From lmaxson@pacbell.net Sat, 30 Sep 2000 09:44:20 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 09:44:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Lynn H. Maxson lmaxson@pacbell.net Subject: Emergence of behavior through software I have to thank Jecel Assumpcao for clarifying some issues about emergent and non-deterministic behavior in software. I did not set up the two-question pair to Fare as trick questions. I use "consistent" as the qualifying term to determine whether the results conformed to the embedded logic of the software or not. If they (the results) did, then regardless of anyone's ability to fathom or predict them, the software executed as instructed and thus brought nothing "extra" or "special" to the process. In short it did nothing on its own "volition". If they did not conform, then we have to account for (1) the means through which it achieved "take off", the ability to fly on its own, and (2) why given this "independence" it would choose (as clearly it has the choice) to continue to pursue the "original" purpose and not determine to pursue a different one as part of its "nonconformist" behavior. Fare despite his cybernetic leanings will not grant the software any choice other than pursuit of the original purpose. He will allow it to improve upon its internal logic, but this raises now a larger issue. How does software on its own organize itself internally to "develop", "recognize", and "construct" higher level of abstractions from the only thing it can execute: the machine instruction set. You see, how do we bridge this gap from externally set, instruction-conforming behavior to internally set, instruction-conforming behavior? What initiates the internally set behavior from the externally set? If we disallow passing it to it somehow as a form of inheritance, which we must disallow in order for its "new" behavior to be its "own", then we are left with the issue of "spontaneous generation", something occurring on its own independent of the current consistent execution. You see it cannot occur through meta^n-programming regardless of levels. That presupposes that we have some ability to encode a "triggering" event in the execution which will spawn the necessary spontaneous generation. We do not. What we have is the machine instruction set, the only thing that the software can direct the machine to execute. The only direction it can offer is that externally set by its authors. The authors may or may not know (predict) the results. They may or may not take or have the time necessary to retrace the executed logic. But what they do know (something that the non-intelligent software cannot) is that whatever results is consistent with the encoded logic. Truth is that Fare knows this as well. He knows that there are no triggering events not present in nor otherwise determined inconsistent with the embedded logic of the software. It can't happen, because in von Neumann architecture any such occurrence is an "error", something to be fixed. Contrary to his statement that no one can know completely the internal logic of the machine, I began my career being trained to know just that. If it failed, if the results differed from the expected result of a machine instruction execution, the embedded IPO (input-process-output) logic of a machine instruction, my job was to diagnose and repair. Spontaneous generation then in a von Neumann machine is an error, again something to be fixed. The hardware does not support it except as an error. There is no means in software translated into machine instructions to make this possible. Fare in acceding that software retains its "purpose" throughout knows this. He also knows that regardless of our ability to predict or fathom software-produced results it has nothing to do with the results consistency with the encoded logic. We may be surprised. The non-intelligent software lacks this altogether. This is true for AI systems whether rule-based or neural-net. Neural-net implemented in software is rule-based. Rule-based software systems created by humans may reflect the result of human "intelligence" (determining the set of rules), but neither the input, the process, nor the output (result) do more than "reflect" but not "absorb", that intelligence. In an of themselves absent of an "observer" they cannot produce information. For information implies meaning. Meaning does not exist in data or software. Meaning, if it exists at all, does so only in the observer. Are the results consistent with the embedded logic of the software regardless of our ability to fully predict or fathom them? If the answer is yes, then we do not differ in terms of causes and effects. If the answer is no, then what spontaneous generation does not occur in error? If it does occur, how does it still stay within the "purpose" encoded in the software? If we can all agree on results consistent with the embedded software logic, then we can ignore considering inconsistency. That leaves us then free to differ in our degree of individual wonderment relative to what "we" have "created" through software. Therein we can expect that in terms of wonder some are less or more so than others. If that's the only thing which separates us, then we can return to the main Tunes list. From fare@tunes.org Sat, 30 Sep 2000 22:47:18 +0200 Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 22:47:18 +0200 From: Francois-Rene Rideau fare@tunes.org Subject: Emergence of behavior through software [Note to cybernethicians: this is a discussion that was moved from the tunes@tunes.org mailing list, that originated on the ambition for Tunes to eventually manage using "AI" techniques implementation choices that usually are done manually, out of a declarative description of possible elementary choices; the discussion then derived on the topic of emergent systems in general and AI in particular] Dear Lynn, On Thu, Sep 28, 2000 at 11:21:23AM -0700, Lynn H. Maxson wrote: > Two questions. Can software produce results not consistent with > the instruction of its author(s)? Can its author(s) provide > instructions that free it from such consistency? > > If the first answer is no, then the second is no also. > Indeed, the answer is no, but once again, the question misses the point. For giving instructions do not mean understanding. I may well genetically engineer a human clone with some genetic instructions, and be unable to fully understand and predict the detailed the behavior of the clone I created. In other words, the piece of running software you write is not free from its own code that you originally provided; but it IS free from the programmer, from you and me or other programs. You give the initial seed, but it grows have a life of its own; it does have an individual history of information processed, and you have to be it to fully grok its detailed behavior. Even for simple programs, I may know the original instructions and still be unable to predict the results (see: simulation of chaotic dynamic systems). The only way to "predict" is to make the same computation independently; which thus no more predict but postdict; the program brings unique worthwhile information that will be unavailable afterwards. > It is the > second question which divides our opinions relative to software > extending boundaries on its own volition. NO NO and NO. We all agree on this question, and have since the beginning. You believe it is the question, and you systematically avoided our remarks that it ISN'T the question. The question is about drawing a separation between doing and understanding. We agree that doing is foremost, both more primitive and more As far as doing goes, we agree, and thus there needs be no debate on > To me the issue is not one of my manually duplicating a process, > but whether that process conforms to what I have prescribed. We agree that the process conforms to what the programmer programs (duh!). What we claim is that 1) in the general case, the program does not contain _all_ the information about the running machine, for persistent state accumulated from integrated I/O, internal growth, etc, does matter. The program is _partial_ information about the running machine. Hopefully, yes, it is correct information. 2) even for deterministic programs where it does "potentially" contain the information, nothing short of running the program will realize the potentiality, so that the program can achieve effects neither designed nor predicted nor predictable nor intended by the programmer. In other words, the cost of prediction does matter. This is not pure abstract maths. 3) not only can such emergent behavior can be _beneficial_ if constrained, checked and selected against some expressible utility criteria; but many more beneficial behavior can be achieved by such selection that cannot be achieved by direct design. 