larry@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV (11/06/87)
NATURAL ENTITIES AS PROTOTYPES
Much of the confusion about the nature of intelligence seems to
be the result of dealing with it at abstraction levels that are
too low.
At a low level of detail an aircraft is obviously drastically
different from a bird, leading to the conclusion that a study of
birds has no relevance to aeronautical science. At a higher
level the relevance becomes obvious: air-flow over the chord of
birds' and aircrafts' wings produces lift in exactly the same
way. Understanding this process was crucial to properly
designing the first aircrafts' wings.
Once the basic form+function was understood engineers could
produce articial variations that surpassed those found in
nature--though with numerous trade-offs. Construction and repair
of artifical wings, for instance, are much more labor- and
capital-intensive.
Understanding birds' wings helped in other ways. Analytically
separating the lift and propulsion functions of wings allowed us
to create jet aircraft; combining them in creative ways gave us
rocket-ships (where propulsion IS lift) and helicopters.
THE NATURE OF INTELLIGENCE
The understanding of intelligence is less advanced than that of
flight, but some progress HAS been made. The quotes from Robert
Frost illuminate the basic nature of intelligence: creation,
exploration, and manipulation within an entity of a model of the
Universe. He labels this model and its parts "metaphor." I
prefer "analog."
The mechanism that holds the analog we call memory. Though low-
level details (HOW memory works) are important, it is much more
important to first understand WHAT memory does. For instance,
there is a lot of evidence that there are several kinds of
memory, describable along several dimensions. One dimension,
obviously, is time.
This has a number of consequences that have nothing to do with,
for instance, the fact that deci-second visual memory works via
interactions of photons with visual purple. Eyes that used a
different storage mechanism but had the same black-box
characteristics (latency, bandwidth, communication protocol,
etc.) would present the same image to their owner.
One consequence of the time dimension of human memory is that
memory decays in certain ways. Conventionally memory units that
do not forget are considered good, yet forgetting is as important
as retention. Forgetting emphasizes the important by hiding the
unimportant; it supports generalization because essential
similarities are not obscured by inessential differences.
MECHANICAL NATURE OF INTELLIGENCE
There have been other real advances in scientifically understand-
ing intelligence, but I believe the above is enough to convince
the convincable. As to whether human intelligence is
mechanical--this depends on one's perception of machines. When
the word is used as an insult it usually calls up last-century
paradigms: the steam engine and other rigid, simple machines. I
prefer to think of the human hand, which can be soft and warm, or
the heart, which is a marvel of reliability and adaptibility.
Scientific models of the mind can (and to be accurate, must) use
the more modern "warmware" paradigm rather than the idiotic hand-
calc simplicity of Behaviorism. One example is my memory-mask
model of creativity (discussed here a year ago).
ART AND INTELLIGENCE
The previous comments have (I perhaps naively believe) a direct
relevance to the near-future of AI. That can't be said of this
last section but I can't resist adding it. Though professionally
a software engineer, I consider myself primarily an artist (in
fiction-writing and a visual media). This inside view and my
studies has convinced me over the years that art and cognition
are much closer than is widely recognized.
For one thing, art is as pervasive in human lives as air--though
this may not be obvious to those who think of haut cultur when
when they see/hear the word. Think of all the people in this
country who take a boombox/Walkman/stereo with them wherever they
stroll/jog/drive. True, the sound-maker often satisfies because
it gives an illusion of companionship, but it is more often
simply hedonically satisfying--though their "music" may sound
like audio-ordure to others. Think of all the doodling people
do, the small artworks they make (pastries, knitting, sand-
castles, Christmas trees, candy-striped Camaros), the photos
and advertising posters they tape to walls.
Art enhances our survival and evolution as a species, partly
because it is a source of pleasure that gives us another reason
for living. It also has intellectual elements. Poetic rules are
mnemonic enhancers, as all know who survived high-school English,
though nowadays these rules most often are used in prose and so
reflexively they aren't recognized even by their users.
Artistic rules are also cognitive enhancers. One way they do
this is with a careful balance of predictibility and surprise;
regularity decreases the amount of attention needed to remember
and process data, discontinuities shock us enough to keep us
alert. Breaks can also focus attention where an artist
desires.
Larry @ jpl-vlsi