cs_bob@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (05/16/89)
This group looks like it needs a new controversy, so... There have lately been a number of currents running through this newsgroup that on the surface seem to me to be inter-related in interesting and perhaps useful ways, if only we can make them more explicit. To begin with, however abrasive he may be, Gilbert Cockton is somewhat justified in his attack upon 'strong AI', in the name ( I assume ) of epistemology. Carl Jung once remarked of Freud that while he was a brilliant man, he was, after all, only a medical doctor and suffered from the disadvantage of 'not knowing enough' about the philosophy of Mind. I think the same claim can be made of a number of prominent figures in today's AI horizon. Take for example, Marvin Minsky's recent claim in "The Society of Mind" that "Mind is what brains do". This effectively reduces one of the greatest mysteries of human thought to a question which Minsky believes can be answered completely within his own field. Minsky's position is not only arrogant and in violation of one of the very principles Minsky pushes at us in "Society of Mind" (namely, that we should be skeptical of simple explanations); it also betrays a terrible ignorance of the nature and history of the philosophical question "What is Mind?" It seems to me that Minsky wishes to use AI to accomplish with Epistemology what Skinner tried to do to Psychology with Behaviorism. In both cases, we see an attempt to put a discipline of rational inquiry on a 'sound, scientific basis' by simply eliminating from consideration all of the problems which are not easily addressed empirically. I do not think that it is a coincidence that this same Marvin Minsky is also largely responsible for having derailed research into neural networks to the extent that one could fairly say he set the field back at least 10 years. I have read both Minsky and Papert defending themselves from this charge, and I do not accept their claims. For one thing, Minsky points out that the claims of the Rosenblatt camp needed to be examined analytically, and that we were being misled by the success of connectionism in small laboratory experiments and that there were fundamental problems with perceptrons which he felt compelled to point out. If Minsky really believed this, he certainly wouldn't have written "Society of Mind", in which he makes such bold claims as "Mind is what brains do" without presenting the slightest bit of analytical support. The only support for Minsky's K-lines, for example, is their utility in actual attempts to model memory. As far as I know, Minsky has never taken the time to perform the same sort of analysis of his own theories that he felt so compelled to do with Rosenblatt's. I have also read accounts of Minsky himself admitting that he may have gone a bit too far, that he saw himself as trying to counter a connectionist hysteria, and that he didn't intend to kill it. This comes, of course, only after it is apparent that what we now call PDP isn't going to die an easy death. It's unfortunate that he is put in the position of having to defend himself for having misled so many people. I for one certainly don't intend to accuse him of that, not because I believe him for an instant, but because one really can't blame him if he managed to make fools of so many. One can only blame the fools. The fact is that Minsky succeeded because the large majority of AI researchers wanted Minsky to be right, not because he was. Similarly, most AI researchers have a vested interest in the possibilities of "Strong AI", and are therefore unwilling to question it. I am sure, for instance, that many people are quite happy with the propostion, "Mind is what brains do". Once one understands it, it seems plausible enough. More importantly, it's very convenient to a person who wants to go about his business of reproducing Mind within the context of a machine. For if he were not to believe that the brain, as a physical system, was a necessary and sufficient condition for Mind, he might have second thoughts about devoting his life's work to trying to reproduce (or simulate) Mind on a computer. Again I am reminded of Minsky, only this time it is his pooh-poohing of brain laterality. Minsky doesn't seem to believe in the difference between the two hemispheres or, at any rate, he seems to feel that too much has been made of this difference. He even goes so far in "Society of Mind" to make the 'bsurd statement that the division of the brain into left and right hemispheres is just as arbitrary as the division into top and bottom or front and back hemispheres. This is pop-logic in an extreme form; it appeals exclusively to people who want to believe it in the first place, and it contradicts a very extensive body of well respected *scientific* evidence. One cannot argue, as Stephen Smoliar has done in Minsky's defense, that he is cautioning against reading too much into the differences between the two halves of the brain. If one reads Minsky's statements on brain laterality closely, he will find him to equivocate quite nicely in this respect. He never exactly says that there are no differences between the two hemispheres of the brain, but he clearly leaves the reader with the impression that there are no _important_ differences. This is exactly what he did with Perceptrons : he never said they were useless, but he left the definite impression in the bulk of the AI community that they would never be very useful. To return to the dictum "Mind is what brains do", we have to ask how this accounts for the qualitative difference between Mind and Digestion as in the assertion "Digestion is