4) actually, if you know Popperian epistemology, even the "design" phenomenon within the human brain works by such emergence and selection principle; what we claim is just that the principle works with machines as well. 5) many programs are already such emergent machines; in a complex compiler with thousands of rules, no one can claim a design or the system details; only a design of the constraint system that force the production rules to conform to the declared semantics of the language. Artificial emergent systems are _already_ useful and can be improved upon for more utility, independently from their eventually reaching "AI" or not. > Now we have a non-intelligent machine into which we load software. > Is it possible to embed intelligence into software? No. I deny meaning to your sentence. Intelligence is NOT a constructive feature that you code or do not code into software. Just like purpose, it is an observable property of emergent phenomena. In as much as you can constrain an observable property, you cannot build an explicit construction of that property; Only for very simple kinds of programs can we control both the construction and the observable properties; these programs are all the more interesting for this extraordinary property, and constitue the bricks and mortar with which we can engineer software. But to limit the study and development of programs to these simple ones is a very short-minded or timid approach to software development. > The software like the machine only does what it is instructed to do > without an "awareness" that it is doing anything. This is a gratuitous statement. Your brain works according to the instructions from its genetical and educational background, yet is "aware" of its doing something (though of course it's only "aware" of a tiny part of itself). The same applies to machines. > Therein lies the problem. We experience what we refer to as > intelligence. In truth we do not know how it occurs within us. Exactly. There's no reason why machines couldn't be intelligent without either them or us knowing how it occurs within them. > Maybe with the invocation of the "genetic code" which is an > instruction set for construction, not operation, it arises > somehow. However we have yet to find a means of transferring it > in any manner as an attribute for a computer or software. Indeed. I do NOT claim that we know how to do it yet, neither do I claim certainship that we'll ever know, or that we won't find a theoretical impossibility to our even knowing. But I do claim * that even stupid, emerging systems can do more than fully designed systems, * that there is room for a lot of improvement in the engineering of emerging systems, and * that a reflective infrastructure is well suited to such innovative use of emerging behaviors. [Note: technical questions about the latter are to Followup-To: tunes@tunes.org; philosophical discussions here.] > After a while the logic get circular. YOU make it circular, and then make us the reproach. I fully agree with your assertions; but I claim their lack of relevance. I am trying to say something quite different than you hereby oppose. Do you acknowledge what I'm trying to say? Yours freely, [ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ] [ TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System | http://tunes.org ] To converse at the distance of the Indes by means of sympathetic contrivances may be as natural to future times as to us is a literary correspondence. -- Joseph Glanvill, 1661 From aswst16+@pitt.edu Sat, 30 Sep 2000 14:26:03 -0400 Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 14:26:03 -0400 From: Alik Widge aswst16+@pitt.edu Subject: Emergence of behavior through software --On Saturday, September 30, 2000 9:44 AM -0700 "Lynn H. Maxson" wrote: > If they (the results) did, then regardless of anyone's ability to > fathom or predict them, the software executed as instructed and > thus brought nothing "extra" or "special" to the process. In > short it did nothing on its own "volition". I'd argue that this requires definition of the term volition, and also an understanding of where exactly one obtains volition. To the best of my knowledge, this is not a solvable problem with existing knowledge of the human mind. See also three billion opinions on the Chinese Room. > instruction-conforming behavior? What initiates the internally > set behavior from the externally set? If we disallow passing it > to it somehow as a form of inheritance, which we must disallow in > order for its "new" behavior to be its "own", then we are left Your point that true AI might not conform to its original purpose is well-taken. It obviously has to conform to the architecture on which it runs, for the simple reason that it will die if it does not. However, I wonder at your statement that an organism which has inherited behaviors from an external source cannot claim those behaviors as its own. I have behaviors inherited from my parents, from my society, and from my evolutionary ancestors going back to single-celled life. There is a credible argument that all my actions can be predicted by a sufficiently complex simulation containing all these terms. Do I no longer have any behaviors of my own? If I combine two actions previously taken by others into one which no-one has yet taken, does that count as my own behavior? (A program could achieve this by stringing together two function calls in a way no programmer had instructed it to do.) > levels. That presupposes that we have some ability to encode a > "triggering" event in the execution which will spawn the necessary > spontaneous generation. We do not. What we have is the machine > instruction set, the only thing that the software can direct the > machine to execute. But being limited to an instruction set does not preclude generation of new strings of instructions. One may argue that a human is limited to the actions possible within the known laws of physics, and yet we believe that humans have free will (or a strong illusion thereof). > an "error", something to be fixed. Contrary to his statement that > no one can know completely the internal logic of the machine, I You can know the circuit diagrams. You can know the physical equations governing the circuit components. However, you cannot actually know the behavior of the individual particles which comprise the machine, and perturbing a few of those can have significant effects, especially as component size decreases and we shove fewer charges per operation. > Spontaneous generation then in a von Neumann machine is an error, > again something to be fixed. The hardware does not support it This is half true. Behavior outside the specification is indeed an error. I'm not sure that this is the only possible form of spontaneous generation (at least for my understanding of such a term)... see below. > except as an error. There is no means in software translated into > machine instructions to make this possible. Many have proposed building a true random-number generator into processors --- something that would sample noisy physical data and produce genuinely unpredictable (as guaranteed by Dr. Heisenberg) numbers. What if I use those numbers to generate valid opcodes and feed those back into the processor? If I do this an infinite number of times, probability says that I will eventually produce working programs. (Some might say that there are many programs already extant which were produced in such a manner.) I'm guessing your answer is that this is still not really spontaneous, because those numbers are still being made to obey the rules of the architecture. However, the programs written by humans also conform to those rules (barring the existence of bugs (a perhaps ridiculous assumption)). Do my programs also not count as spontaneous acts? If they don't, what exactly does? > Meaning, if it exists at all, does so only in the observer. This is an acceptable claim, but how does it exist in this observer? Our limited understanding of the mind suggests that it is somehow encoded in the structure of the brain and the currents flowing therein. If one constructs an analogue of that within the computer, is it not then capable of deriving meaning from data? Alik From lmaxson@pacbell.net Sat, 30 Sep 2000 23:42:10 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 23:42:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Lynn H. Maxson lmaxson@pacbell.net Subject: Emergence of behavior through software Alik Widge wrote: "I'd argue that this requires definition of the term volition, and also an understanding of where exactly one obtains volition. ..." A reasonable argument. Let me provide you with a definition within the context of this discussion. Are the results consistent with the embedded logic of the software? If they are, then no volition, no "independent" action on the part of the software occurs. On the other hand if the results are inconsistent with the embedded logic, then the software on it own, i.e. independently, created instructions (or data). If it did so behave independently, then it acted on its own volition. " To the best of my knowledge, this is not a solvable problem with existing knowledge of the human mind." Fortunately the question does not involve volition within the human mind. Thus how it occurs there it of no interest to us here. If no one can provide a instance whereby software behaves inconsistent with the its embedded logic, then it makes no difference whether we understand volition or not. At least in the human system it occurs without our knowing why. It does not occur in a computing system of hardware and software. "However, I wonder at your statement that an organism which has inherited behaviors from an external source cannot claim those behaviors as its own I have behaviors inherited from my parents, from my society, and from my evolutionary ancestors going back to single-celled life." Well, you are going to have some difficulty developing software in the same manner of all other living organisms which for the sake of argument let's agree evolved from single-cell life. In fact even considering a computing system as an organism puts you in a rather deep hole. Now you have to take something not derived from single-cell life, expanding the definition of organism such that it becomes the universal class as now there is nothing which we cannot consider in some manner belonging to it, e.g. my radial saw. All we have to have is a system and bingo we have an organism. Software by itself cannot execute. It must reside in a machine and together they constitute a computing system. The software in or out of the machine is not alive nor is the host machine. Thus we do not have what biology defines as an organism. Secondly you may have inherited physical traits, but you certainly did not inherit behavior. Behavior