jones@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (JONES, THOMAS) (05/15/91)
Several writers have mentioned the idea of putting *all possible* English conversations in memory. Then the sentences can be retrieved, one by one. The question now arises: Is this entity intelligent? I claim that we have a pseudo-issue and a pseudo-question. The reason is that you could convert all of the matter in the Universe into memory for such a device, without having nearly enough. Thus the existence of such a device would be radically impossible. Tom
nrasch@cs.ruu.nl (Menno Rasch) (05/16/91)
In <5329@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jones@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (JONES, THOMAS) writes: >Several writers have mentioned the idea of putting *all possible* English >conversations in memory. Then the sentences can be retrieved, one by one. >The question now arises: Is this entity intelligent? > >I claim that we have a pseudo-issue and a pseudo-question. The reason is >that you could convert all of the matter in the Universe into memory >for such a device, without having nearly enough. Thus the existence of >such a device would be radically impossible. > >Tom You are right.... But IF...... (fhilosophy remember???)
christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) (05/16/91)
>In <5329@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jones@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (JONES, THOMAS) writes: > >>Several writers have mentioned the idea of putting *all possible* English >>conversations in memory. Then the sentences can be retrieved, one by one. >>The question now arises: Is this entity intelligent? >> >>I claim that we have a pseudo-issue and a pseudo-question. The reason is >>that you could convert all of the matter in the Universe into memory Where do you get all this old logical-positivistic jargon? >>for such a device, without having nearly enough. Thus the existence of >>such a device would be radically impossible. >> This by no means renders it an uninteresting question. Consider, for instance, the meditations on the behaior of point-masses in physics. Newton would never have got going without it. -- Christopher D. Green Psychology Department e-mail: University of Toronto christo@psych.toronto.edu Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1 cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
jane@latcs2.lat.oz.au (Jane Philcox) (05/17/91)
In article <1991May16.133818.11606@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes: >>In <5329@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jones@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (JONES, THOMAS) writes: >>>I claim that we have a pseudo-issue and a pseudo-question. The reason is >>>that you could convert all of the matter in the Universe into memory >Where do you get all this old logical-positivistic jargon? Is it jargon? At least I understood what it meant, and I don't know what "logical-positivistic" means. >>>for such a device, without having nearly enough. Thus the existence of >>>such a device would be radically impossible. >>> >This by no means renders it an uninteresting question. Consider, for instance, >the meditations on the behaior of point-masses in physics. Newton would never >have got going without it. Did Tom say it was an uninteresting question? I thought he made a perfectly valid, if slightly cynical, comment on the problems that one would have to face in dealing with it. What would normally be considered part of a discussion, and a comment that I, for one, found interesting. Regards, Jane. -- A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins) (05/18/91)
In article <5329@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jones@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov writes: (The look-up table language processor) >The question now arises: Is this entity intelligent? > >I claim that we have a pseudo-issue and a pseudo-question. The reason is >that you could convert all of the matter in the Universe into memory >for such a device, without having nearly enough. Thus the existence of >such a device would be radically impossible. Not so. Almost all the information is redundant, hence a suitable compression algorithm exists to compact all that information into a space smaller than the human brain (which our brain is proof of). This algorithm will convert the set of all utterable sentences into a grammar (suspiciously similar to one posited for human speakers for some strange reason :)), and extract information using an extremely sophisticated decompression/retrieval algorithm on this grammar. Using grammars, incidentally, gives you the ability to store an infinite amount of information in finite space. The size of the Universe is thus clearly no obstacle. The whole process itself, almost by definition, constitutes an intelligent algorithm! One thing you correctly note: it would be impossible to do the task otherwise! Your point actually completes the argument to the effect that ANY mechanism capable of storing the entire corpus of human utterances must be intelligent SOLELY on account of the intelligence NECESSARILY inherent in any storage and retrieval algorithm capable of handling a database larger in (redundant) capacity than the entire Universe.
G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) (05/21/91)
Mark William Hopkins writes: > In article <5329@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jones@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov writes: > (The look-up table language processor) > >The question now arises: Is this entity intelligent? > > > >I claim that we have a pseudo-issue and a pseudo-question. The reason is > >that you could convert all of the matter in the Universe into memory > >for such a device, without having nearly enough. Thus the existence of > >such a device would be radically impossible. > > Not so. Almost all the information is redundant, hence a suitable compression > algorithm exists to compact all that information into a space smaller than the > human brain (which our brain is proof of). > DNA also exhibits much "redundancy" (< 75% ?) in its 3 x 10**6 bits. ____ Gordon Joly +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716 Internet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: ...!{uunet,ukc}!ucl-cs!G.Joly Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT No more pork sausages!
mas@blanche.arc.ab.ca (Marc Schroeder) (05/22/91)
Someone claimed that if you stored all the information for a look-up table language processor, you would have much redundancy, and thus could use a compression algorithm on it. The person then stated that such an algorithm, which could comapct all the data into a small enough form to be human brain storeable, must exist, because our brains, as natural language processors, exist. Let me say that this is hardly a proof, as purported. We have no psychological evidence to suggest that our language is generated by table lookup. I believe there is a quite a bit of evidence to the contrary, infact. Furthermore, although it is believed that ourbrains do encode information in some form, perhaps "compressed" in some way, I doubt that such a method is a vigorous mathematically based compression algorithm, like the one on your home computer. It seems more likely that humans do their linguistic reasoning, and conversing, by generating the surface structure for sentences from more basic semantic structures, eg. models. BTW, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't it the case that the number of strings in any given natural language is potentially infinite? In that case, no form of compression is going to let you store all possible conversations in a human brain (ie. although you can construct languages, not necessarily natural ones, with a finite number of strings in it, you can also create infinite ones). Marc.
richieb@bony1.bony.com (Richard Bielak) (05/23/91)
In article <1991May16.101759.1757@cs.ruu.nl> nrasch@cs.ruu.nl (Menno Rasch) writes: >In <5329@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jones@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (JONES, THOMAS) writes: > >>Several writers have mentioned the idea of putting *all possible* English >>conversations in memory. Then the sentences can be retrieved, one by one. >>The question now arises: Is this entity intelligent? >> >>I claim that we have a pseudo-issue and a pseudo-question. The reason is >>that you could convert all of the matter in the Universe into memory >>for such a device, without having nearly enough. Thus the existence of >>such a device would be radically impossible. >> >>Tom > > > >You are right.... But IF...... >(fhilosophy remember???) It's worse than that. There are infinitely many utterance in English, so matter in all Universes would not be sufficient. :-) ...richie P.S. I have a much better machine. It can predict the future, by generating every possible page of text (there are *finitely* many such things). So for example, one the pages my machine will generate is the front page of the N.Y. Times on January 1st, 2000. Anybody want next week's racing results? ;-) -- *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* | Richie Bielak (212)-815-3072 | Programs are like baby squirrels. Once | | Internet: richieb@bony.com | you pick one up and handle it, you can't | | Bang: uunet!bony1!richieb | put it back. The mother won't feed it. |