what stomachs do". Admittedly, as scientists we can discuss the process of thinking in much the same way as we can discuss the process of digesting. That is to say, we can observe these processes and analyze our observations in various ways. The problem arises when we realize that we can also observe the actions of our brains in another way - from the inside. One cannot do this with digestion. The by-product of the activities of the brain is the observer. Who would like to compare this with the by-products of digestion? Are they not radically different things? Indeed, we cannot even say that the observer-within-the-brain is a thing at all, and this is what leads certain people to say that it is nothing. It's all well and good to talk of self-awareness as an emergent property of the brain. I suppose that it is, but in saying this one really isn't saying very much. One can easily imagine instructing a computer to answer "Yes" to the question "Are you self-aware?", but only a fool would want to pretend that this is the same thing as what you and I are experiencing as self. That my 'selfness' is real is, to me, beyond dispute. That it is beyond the scope of empirical investigation can be shown in a number of ways - is the 'red' you see the same color as the 'red' I see? are dogs self-aware? Is a tree? The fact that we cannot answer these questions derives from the fact that the observer cannot be observed. This does not mean that the observer does not exist, as some scientists would have us believe. It seems to me the absolute absurdity to claim that self is an illusion, which is essentially what Minsky would have us believe. It certainly provides an easy answer to the question, "How did _I_ emerge from this purely physical world?" You didn't. You're just fooling yourself. You aren't, which is to say _you_ don't really exist, you just think you do. The problem is, if I don't exist, why should I need to be fooled? What's being misled by the illusion? I realize that questions such as this don't matter much to the daily activities of AI researchers. I have no doubt that AI will make substantial and significant progress without ever have to broach the question, "What is Mind?", but I also feel that, eventually, someone with a perspective in both AI and epistemology is going to have to address it, lest we content ourselves with the meaningless dictum, "Mind is what brains do." R.Kohout #include >standard_disclaimer.h>
smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (05/16/89)
In article <3244@tank.uchicago.edu> cs_bob@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: > >This group looks like it needs a new controversy, so... > Apparently Bob Kohout regards Minsky-bashing as an appropriate source of controversy. Having put a fair amount of time into trying to make sense of THE SOCIETY OF MIND, I would like to rise to his challenge (which he probably expected me to do). However, I think it is important to set a few matters straight about Minsky's role in the AI community. My first observation is that, while I do not travel around very much, I have yet to encounter a gathering of AI practicioners who would come out and say that they take Minsky seriously. (At one site--which I shall leave unnamed out of a sense of discretion--where I led a seminar, I was strongly urged not to mention K-lines. The most acceptable phrase I was told to use would be "something that looks like K-lines.") So if Bob is under the impression that the AI community is now fanatically worshipping at Minsky's temple, he is quite mistaken. An interesting sign of this is that our most prestigious journal, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, has not yet run a review of THE SOCIETY OF MIND. This is about to change, hopefully. The reason for my own intense study of Minsky's book was to write that long-overdue review. I do not think my editor will mind if I share my final paragraphs with this bulletin board, because what one gets out of a book is very dependent on the attitude one brings to that book. Therefore, I think it is important to dwell upon who a book like THE SOCIETY OF MIND should be approached. Here is how I ended my review: The reader should next accept the fact that this book is more a source of QUESTIONS than of ANSWERS. In PHILOSOPHY IN A NEW KEY, Susanne Langer wrote: The way a question is asked limits and disposes the ways in which any answer to it--right or wrong--may be given. Many of the questions which Turing first raised in 1950 became side-tracked with the pursuit of artificial intelligence as a concrete" discipline. THE SOCIETY OF MIND is an effort to get the questions of artificial intelligence "back on track"--Turing's track, at least. Because the emphasis is on questions, rather than answers, the reader should also approach some of the more flamboyant declarations of this book with caution. Often their intent is more to provoke than to inform. (Maturana calls such sentences "triggering perturbations.") For example, Minsky's theory about split brains, as articulated in Section 11.8, is at odds with certain results in the published literature. [Added as a footnote: I wish to thank Bob Kohout for pointing this out to me.] Unfortunately, Minsky does not provide citations to either support or rebut his own point of view. For better or for worse, he seems to have assumed that the interested reader will pursue such references on his own. Nevertheless, taken on its own terms, this is a very exciting book . . . perhaps the most exciting book ever to have been published on the subject of mind. It is provocative in the questions it raises and challenging because it does not provide cut-and-dried answers to