in society is not inherited, neither the society's behavior nor the individuals which compose it. The behavior of software is not inherited for software does not engage in procreative activities as organisms do. Technically we construct the software's behavior. We do so entirely within the realm of formal logic. We do the same with the machine. We define both as 100% formal logic systems. Jecel disagrees with me on this, but the machine is 100% based on the use of logic circuits (which obey formal logic) and the software can do no more than supply a sequence of 100% logic-based instructions. Organisms are not bound by logic. They cannot be constructed with "and", "or", and "not" circuits. The computer is not a brain and the brain is not a computer. "There is a credible argument that all my actions can be predicted by a sufficiently complex simulation containing all these terms." On the contrary it is an incredible argument. You should stop listening to such drivel. As humans we can posit the impossible, the sufficiently complex simulation, in this instance. I'm not going to invoke Penrose here, but any time you believe that you can simulate a living organism to the quantum detail, you best rethink it. "A program could achieve this by stringing together two function calls in a way no programmer had instructed it to do." That's the crux of the argument here. A program "could" if it could free itself of its own instructions. Then you see you would have to come up with where it "acquired" the instructions, i.e. told itself, to do this and then where it acquired the instructions to do this. Then you have to at least point out the means it used to generate both these sets of instructions without acquiring control of the processor. There is no means from within software to address a non-existent set of instructions, to pass control to something which does not exist. In all computing systems of which I am aware this generates a "hard" error (or at least an address exception). "But being limited to an instruction set does not preclude generation of new strings of instructions." Not at all. Again the issue is whether or not any such generated string is consistent with the embedded logic. If you say it may not be, then you have to explain how it can occur. It must occur through invoking logic not present with the software. By definition as every meta-program has embedded logic. Therefore it cannot occur through meta-programming. "You can know the circuit diagrams. You can know the physical equations governing the circuit components. However, you cannot actually know the behavior of the individual particles which comprise the machine, and perturbing a few of those can have significant effects, especially as component size decreases and we shove fewer charges per operation." Considering the logic of this I might have saved myself some effort by letting you destroy your own "credible argument" about a "sufficiently complex simulation". Nevertheless regardless of how small the circuits become their logical function remains the same. "Many have proposed building a true random-number generator into processors --- something that would sample noisy physical data and produce genuinely unpredictable (as guaranteed by Dr. Heisenberg) numbers. What if I use those numbers to generate valid opcodes and feed those back into the processor? If I do this an infinite number of times, probability says that I will eventually produce working programs." It doesn't bother me to have someone talk about doing the impossible, e.g. performing an operation an infinite number of times. I have a somewhat clear picture of the difference between science fiction and science fact. The fascination with random numbers or randomness in general as a source for spontaneity in a computing system I find amusing. Decision logic in software (if...then...else, case...when...otherwise) determines what occurs with any random number regardless of its source. There is no randomness in software logic, all possibilities are covered...or else you have a software error. We keep acting as if software were only a set of instructions when in reality it has two inter-related spaces, an instruction space and a data space. Moreover the data space has two subspaces, a read-only subspace and a read/write subspace. Instructions operate on data or on machine state indicators e.g. branch on overflow. As one who began his career writing in machine language (actual) as no other option existed for the system let me assure you that beginning with that time and continuing up until now (and into the future) great care in maintaining harmony among data and instructions and among instructions and instructions takes place. Otherwise the "system" fails. Now Tunes is involved with avoiding such failures, to have reliability not present in current software. Supposedly this occurs through elaboration and sophistication of sufficiently high HLL in combination with meta^n-programming and the use of reflexive programming. None of these, however, "allow" inconsistent software behavior as they insure consistency with their embedded logic. They have no means within themselves to escape their own consistency nor to transfer it somehow to virtual software which has no means of self-generation. Software cannot escape its own consistency. It cannot avoid its own errors. Randomness does no more than transfer control (decision control structure) within consistent boundaries. It is simply another way of making a decision on which path to take next. "> Meaning, if it exists at all, does so only in the observer. This is an acceptable claim, but how does it exist in this observer? Our limited understanding of the mind suggests that it is somehow encoded in the structure of the brain and the currents flowing therein. If one constructs an analogue of that within the computer, is it not then capable of deriving meaning from data?" While you say analog here instead of "sufficiently complex simulation" the same piece of science fiction comes to the fore. You cannot create a brain or any part of a human system with a computer. One is an organism, fashioned in the same manner as any other, while a computer is not. von Neumann architecture is not. Turing rules of computation are not. Machines of any stripe are not. I do not know how an observer acquires meaning from data. I do know that you can train observers to do so. However I do not know how that training does what it does. Basically from what you have said I assume that we agree that we do not know. At that we are one up on a non-intelligent computing system whose current architecture hasn't a chance in hell of becoming anything else. At least we know we don't know. From aswst16+@pitt.edu Sun, 01 Oct 2000 12:26:53 -0400 Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 12:26:53 -0400 From: Alik Widge aswst16+@pitt.edu Subject: Emergence of behavior through software --On Saturday, September 30, 2000 11:42 PM -0700 "Lynn H. Maxson" wrote: > A reasonable argument. Let me provide you with a definition > within the context of this discussion. Are the results consistent > with the embedded logic of the software? If they are, then no > volition, no "independent" action on the part of the software All right. That's a definition. Now I ask for a justification. Why can volition not arise within the constraints of a rule set? > rather deep hole. Now you have to take something not derived from > single-cell life, expanding the definition of organism such that > it becomes the universal class as now there is nothing which we > cannot consider in some manner belonging to it, e.g. my radial > saw. All we have to have is a system and bingo we have an > organism. I personally would put some requirements on that, such that a system which wished to be an organism must at least be capable of sustaining itself indefinitely, but otherwise, I do not see this as a problem. > Software by itself cannot execute. It must reside in a machine > and together they constitute a computing system. The software in > or out of the machine is not alive nor is the host machine. Thus > we do not have what biology defines as an organism. Careful. A parasite cannot survive on its own --- it must live in a host. In fact, all known species exist only as part of ecosystems. Being dependent on other parts of a system does not preclude being an organism. > Secondly you may have inherited physical traits, but you certainly > did not inherit behavior. Behavior in society is not inherited, > neither the society's behavior nor the individuals which compose > it. The behavior of software is not inherited for software does > not engage in procreative activities as organisms do. 1) Behavior has been shown to be partially inherited, especially in the case of mental disorders. It's not a very strong effect, but it's statistically significant. (I will admit that I was being loose with the word "inherit" and including those things I picked up from my parents by simple imitation.) 