caasi@sdsu.UUCP (Richard Caasi) (04/23/89)
What is the Sound Made by a Mind?
The goals of Artificial Intelligence are beyond the capabilities
of Turing machines, i.e., conventional computers aren't going to
solve AI's biggest problems. All isn't lost, however, since
there is at least one class of machines more pwerful than Turing
machines. Existence proof - the human brain. We've been trying
to simulate the mind with the wrong models! For example, the
mind can solve Turing non-computable functions. In fact there
are classes of abstract machines more powerful then the human
brain in computational power. Let us refer to the aggregate of
these classes as Super-intelligence. The human brain continues
to evolve making our attempts to assign constants to it absurd.
Imagine an IQ test given to prehistoric man, present-day man,
and 25th century man. What we define as intelligence today
would be obsolete by future standards. So why should our models
stop here?
Scientists try to model the universe with simplistic models
that have been designed to accommodate the limitations of
present-day human minds. Funny thing is, we believe these
models as reality itself! It's no wonder that these models come
and go with the times. Old models become passe', new ones
become chic, those on the fringe await their turn, all taxing
the conservative wheels of scientific progress.
What is computation but a transformation from one state to
another. Such functions can be discrete, continuous, and
non-linear but nature performs these transformations all the
time. Energy is information. Its transformation from one state
to another is computation. Entropy and evolution are
computational processes. We can't even solve most of the
non-linear differential equations we use to describe most
processes in nature. In the most abstract sense, the universe
IS a computational mechanism, a computer running itself (not a
model of itself). It has no need for symbolic representations
since everything in nature is its own representation. Its
program is dynamically evolving according to its own rules and
the computation will end, presumably, with the heat death of the
universe (i.e., no more energy to transform or in other words,
no more data to compute).
Man and his feeble brain is part of the universe and plays
a role in nature's program. (Yes man and his artifacts are also
as much a part of the ecosystem as are plants and animals.) As
Heisenberg imples, we have an effect on nature's process. And
we are in turn affected by it in endless feedback loops. The
interdependence of nature is apparent in its "sensitive
dependence to initial conditions". Man's objectivity, like his
free will, is merely an illusion but his actions do have
consequences.
|================================================================|
|Richard Caasi || In art, as in everywhere else, the|
|San Diego State University || the process of creating is more |
|sdsu!caasi@ucsd.edu || important than the product of the |
|============================= process.==========================|
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