those questions. Ultimately, it serves the most important function which any book may serve: IT INSPIRES THE READER TO THINK ABOUT THESE MATTERS ON HIS OWN. Such books are rare in ANY subject. We should all be thankful that Marvin Minsky has been able to serve the discipline of artificial intelligence so well. > >Take for example, Marvin Minsky's recent claim in "The Society of Mind" >that "Mind is what brains do". This effectively reduces one of the greatest >mysteries of human thought to a question which Minsky believes can be >answered completely within his own field. Minsky's position is not only >arrogant and in violation of one of the very principles Minsky pushes at >us in "Society of Mind" (namely, that we should be skeptical of simple >explanations); it also betrays a terrible ignorance of the nature and history >of the philosophical question "What is Mind?" It seems to me that Minsky >wishes to use AI to accomplish with Epistemology what Skinner tried to >do to Psychology with Behaviorism. In both cases, we see an attempt to put >a discipline of rational inquiry on a 'sound, scientific basis' by simply >eliminating from consideration all of the problems which are not easily >addressed empirically. > In light of my opening remarks, I would claim that this paragraph is basically a misreading of Minsky's text. While I can appreciate that there are those who would read "Mind is what brains do" as a gesture of arrogant reductionism, I do not think the text of THE SOCIETY OF MIND supports that claim. Rather, the book asks us to go back to that question of just what it is that brains ACTUALLY DO. It is not so much a matter of ignoring what philosophers have had to say about mind as it is an observation that if one gets too immersed in the philosophy of mind, one might lose touch with how the brain is actually contributing to human behavior. All Minsky has done is to introduce a new perspective for the consideration of those questions which have occupied so many philosophers of past and present. The fact of the matter is that, after one has read Minsky, one can go back to Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, Husserl, and Wittgenstein (to name a few) and reconsider their observations, their hyptotheses, and their intellectual struggles. Now how many books do we read which encourage such a review of past accomplishments? >I do not think that it is a coincidence that this same Marvin Minsky is >also largely responsible for having derailed research into neural networks >to the extent that one could fairly say he set the field back at least 10 >years. This is an example of attributing far too much political power to Minsky. The greatest enemy of neural network research has always been inadequate computing facilities . . . both powerful hardware and accommodating software environments. The Rosenblatt camp was "stuck in the bits" of extremely clunky equipment. They could raise the occasional spark, but they lacked the facilities to turn it into fire. Even today, with much more powerful equipment, achievements remain disappointingly modest. > >I have also read accounts of Minsky himself admitting that he may have gone >a bit too far, that he saw himself as trying to counter a connectionist >hysteria, and that he didn't intend to kill it. This comes, of course, >only after it is apparent that what we now call PDP isn't going to die >an easy death. It's unfortunate that he is put in the position of having >to defend himself for having misled so many people. I for one certainly >don't intend to accuse him of that, not because I believe him for an instant, >but because one really can't blame him if he managed to make fools of so >many. One can only blame the fools. > I do not think it has ever been Minsky's intention to make fools of his readers. If anything, I fear that he expects too much of his readers: He expects them to THINK OVER his provocations rather than swallow them whole. The fools are the ones who are not willing (or able) to allow Minsky the respect of such thought. Unfortunately, they also tend to have the loudest voices. >The fact is that Minsky succeeded because the large majority of AI researchers >wanted Minsky to be right, not because he was. What makes you think that Minsky succeeded? Have you any idea what the level of research activity is that is based on THE SOCIETY OF MIND? I have already given my visiting seminar anecdote. As another metric, I would invite you to look at the preliminary Technical Program for this year's IJCAI. I think you will find that there is NOT ONE paper which is, in any way, a product of Minsky's "vision." Minsky is currently spending more time at the MIT Media Lab than at the AI Lab. THERE I have seen some attempts to apply his work to music, but it is still very early stuff. It hardly constitutes a massive wave of AI research! > >It seems to me the absolute absurdity to claim that self is an illusion, >which is essentially what Minsky would have us believe. I think this is again a misreading. If you look in Minsky's glossary, he is actually calling it "the myth that each of us contains SOME SPECIAL PART that embodies the essence of the mind" (my emphasis). It is not the "self" that is the illusion, rather the belief that self is some distinct component of body. I see nothing wrong with Minsky questioning this belief. In retrospect, I think that Bob has reacted in a way consisted with Minsky's intentions. He has obviously not swallowed the contents whole. He is clearly giving a lot of thought to what Minsky actually wrote, and even misinterpretation can count for serious thought. I, for one, wish more people were reading Minsky with Bob's intensity.