2) Why can software not procreate? What about viruses? I could program a virus (well, if I knew anything about virus-writing) which went around and extracted bits of code from programs on its host and then tried to breed with other copies of itself. It would take a long time to be an effective virus, and someone would kill it first, but it could be done. > instructions. Organisms are not bound by logic. They cannot be > constructed with "and", "or", and "not" circuits. The computer is > not a brain and the brain is not a computer. Again, be careful. You can't prove either of those. I have yet to find a task which a human can do and a Turing machine cannot. The brain and computer are superficially different, but that doesn't mean that they aren't just two implementations of a central theme. > On the contrary it is an incredible argument. You should stop > listening to such drivel. As humans we can posit the impossible, > the sufficiently complex simulation, in this instance. I'm not > going to invoke Penrose here, but any time you believe that you > can simulate a living organism to the quantum detail, you best > rethink it. You yourself say that it doesn't matter whether or not we can actually do the prediction, as long as it's possible on paper. Would it take more space and time than is available in the universe? Sure. > acquiring control of the processor. There is no means from within > software to address a non-existent set of instructions, to pass > control to something which does not exist. In all computing > systems of which I am aware this generates a "hard" error (or at > least an address exception). But they're not non-existent. Have the program create them, then pass control to them. I see where you're coming from --- you're saying that this is still the programmer telling the program to make them. But did the programmer have no volition if someone else told him to write that program? Seems like we're chasing a chain back to the Big Bang. > Considering the logic of this I might have saved myself some > effort by letting you destroy your own "credible argument" about a > "sufficiently complex simulation". Nevertheless regardless of > how small the circuits become their logical function remains the > same. But their conformance to that logical function does not. At some point, their statistical nonconformance becomes perceptible. I'm trying to catch you in a contradiction here. If obeying some rules, any rules, which are mathematically expressible precludes volition, I argue that you must declare humans non-volitional. Since you don't seem willing to do that, I sense a contradiction. > It doesn't bother me to have someone talk about doing the > impossible, e.g. performing an operation an infinite number of > times. I have a somewhat clear picture of the difference between > science fiction and science fact. All right... I'll set myself up a warehouse of old x86es and let them compute for as long as they can continue to run. If they go a hundred years, do you think that no valid programs will be generated? Give me some numbers for the size (in ops) of "Hello, world" and the average ops-per-second for the entire warehouse, and we'll do the calculation. > The fascination with random numbers or randomness in general as a > source for spontaneity in a computing system I find amusing. Hm. We keep coming back to this idea that following rules means you're not spontaneous. I suppose that as long as you're using that as an assumption, your argument is consistent. > We keep acting as if software were only a set of instructions when > in reality it has two inter-related spaces, an instruction space > and a data space. Moreover the data space has two subspaces, a > read-only subspace and a read/write subspace. Instructions > operate on data or on machine state indicators e.g. branch on > overflow. This isn't inherent to the system, though. A processor may be able to detect overflow, and it may raise a signal, but it makes no requirement that you do anything about it. It doesn't have inherent code/data separation (or at least, it need not). It just fetches things from the memory and puts them into instruction or data registers as needed Moreover, you can use HLLs to cheat. Consider the LISPs. Their code space is simply the interpreter. In the data space, one can put any executable program. These programs can be used to generate other programs, and in fact this is one of the standard stupid LISP tricks. If the instruction space contains "Look in data for things that look like programs and try to run them, letting them work on other things in the data space", you effectively have a single space. > Software cannot escape its own consistency. It cannot avoid its > own errors. Randomness does no more than transfer control > (decision control structure) within consistent boundaries. It is > simply another way of making a decision on which path to take > next. All quite true, and I do not argue it. I merely challenge your further statement that this means software can never have volition. > You cannot create a brain or any part of a human system with a > computer. One is an organism, fashioned in the same manner as any > other, while a computer is not. von Neumann architecture is not. > Turing rules of computation are not. Machines of any stripe are > not. This is *definitely* an assumption. All known neural pathways can be modeled in software. It's a statistical process, but so is the brain, from what we know. Now, if you want to say that that's still never going to be a real organism, that's fine, but you're heading for the realm of theology. Is it hard to put an entire brain into software? Of course. We're going to need something that can automate the process, because the connections are too numerous to be coded by hand. On the other hand, the process of brain-construction is by definition automatable, since the brain self-assembles from embryonic tissue. From lmaxson@pacbell.net Sun, 01 Oct 2000 19:17:48 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 19:17:48 -0700 (PDT) From: Lynn H. Maxson lmaxson@pacbell.net Subject: Emergence of behavior through software Alik Widge wrote: "[re volition]All right. That's a definition. Now I ask for a justification. Why can volition not arise within the constraints of a rule set?" It depends upon who is executing the rule set. If it is you or I deciding that we don't want to operate within those constraints, then we can choose otherwise. I don't know what the process is within "living" organisms that allows this. We have it, computers and software don't. As Fare has admitted all software executes in a manner consistent with its embedded logic. No one knows how to program volition because no one knows the process from which it arises. If we determine that it is a non-transferable property of cell-based organisms, we can never incorporate it in software regardless of how well we mimic it. "I personally would put some requirements on that, such that a system which wished to be an organism must at least be capable of sustaining itself indefinitely, but otherwise, I do not see this as a problem." The thing that stumps me most in communicating with Fare lies in his metaphors, of confusing similar with identical, as if the properties of one became those of another identically. They do not of course or we would not invoke metaphors. Here you posit an impossible situation, a system deciding that it can become an organism. Organisms don't have that choice. Neither do non-organisms. The truth is that we have no means of creating an organism without starting with one: procreation. For the record cloning does not change that. As one who gardens extensively and raises fruit trees propagation always begins with an organism. It is a problem with a computer and software in that neither start as an organism. No matter how you mix, mash, meld, and merge them if you don't start with an organism, you don't end up with one. One passing note. Artificial means not real. AI means now and forever more not real intelligence, but something else altogether. No matter what we do to it or with it, it will never cross the line:it will remain artificial. "Careful. A parasite cannot survive on its own --- it must live in a host. In fact, all known species exist only as part of ecosystems. Being dependent on other parts of a system does not preclude being an organism." I thought I exercised extreme care. Software is not an organism. Computers are not an organism. We have only one means of producing organisms, that according to a process we do not understand. However, it does not change the fact that two non-organisms cannot join to form an organism. Two "wrongs" cannot make a "right". " Why can software not procreate? What about [software] viruses?" Software is not an organism. That's the long and the short of it. Software viruses work because they receive control from the processor and execute a "behavior" consistent with their embedded rules. Nothing changes. "Again, be careful. You can't prove either of those. I have yet to find a task which a human can do and a Turing machine cannot. The brain and computer are superficially different, but that doesn't mean that they aren't just two implementations of a central theme." I don't want to touch this one. I am somewhat disappointed that your contact with other humans and organisms hasn't introduced you to processes not duplicable by a Turing machine. I don't know what computer architecture to which you have been exposed, but if it was von Neumann-based, the differences are not superficially different. We should hear more about what you think is the central theme common to both of them. In biology it is survival. In evolution it is survival of the fittest. "But they're not non-existent. Have the program create them, then pass control to them. I see where you're coming from --- you're saying that this is still the programmer telling the program to make them. But did the programmer have no volition if someone else told him to write that program? Seems like we're chasing a chain back to the Big Bang." I think you're getting the idea of what must occur in software which must execute in a manner consistent with its embedded logic. It can never be free of the actions of the programmer, regardless of the programmer's ability to predict all possible outcomes or understand them completely. It does no more than what the programmer told it. "I'm trying to catch you in a contradiction here. If obeying some rules, any rules, which are mathematically expressible precludes volition, I argue that you must declare humans non-volitional. Since you don't seem willing to