drexler for more on this topic;
Drexler's machines are called "assemblers" and they do wonderful
and horrible things. He's serious too, claiming it's all possible in
about 20-50 years. Or read newsgroup sci.nanotech...
>Dan Mocsny
>If at first you don't succeed, use a larger hammer.
Brooks presented some material recently at a well-attended AI seminar
discussing the role of planning in AI. He gave examples of how a
jumping spider makes its way around in the world, pretty much without
any planning at all. It just looks around for something that moves,
turns toward it, and either eats it or mates with it. Very simple,
and the spider gets by.
The model he was using was of simple subsystems, each doing their own
thing without much "planning" working together to for a behavior.
In the case of the spider, examples of these subsystems were the
side vision system (which is used to detect motion), the forward
vision tracking system system (keep forward eyes on target) and the
IFF (identification, friend or foe) system to decide whether to
eat or mate.
He put forth the argument that this also takes place in humans, that
the 97% of what we do intelligently is done without plans, and that
consciousness only serves to rationalize (sometimes incorrectly) why
we do things. He cited experimental evidence involving people who
had undergone commisurotomies (sp?) who were unable to correctly
rationalize their actions.
lethin@wheaties.ai.mit.edu
------------------------------
Date: 19 Oct 88 14:32:14 GMT
From: hacgate!janus!ge1cbx!rick@jpl-elroy.arpa (Trashotron)
Subject: Re: Looking for contacts at MIT AI labs ("artificial
insects")
In article <7476@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, lethin@athena.mit.edu writes:
> In article <321@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) writes:
> >A sizable horde of artificial insects would make a good weapon (see
> >Stanislaw Lem, _The Invincible_). We send a few billion of them over
See also "One Human Minute", the section titled "The Upside-Down Evolution".
This his "review" of a book called "Weapons Systems of the Twenty First
Century", wherein he discusses the arrival of "artificial instinct".
--
we look real tame, and we act real mild
when we bite your hands, you say your pet's gone wild......
------------------------------
Date: 19 Oct 88 08:35:29 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!watdcsu!smann@bellcore.bellcore.com (Shannon
Mann - I.S.er)
Subject: Re: Intelligence / Consciousness Test for Machines
(Neural-Nets)???
In article <734@wsccs.UUCP> dharvey@wsccs.UUCP (David Harvey) writes:
>If you claim that you are a conscious entity, but that I am not (your
>view of the world), and that I am a conscious entity but that you are not
>(my view of the world), then I can only assume that you are talking
>about self awareness. But is this what determines whether something is
>a conscious entity or not? If I am not mistaken, your view is that for
>anything to be a conscious entity, it must have self awareness, and only
>it can determine whether it is a conscious entity. Please correct me if
>I misinterpreted you. But then why in the world am I writing this
>article in response? After all, I have no guarantee that you are a
>conscious entity or not. But for some reason, I have this persistent
>but unverifiable belief that you are a conscious entity. Otherwise,
>why would I write?
Yes, but consider that the _other_ conscious entity may only be another
part of yourself (in the sense of multiple personalities.) You may be
unaware that each separate entity is actually the same entity.
> In other words, we have a sticky problem that may
>or may not have a solution. Yes, Bertrand Russell is someone who had
>a neat idea with the proposal of a third indeterminate state. In other
>words, I prefer to consider this type of question the mystery it should
>be categorized as.
>
>dharvey@wsccs
-=-
-=- Shannon Mann -=- smann@watdcsu.UWaterloo.ca
-=-
'I have no brain, and I must think...' - An Omynous
'If I don't think, AM I' - Another Omynous
P.S. I am unaware of Russell's postulate re: a third indeterminate state.
Could you give me some references? Thanks in advance.
------------------------------
Date: 20 Oct 88 15:40:55 GMT
From: leah!gbn474@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Gregory Newby)
Subject: oscillating consciousness
In article <1119@leah.Albany.Edu> gbn474@leah.Albany.Edu writes:
(sorry, Shannon: I lost your reference line)
>>Possible conclusion: consciousness, like most things we can name
>>in nature, oscillates.
>>
>Other possible conclusion: we unconsciously attach meaning to apparently
>randon patterns i.e. we hear the music, we see the lights, we notice that there
>are some of the lights lit on the beat, and disregard the rest as noise.
>Hence, we have a pattern where none existed before. Sounds like pattern-
>recognition to me. :-)
>>--newbs
>-=- Shannon Mann -=- smann@watdcsu.UWaterloo.ca
>P.S. I'd like to know what 'oscillating consciousness' is supposed to mean.
Take it as you want. We know that people can not attend to the entire
environment at once (or, at least that's what the cog. psychologists
have found). Possibly, people are attuned more at some times than
others, in a regular pattern. Personally, I would consider a sort of
continuous sine function before a binary on-off type of model.
An upcoming article, I believe in _Quality and Quantity_, considers
seriously the idea that ALL human phenomena are based on such
osciallations and the interference patterns they produce. We're
talking from individual memory and thought to dyadic interaction
to group or mob behavior. The article is by John Foldy, and is
an extension of his Dissertation. I would be happy to mail the
reference to interested parties.
--newbs
(
gbnewby@rodan.acs.syr.edu
gbn474@leah.albany.edu
)
ps: a book which I do NOT recommend, but makes similar considerations
in ways that make anyone knowledgable of natural science feel very
ill, is _Stalking the Wild Pendulum_ by Iztac Benton (sp?).
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