lrm5110@tahoma.UUCP (Larry R. Masden) (05/18/89)
From article <3244@tank.uchicago.edu>, by cs_bob@gsbacd.uchicago.edu: > Take for example, Marvin Minsky's recent claim in "The Society of Mind" > that "Mind is what brains do". This effectively reduces one of the greatest > mysteries of human thought to a question which Minsky believes can be > answered completely within his own field. Minsky's position is not only > arrogant and in violation of one of the very principles Minsky pushes at > us in "Society of Mind" (namely, that we should be skeptical of simple > explanations); it also betrays a terrible ignorance of the nature and history > of the philosophical question "What is Mind?" It seems to me that Minsky > wishes to use AI to accomplish with Epistemology what Skinner tried to > do to Psychology with Behaviorism. In both cases, we see an attempt to put > a discipline of rational inquiry on a 'sound, scientific basis' by simply > eliminating from consideration all of the problems which are not easily > addressed empirically. I couldn't agree more, here are my views on the subject: In my opinion there is no theory in current science that explains the emergence of consciousness (self awareness, "I") in complex physical systems. In my opinion there is no scientific definition of what consciousness is. Sure, there are medical definitions of consciousness that serve a useful purpose, but these don't address the issue of what consciousness is and how it works. Say we built a machine with complexity near that of the human mind. We would have no scientific reason to say the machine was conscious even if it claimed it was. We could explain the operation of the complex machine in terms of cause effect relationships just as we do for simple machines. The complex machine's "claim" of consciousness could be explained mechanically (lengthy explanation) just as the operation of today's computers or simple machines can be explained mechanically. We don't claim that the simple machines are conscious. With no theory to state otherwise, we have no reason to claim that the complex ones are. A person's state of consciousness is clearly dependent upon the physical state of their brain. Damage to the brain's physical structure can cause loss of consciousness. Sleep is another example of the physical state of the brain affecting a person's state of consciousness. However, these and similar examples do not prove that consciousness results solely from the physical processes of the brain. If a new theory comes along that explains how consciousness emerges in complex physical systems, great! But until then all bets are off. Following is an alternative model for consciousness that is a little wild but will serve the purpose of this discussion. It is seed for further "brainstorming" if you will. Consciousness could arise from a system that exists in a physical domain that we have not yet learned to observe. The system could be constantly monitoring the operation of what we now know as the physical brain. It could be affected by the operation of the brain, but not affect the operation of the brain (a one way link.) Obviously, this model will be just that until someone learns how to observe the new domain. Some philosophers might suggest that the as yet unobserved domain is the spiritual domain, and that consciousness is the human "spirit." A two way link between the spirit and the brain (i.e. brain can affect spirit and spirit can affect brain) might be analogous to free will. But if a two way link exists, we would expect to see events in the physical brain that are unexplained by our understanding of physics. Future experimentation may show that the brain does operate according to our understanding of physics, or the brain may forever elude physical modeling. It may be that an explanation of consciousness is theoretically beyond the reach of all experiments, like uncertainty in quantum physics. Whatever it is, the study of consciousness is bound to be complex and interesting. In my opinion "Mind is what brain does" just doesn't meet the criterion. -- Larry Masden Voice: (206) 237-2564 Boeing Commercial Airplanes UUCP: ..!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!shuksan!tahoma!lrm5110 P.O. Box 3707, M/S 66-22 Seattle, WA 98124-2207
wallingf@cpsvax.cps.msu.edu (Eugene Wallingford) (05/19/89)
In article <408@tahoma.UUCP> lrm5110@tahoma.UUCP (Larry R. Masden) writes: >In my opinion there is no theory in current science that explains the >emergence of consciousness (self awareness, "I") in complex physical >systems. In my opinion there is no scientific definition of what >consciousness is. Sure, there are medical definitions of consciousness >that serve a useful purpose, but these don't address the issue of >what consciousness is and how it works. > >Say we built a machine with complexity near that of the human mind. We >would have no scientific reason to say the machine was conscious even if >it claimed it was. We could explain the operation of the complex machine >in terms of cause effect relationships just as we do for simple machines. >The complex machine's "claim" of consciousness could be explained >mechanically (lengthy explanation) just as the operation of today's >computers or simple machines can be explained mechanically. We don't claim >that the simple machines are conscious. With no theory to state otherwise, >we have no reason to claim that the complex ones are. Nor do we have a scientific reason to say that you and I are conscious (as I suspect you are saying). We accept this loose modifier and go about our business, assuming that people who act certain ways in the world are conscious. Adopting this view essentially requires us to drop the use of the term "conscious" from our active (scientific) vocabulary, which includes with reference to human beings. The question then becomes: What is it about such a complex system (i.e., a computer of sufficient complexity) that distinguishes its actions and interactions in the world from "our own"? *Is* there any reason to distinguish them at all??
cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550) (05/19/89)
In article <3244@tank.uchicago.edu> cs_bob@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: > >Carl Jung once remarked of Freud that while he was a brilliant man, he was, >after all, only a medical doctor and suffered from the disadvantage of >'not knowing enough' about the philosophy of Mind. I think the same claim >can be made of a number of prominent figures in today's AI horizon. People in glass houses? >Take for example, Marvin Minsky's recent claim.... [Several paragraphs of Minsky bashing omitted] Ok, so you don't like Minsky. Now lets hear about the other prominent figures on the AI horizon you mentioned. >The fact is that Minsky succeeded [in killing perceptrons] >because the large majority of AI researchers >wanted Minsky to be right, not because he was. Really? But in any case he was right about perceptrons, wasn't he? >Similarly, most AI researchers >have a vested interest in the possibilities of "Strong AI", and are therefore >unwilling to question it. Most AI researchers find the categories of "strong" and "weak" AI to be too clumsy, neither describing their position. >I am sure, for instance, that many people are >quite happy with the propostion, "Mind is what brains do". Once >one understands it, it seems plausible enough. More importantly, it's very >convenient to a person who wants to go about his business of reproducing >Mind within the context of a machine. For if he were not to believe that >the brain, as a physical system, was a necessary and sufficient condition >for Mind, he might have second thoughts about devoting his life's work to >trying to reproduce (or simulate) Mind on a computer. Straw man. I'm not the only AI researcher who supposes it impossible to reproduce minds in computers; I think computers are going to come in very handy when putting the robot's brain together, however. >he problem arises when we realize >that we can also observe the actions of our brains in another way - from >the inside. Speak for yourself. I don't realize this, and experiments have shown that people can be consistently mistaken about the processes that go on in their minds, let alone their brains. >That my 'selfness' is real is, to me, beyond dispute. Quite. The problem is that other people do dispute it, and your personal conviction is not a persuasive argument. >It seems to me the absolute absurdity to claim that self is an illusion, >which is essentially what Minsky would have us believe. Yes, I'm getting the hang of what you believe, the problem is that you haven't given me any reasons for believing it too. >I realize that questions such as this don't matter much to the daily >activities >of AI researchers. There are planty of AI researchers who don't agree with that. >I have no doubt that AI will make substantial and >significant progress without ever have to broach the question, >"What is Mind?", - or that either. >but I also feel that, eventually, someone with a perspective in both AI >and epistemology is going to have to address it, Check out the titles published by Bradford Books, MIT press, for starters. You may even find that some of the posters to this group have that background, and have published papers addressing the problem! -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK
gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) (05/23/89)
In article <3052@cps3xx.UUCP> wallingf@cpsvax.UUCP (Eugene Wallingford) writes: >Nor do we have a scientific reason to say that you and I are >conscious (as I suspect you are saying). > >Adopting this view essentially requires us to drop the use of the >term "conscious" from our active (scientific) vocabulary So how do we distinguish between the mental states of "asleep" and "awake"? Mental states are an established part of psychological research, with hypnosis providing hours of fun for those who wish to draw sharp distinctions between them. Before we commit all the work here to the dustbin, can we please read (some of) it :-) -- Gilbert Cockton, Department of Computing Science, The University, Glasgow gilbert@uk.ac.glasgow.cs <europe>!ukc!glasgow!gilbert
matt@nbires.nbi.com (Matthew Meighan) (05/25/89)
In article <3244@tank.uchicago.edu> cs_bob@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: > >Take for example, Marvin Minsky's recent claim in "The Society of Mind" >that "Mind is what brains do". > > [ lots of other very good stuff deleted ] > Clearly, brain is what minds do. Matt Meighan matt@nbires.nbi.com -- Matt Meighan matt@nbires.nbi.com (nbires\!matt)