do that, I sense a contradiction." Seems fair (or even Fare). Humans do not "obey" mathematically expressible rules. Mathematics is one of a multitude of human systems along with religion, politics, education, social, psychological, and all the rest. Whether we stay "within" the rules or stray outside them is a choice we can make at any time. That choice is not available to software nor have we any means of programming it into it. "All right... I'll set myself up a warehouse of old x86es and let them compute for as long as they can continue to run." You'll do better with just one. Unfortunately software is a fragile beast, overly sensitive to "illogic", and prone to failure. It is one thing to put monkeys in front of typewriters where whatever order of letters is acceptable. That's simply not true of software. "We keep coming back to this idea that following rules means you're not spontaneous. I suppose that as long as you're using that as an assumption, your argument is consistent." If I have no choice but to follow them, then spontaneity is out. That the situation with software which must follow the rules set by some source other than itself. On the other hand I (or you) can be following rules "suddenly" seeing a different path to pursue than the current one. The difference (perhaps) is that as an organism we are aware that we are following rules. Software, being non-intelligent as well as a non-life form, is not aware that it is even following rules. "All quite true, and I do not argue it. I merely challenge your further statement that this means software can never have volition." If it doesn't have choice or even a choice in its choices, it cannot have volition. It is not aware that it does not have a choice. That piece of "magic" which exists at least in human organisms does not exist in software nor have we any means of putting it there. At least until we know what it is that we have to put. I suspect that we will find it intrinsic to the organism and therefore non-transferable. " All known neural pathways can be modeled in software. It's a statistical process, but so is the brain, from what we know." "On the other hand, the process of brain-construction is by definition automatable, since the brain self-assembles from embryonic tissue." You can simulate how a brain works down to the quantum detail and you still will not end up with a brain. If you want to say that there is no difference between this "artificial" brain and a real one then develop it in its entirety through procreation. Now meld it with the remainder of the human system. Without this remainder, without a system in place, the brain has no function and in fact can do nothing. The brain, the nervous system, the blood system, the organs, the skeleton, the muscles, the skin--all exist as a single entity, all interconnected. The fascination with the brain and with emulating it in software deliberately "abstracts" it from the system of which it is a part. There's no way that such an abstraction, i.e. selectively leaving something out, and implementing it (if it were possible) in software will result in an artificial brain that "behaves" like a real one. If you don't go for the abstraction, then you must go for the whole ball of wax, the human system. The brain is not constructed according to the rules of logic. Nothing so constructed can ever be a brain. That is true for the most sophisticated and detailed implementation of a simulation. There's no crossover point, no point at which the artificial acquires a "property" (or "properties") and becomes the real thing. All computers are based 100% in pure logic. All software which executes successfully cannot violate the rules of the host computer. It's 100% logic based. No organism from the single-cell amoeba on up is so constructed. Logic is our creation, not vice versa. I should remind you of the difference between automatic and automated. The self-assembly you refer to, which does not effect the brain alone but the entire organism, is automatic. If it were automated, then its source would have been another process different from the current one. From fare@tunes.org Mon, 2 Oct 2000 15:59:03 +0200 Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 15:59:03 +0200 From: Francois-Rene Rideau fare@tunes.org Subject: Emergence of behavior through software On Sat, Sep 30, 2000 at 09:44:20AM -0700, Lynn H. Maxson wrote: > If they (the results) did, then regardless of anyone's ability to > fathom or predict them, the software executed as instructed and > thus brought nothing "extra" or "special" to the process. In > short it did nothing on its own "volition". DEAD WRONG. Volition does NOT consist in choosing the rules. No single human chose his genetic code, his grown brain structure, his education. Yet all humans are considered having a will. > Fare despite his cybernetic leanings will not grant the software > any choice other than pursuit of the original purpose. DEAD WRONG. Structure is NOT purpose. My initial structure has no purpose so to speak. Purpose is NOT a structural property. I cannot negate what I am. I can choose my purpose. When I choose to do something, I am what I am; I "obey" my nature. Moreover, you completely blank out the fact that I insisted how the initial program was but a tiny portion of what makes my identity. My identity is made of my dynamic persistent state, not of my static structure (even though the latter constrains the former). > You see it cannot occur through meta^n-programming regardless of > levels. That presupposes that we have some ability to encode a > "triggering" event in the execution which will spawn the necessary > spontaneous generation. DEAD WRONG. You blank out 150 years of evolution theory. Change in behavior is no magic event. It is born in continuous transformation. Meta^n-programming is not about directed design, but about selection. You have a Lamarckian (or even creationist) model of programming in mind; I have a Darwinist (or even Dawkinsian) model of programming in mind. > that whatever results is consistent with the encoded logic. So what? This is a very week statement. Knowing that my socks are blue, whatever outcome in the world will be consistent with my socks being blue. But this is a completely irrelevant fact for most outcomes. If your "encoded logic" is universal, just any behavior is consistent with it. So conformance to the logic is a null statement. > Truth is that Fare knows this as well. Don't you take my statements as endorsement of your positions. I specifically reject your very problem situation. I strongly dislike your way of turning around arguments, completely avoiding to answer to points others claim as relevant, not even acknowledging them, and claiming as victories their concessions on points they claim are irrelevant. This is no rational discussion, only self-delusion thereof. > what spontaneous generation does not occur in error? There is no error. By definition, anything generated is correct. In the mass of potential and actual generated data, patterns survive or die according to higher-level selection rules. This is where any purpose comes into play. > If it does occur, how does it still stay > within the "purpose" encoded in the software? You have a flawed, theistic notion of purpose. Purge it. What is encoded is structure, and purpose is not structural. If there be any "purpose" encoded in the program, it is encoded in the meta-rules for differential survival; if these meta-rules have any purpose, it lies in meta-meta-rules. And so on. In the end, you have a purposeless, fully structured meta^n system. In quantum mechanical terms, I'd say that structure and purpose are dual: when you have some of one, you can only have so much of the other. If you fully encode your program, it has no purpose (YOU may have; IT won't). When you give purpose to your program, you loosen its structure, and accept the fact that persistent state may completely alter its behavior. Yours freely, [ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ] [ TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System | http://tunes.org ] You may have original good ideas, but it is no excuse for not learning good ideas that are already common knowledge. From lmaxson@pacbell.net Mon, 02 Oct 2000 10:34:38 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 10:34:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Lynn H. Maxson lmaxson@pacbell.net Subject: Emergence of behavior through software Fare, you have been so kind to answer my question(s). It is only fair that I in turn respond to yours. First allow me to state two logically equivalent forms on what we agree: (1)No software executes in a manner inconsistent with its embedded logic, (2)All software executes in a manner consistent with its embedded logic. The only subnote to this lies in your "Artificial emergent systems are _already_ useful and can be improved upon for more utility, independently from their eventually reaching "AI" or not." Does even reaching this change the agreement? "Volition does NOT consist in choosing the rules. No single human chose his genetic code, his grown brain structure, his education. Yet all humans are considered having a will." Volition deals ultimately with choice. In the dictionary this is qualified as a "conscious" choice. Consciousness lies in self-awareness. Rather than introduce extraneous elements like genetic code, brain structure, or will here, let's just stick with whether or not software has the property of self-awareness (Does it know what it is doing?), consciousness (Does it know it is doing anything?), and volition (Does it have a choice in what it is doing?). The answer to all three questions is "no". It doesn't make any difference if the embedded logic uses any amount of random selection, any amount of meta^n-programming, or the highest in HLLs, elaoboration, complexity, or sophistication. It cannot escape consistency with the embedded logic. That embedded logic is solely based on the formal logic embedded in the host machine. No tweaking of logic, through simulation, emulation, or adulation, will ever transfer an intrinsic property of an organism (which does occur within its structuring) into software. Whatever AI may reach it will remain "artificial", not identical to the real thing. "My initial structure has no purpose so to speak. Purpose is NOT a structural property. I cannot negate what I am. I can choose my purpose. When I choose to do something, I am what I am; I "obey" my nature." Well, one of us is "dead wrong". You certainly can make a choice. However your ability to do so depends upon your structure, your human system and whatever in it is responsible for "life". When that leaves you, when you die, you can no longer make a choice nor exhibit purpose. If you obey your nature, it must be contained in what you are physically. That my scientific friend is structure. If you believe that mental activity is not totally physically based, then it is you who introduce theistic notions. But let's get back to your question. I quote: "For giving instructions do not mean understanding. I may well genetically engineer a human clone with some genetic instructions, and be unable to fully understand and predict the detailed the behavior of the clone I created. In other words, the piece of running software you write is not free from its own code that you originally provided;but it IS free from the programmer, from you and me or other programs. You give the initial seed, but it grows have a life of its own;" "The question is about drawing a separation between doing and understanding." So let's answer the question about drawing a separation between doing and understanding. The first thing we need to do is put "understanding" in its place in the scheme of things. First comes "knowledge", then "understanding", and then "wisdom". Knowledge comes from "knowing" you are doing something. Understanding comes from knowing what you are doing and if possible why. Wisdom comes from using the understanding of what you know to possible change what you do. What you should notice here is that humans engage in all three levels and software in exactly none. Software doesn't know that it is doing anything for the simple reason that it is non-intelligent. It certainly doesn't understand what it doesn't know for the same reason. It cannot have wisdom for the same reason. Non-intelligent means not having the property of intelligence, which so far as we know exists only in living organisms. The only "seed" for an organism is an organism. Man thus far has had no success in creating an organism in any other manner. Clearly software is not an organism and thus speaking of it "having a life of its own" is metaphorical, not scientific nor factual. It has no life. Moreover we have no means currently of giving it life. However, for the sake of argument let's assume that it does. The issue comes down to prediction and understanding of observable reality. We have a history of increasing our knowledge and understanding of such events leading in turn an increasing ability to predict them. Following our assumption and the basis of Fare's metaphor, this means our gains have occurred at the loss of life within those events. That, my friends, is logic. Fare takes this, our inability at times to predict and understand the results of software execution, as a means of giving software something (life, independence, freedom from the programmer) that it must lose in the event that we gain the ability to do either. Note that this "loss" occurs without a change in the software logic or in its execution. Therefore it must be a property independent of them, perhaps even a "soul". This property arises from a more serious claim by Fare that we have software whose results we do not understand or we cannot predict. To me both are patently false. As one who patronizes cybernetic Fare should know better. For cybernetics as described by Ashby in his "Introduction to Cybernetics" relies on the IPO model. To say that we cannot understand results (output) means that the P (process) which we must know (in order to have written it logically) exceeds our intellectual capacity. To say that we cannot predict results (given that we can understand the process) means that we know the input and the process but lack the intellectual capacity to apply the one to the other. Now if we do not know the input and understand the process, certainly we cannot predict. All this means is that we must "know" the same input used within the execution instance of the software. Fare pooh-pooh's this by saying it is "postdict" not "predict". No. It is acquiring the necessary input in order to apply the process to it, in which now we can achieve the same results as the software. If the execution instance provides us with the input and we can now predict the outcome, then the software has lost any life of its own. The questions surrounding prediction and understanding get even more nefarious. Fare seems to forget that we write software and construct host machines to form a tool system. We do so as a means of extending "our" own ability. Moreover we do so for "reasons of our own". These reasons are the "causal" processes that lead to "effects" or the means of satisfying. Among these "reasons of our own" are curiosity, amusement, and a desire to increase our knowledge, our understanding, and our ability to predict. We use tools to assist us in this. Now we are bound by time, the amount that we can achieve in a given interval. To increase our productivity we use tools which allows us to achieve more of what we want in the interval. That we cannot predict or cannot understand does accrue to an intellectual failure or weakness. Instead we do not want to be bothered when a more efficient "time" mechanism is available. We "choose" not to have to predict or understand a priori. Why? It saves us a hell of a lot of time. We may not take the time to either know or understand what occurred and why within such a process. That is our choice. Again it is not an intellectual deficiency. As long as we can verify that the tool works correctly, then how it did what it did becomes unimportant. It allowed us to achieve "our" purpose. In so doing the tool did not acquire a "life of its own" because we chose to neither know nor understand. You see all this derives from software executing consistent with its embedded logic. In answering in turn Fare's question about doing and understanding we have clearly made a distinct between non-intelligent software and an intelligent organism like a human doing something. One knows that it is doing something (knowledge), can determine what and why it is doing it (understanding), and can modify its future doings (wisdom). East is East and West is West and ne'er the twain shall meet. "It [change in behavior] is born in continuous transformation. Meta^n-programming is not about directed design, but about selection. You have a Lamarckian (or even creationist) model of programming in mind; I have a Darwinist (or even Dawkinsian) model of programming in mind." An interesting side note is that changing behavior in software, i.e. software maintenance, is increasingly expensive in time and cost. Tunes is doing nothing to address this nor addresses it in its HLL requirements. Obviously the answer lies in an "intrinsic continuous transformation" process. The question becomes how do we best implement this. The answer is process improvement, the process of developing and maintaining software. Tunes nowhere to the best of my knowledge addresses this. Instead I am once more faced with a false metaphor: writing software according to Lamarck, Darwin, or Hawkin theory. Actually I write it according to the software development process of specification, analysis, design, construction, and testing. If any "evolution" occurs at all, it occurs through those stages. As I do not confuse biological development (and maintenance) with that of software despite some "perceived" similarities I have no problem with the distinction between "writing" software and "growing" organisms. But the issue in "meta^n-programming is not about directed design, but of selection". So let's talk about that. Selection of what? Answer. Pre-determined choices. No random anything will change that. Decision logic in software regardless of where it appears only allows certain paths to follow. Furthermore "Change in behavior is no magic event", in which we agree, and "It is born in continuous transformation". The first is certainly true in software. The second in software can only occur through pre-determined choices whether randomly selected or not. That is the "condition" of a pure logic system. Fortunately organisms, among them human beings, are not pure logic systems. Therefore the continuous transformations that can occur in software happen through the continuous transformations in humans which are not so restricted. The one can determine the choices (and thus the transformations) of the other and not vice versa. Not even Hawkins can change that. "If your "encoded logic" is universal, just any behavior is consistent with it. So conformance to the logic is a null statement." Yes, but you see the encoded logic, particularly that of software, is not universal. So conformance to (consistent with) the logic is not a null statement. Nice try. "I strongly dislike your way of turning around arguments, completely avoiding to answer to points others claim as relevant, not even acknowledging them, and claiming as victories their concessions on points they claim are irrelevant. This is no rational discussion, only self-delusion thereof." I imagine that you do, considering the arguments you make. The matter of relevance or not lies in the eye of the observer. To me the issue of software execution "always" consistent with its encoded logic is relevant. That consistency keeps it from doing other than what it was "told" (an external agent). By your own admission that does not occur in an organism (your cloning example). What do we need more than this to know only metaphorically, not factually, that software has a life of its own? Certainly it answers your question about doing and understanding as well as prediction and understanding where one, software, "does" without "understanding" (or "knowing") while this "life" form "does", "knows" it is doing, and "understands" what it is doing. I, therefore, have something that the software does not: a life of my own. I suggest that the charge of self-delusion here is one of projection, in the source and not the target. I doubt very seriously if progress in software, in doing the things specified in the Tunes HLL requirements, has any need for any properties outside those available in formal logic. It hasn't required anything else in getting to this point. We certainly haven't exhausted all the logical possibilities. When and if we do, considering parallel progress in other fields including biology, then we can consider non-logical, statistical-based approaches. Meanwhile let's complete what we can with von Neumann and Turing. From lmaxson@pacbell.net Mon, 02 Oct 2000 10:34:38 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 10:34:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Lynn H. Maxson lmaxson@pacbell.net Subject: Emergence of behavior through software Fare, you have been so kind to answer my question(s). It is only fair that I in turn respond to yours. First allow me to state two logically equivalent forms on what we agree: (1)No software executes in a manner inconsistent with its embedded logic, (2)All software executes in a manner consistent with its embedded logic. The only subnote to this lies in your "Artificial emergent systems are _already_ useful and can be improved upon for more utility, independently from their eventually reaching "AI" or not." Does even reaching this change the agreement? "Volition does NOT consist in choosing the rules. No single human chose his genetic code, his grown brain structure, his education. Yet all humans are considered having a will." Volition deals ultimately with choice. In the dictionary this is qualified as a "conscious" choice. Consciousness lies in self-awareness. Rather than introduce extraneous elements like genetic code, brain structure, or will here, let's just stick with whether or not software has the property of self-awareness (Does it know what it is doing?), consciousness (Does it know it is doing anything?), and volition (Does it have a choice in what it is doing?). The answer to all three questions is "no". It doesn't make any difference if the embedded logic uses any amount of random selection, any amount of meta^n-programming, or the highest in HLLs, elaoboration, complexity, or sophistication. It cannot escape consistency with the embedded logic. That embedded logic is solely based on the formal logic embedded in the host machine. No tweaking of logic, through simulation, emulation, or adulation, will ever transfer an intrinsic property of an organism (which does occur within its structuring) into software. Whatever AI may reach it will remain "artificial", not identical to the real thing. "My initial structure has no purpose so to speak. Purpose is NOT a structural property. I cannot negate what I am. I can choose my purpose. When I choose to do something, I am what I am; I "obey" my nature." Well, one of us is "dead wrong". You certainly can make a choice. However your ability to do so depends upon your structure, your human system and whatever in it is responsible for "life". When that leaves you, when you die, you can no longer make a choice nor exhibit purpose. If you obey your nature, it must be contained in what you are physically. That my scientific friend is structure. If you believe that mental activity is not totally physically based, then it is you who introduce theistic notions. But let's get back to your question. I quote: "For giving instructions do not mean understanding. I may well genetically engineer a human clone with some genetic instructions, and be unable to fully understand and predict the detailed the behavior of the clone I created. In other words, the piece of running software you write is not free from its own code that you originally provided;but it IS free from the programmer, from you and me or other programs. You give the initial seed, but it grows have a life of its own;" "The question is about drawing a separation between doing and understanding." So let's answer the question about drawing a separation between doing and understanding. The first thing we need to do is put "understanding" in its place in the scheme of things. First comes "knowledge", then "understanding", and then "wisdom". Knowledge comes from "knowing" you are doing something. Understanding comes from knowing what you are doing and if possible why. Wisdom comes from using the understanding of what you know to possible change what you do. What you should notice here is that humans engage in all three levels and software in exactly none. Software doesn't know that it is doing anything for the simple reason that it is non-intelligent. It certainly doesn't understand what it doesn't know for the same reason. It cannot have wisdom for the same reason. Non-intelligent means not having the property of intelligence, which so far as we know exists only in living organisms. The only "seed" for an organism is an organism. Man thus far has had no success in creating an organism in any other manner. Clearly software is not an organism and thus speaking of it "having a life of its own" is metaphorical, not scientific nor factual. It has no life. Moreover we have no means currently of giving it life. However, for the sake of argument let's assume that it does. The issue comes down to prediction and understanding of observable reality. We have a history of increasing our knowledge and understanding of such events leading in turn an increasing ability to predict them. Following our assumption and the basis of Fare's metaphor, this means our gains have occurred at the loss of life within those events. That, my friends, is logic. Fare takes this, our inability at times to predict and understand the results of software execution, as a means of giving software something (life, independence, freedom from the programmer) that it must lose in the event that we gain the ability to do either. Note that this "loss" occurs without a change in the software logic or in its execution. Therefore it must be a property independent of them, perhaps even a "soul". This property arises from a more serious claim by Fare that we have software whose results we do not understand or we cannot predict. To me both are patently false. As one who patronizes cybernetic Fare should know better. For cybernetics as described by Ashby in his "Introduction to Cybernetics" relies on the IPO model. To say that we cannot understand results (output) means that the P (process) which we must know (in order to have written it logically) exceeds our intellectual capacity. To say that we cannot predict results (given that we can understand the process) means that we know the input and the process but lack the intellectual capacity to apply the one to the other. Now if we do not know the input and understand the process, certainly we cannot predict. All this means is that we must "know" the same input used within the execution instance of the software. Fare pooh-pooh's this by saying it is "postdict" not "predict". No. It is acquiring the necessary input in order to apply the process to it, in which now we can achieve the same results as the software. If the execution instance provides us with the input and we can now predict the outcome, then the software has lost any life of its own. The questions surrounding prediction and understanding get even more nefarious. Fare seems to forget that we write software and construct host machines to form a tool system. We do so as a means of extending "our" own ability. Moreover we do so for "reasons of our own". These reasons are the "causal" processes that lead to "effects" or the means of satisfying. Among these "reasons of our own" are curiosity, amusement, and a desire to increase our knowledge, our understanding, and our ability to predict. We use tools to assist us in this. Now we are bound by time, the amount that we can achieve in a given interval. To increase our productivity we use tools which allows us to achieve more of what we want in the interval. That we cannot predict or cannot understand does accrue to an intellectual failure or weakness. Instead we do not want to be bothered when a more efficient "time" mechanism is available. We "choose" not to have to predict or understand a priori. Why? It saves us a hell of a lot of time. We may not take the time to either know or understand what occurred and why within such a process. That is our choice. Again it is not an intellectual deficiency. As long as we can verify that the tool works correctly, then how it did what it did becomes unimportant. It allowed us to achieve "our" purpose. In so doing the tool did not acquire a "life of its own" because we chose to neither know nor understand. You see all this derives from software executing consistent with its embedded logic. In answering in turn Fare's question about doing and understanding we have clearly made a distinct between non-intelligent software and an intelligent organism like a human doing something. One knows that it is doing something (knowledge), can determine what and why it is doing it (understanding), and can modify its future doings (wisdom). East is East and West is West and ne'er the twain shall meet. "It [change in behavior] is born in continuous transformation. Meta^n-programming is not about directed design, but about selection. You have a Lamarckian (or even creationist) model of programming in mind; I have a Darwinist (or even Dawkinsian) model of programming in mind." An interesting side note is that changing behavior in software, i.e. software maintenance, is increasingly expensive in time and cost. Tunes is doing nothing to address this nor addresses it in its HLL requirements. Obviously the answer lies in an "intrinsic continuous transformation" process. The question becomes how do we best implement this. The answer is process improvement, the process of developing and maintaining software. Tunes nowhere to the best of my knowledge addresses this. Instead I am once more faced with a false metaphor: writing software according to Lamarck, Darwin, or Hawkin theory. Actually I write it according to the software development process of specification, analysis, design, construction, and testing. If any "evolution" occurs at all, it occurs through those stages. As I do not confuse biological development (and maintenance) with that of software despite some "perceived" similarities I have no problem with the distinction between "writing" software and "growing" organisms. But the issue in "meta^n-programming is not about directed design, but of selection". So let's talk about that. Selection of what? Answer. Pre-determined choices. No random anything will change that. Decision logic in software regardless of where it appears only allows certain paths to follow. Furthermore "Change in behavior is no magic event", in which we agree, and "It is born in continuous transformation". The first is certainly true in software. The second in software can only occur through pre-determined choices whether randomly selected or not. That is the "condition" of a pure logic system. Fortunately organisms, among them human beings, are not pure logic systems. Therefore the continuous transformations that can occur in software happen through the continuous transformations in humans which are not so restricted. The one can determine the choices (and thus the transformations) of the other and not vice versa. Not even Hawkins can change that. "If your "encoded logic" is universal, just any behavior is consistent with it. So conformance to the logic is a null statement." Yes, but you see the encoded logic, particularly that of software, is not universal. So conformance to (consistent with) the logic is not a null statement. Nice try. "I strongly dislike your way of turning around arguments, completely avoiding to answer to points others claim as relevant, not even acknowledging them, and claiming as victories their concessions on points they claim are irrelevant. This is no rational discussion, only self-delusion thereof." I imagine that you do, considering the arguments you make. The matter of relevance or not lies in the eye of the observer. To me the issue of software execution "always" consistent with its encoded logic is relevant. That consistency keeps it from doing other than what it was "told" (an external agent). By your own admission that does not occur in an organism (your cloning example). What do we need more than this to know only metaphorically, not factually, that software has a life of its own? Certainly it answers your question about doing and understanding as well as prediction and understanding where one, software, "does" without "understanding" (or "knowing") while this "life" form "does", "knows" it is doing, and "understands" what it is doing. I, therefore, have something that the software does not: a life of my own. I suggest that the charge of self-delusion here is one of projection, in the source and not the target. I doubt very seriously if progress in software, in doing the things specified in the Tunes HLL requirements, has any need for any properties outside those available in formal logic. It hasn't required anything else in getting to this point. We certainly haven't exhausted all the logical possibilities. When and if we do, considering parallel progress in other fields including biology, then we can consider non-logical, statistical-based approaches. Meanwhile let's complete what we can with von Neumann and Turing. From aswst16+@pitt.edu Wed, 04 Oct 2000 06:28:50 -0400 Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 06:28:50 -0400 From: Alik Widge aswst16+@pitt.edu Subject: Emergence of behavior through software (Apologies to Lynn, who gets this twice because I screwed up the headers the first time.) --On Sunday, October 01, 2000 7:17 PM -0700 "Lynn H. Maxson" wrote: > It depends upon who is executing the rule set. If it is you or I > deciding that we don't want to operate within those constraints, > then we can choose otherwise. I don't know what the process is > within "living" organisms that allows this. We have it, computers > and software don't. As Fare has admitted all software executes in > a manner consistent with its embedded logic. I agree --- currently, humans have volition, software doesn't. However, given that we don't know what causes volition, why do you believe that it is guaranteed not to be generateable algorithmically? > Here you posit an impossible situation, a system deciding that it > can become an organism. Organisms don't have that choice. I was being, in fact, metaphorical. :-) You can rephrase this as "If a programmer wants me to call his creation an organism, it should be self-sustaining." > an organism. It is a problem with a computer and software in that > neither start as an organism. No matter how you mix, mash, meld, > and merge them if you don't start with an organism, you don't end > up with one. However, we do start with an organism: the human programmer. I argue that whatever magical things are passed through sexual (or asexual) reproduction may also be passed through programming. After all, both are just an exchange of information. Also, at some point, there were no organisms on Earth. An infinitesmal time later, there was at least one. This seems to contradict your statement that organisms may not spontaneously arise, unless you'd care to introduce God. (Even then, where the heck did he come from?) > One passing note. Artificial means not real. AI means now and > forever more not real intelligence, but something else altogether. > No matter what we do to it or with it, it will never cross the > line:it will remain artificial. But the word artificial is used very loosely; it also can mean "manufactured" or "not naturally arising", as in the term "artificial color and flavor". (Or are those tastes and sights somehow not real?) > understand. However, it does not change the fact that two > non-organisms cannot join to form an organism. Two "wrongs" > cannot make a "right". You were arguing, though, that software couldn't be an organism because it's dependent on its hardware. I'm saying that there could be a software organism, with the hardware playing the same role that the planet does for us. > Software is not an organism. That's the long and the short of it. Well, if you're just going to assume that, I'm not exactly able to argue it, am I? :-) > Software viruses work because they receive control from the > processor and execute a "behavior" consistent with their embedded > rules. Nothing changes. But why does that make them not an organism? Why can organisms not be algorithmic? > I don't want to touch this one. I am somewhat disappointed that > your contact with other humans and organisms hasn't introduced you > to processes not duplicable by a Turing machine. I don't know Please give me an example of something humans do that Turing machines don't, then. I've put this to my profs in both comp. theory and AI, and they couldn't provide an answer. (Note that emotions and volition and such definitely don't count --- since we don't know what causes these, we cannot prove that they are not reducible to a TM.) > We should hear more about what you think is the central theme > common to both of them. In biology it is survival. In evolution > it is survival of the fittest. And for a computer organism, would it not also be survival? The "central theme" I'm alluding to is that the brain very well may be a TM. A very odd one, quite different from the state machines we think of, but it nonetheless may be one. > It can never be free of the actions of the programmer, regardless > of the programmer's ability to predict all possible outcomes or > understand them completely. It does no more than what the > programmer told it. All right, but we're never free of the laws of physics. So what? > Seems fair (or even Fare). Humans do not "obey" mathematically > expressible rules. Mathematics is one of a multitude of human Again, what else would you call physics? I haven't seen anyone who can choose to break that. Yes, some of those rules are statistical, but they are nonetheless mathematical. (Moreover, if they are statistical, then this simply means they're a nondeterministic state machine, and we already know that NFAs may become DFAs if one is willing to suffer the performance hit.) > You'll do better with just one. Unfortunately software is a > fragile beast, overly sensitive to "illogic", and prone to > failure. It is one thing to put monkeys in front of typewriters > where whatever order of letters is acceptable. That's simply not > true of software. I chose a few hundred because I wanted to make the probability come out right. Do you concede the point, then, that a program may be generated through random opcode-picking? > pursue than the current one. The difference (perhaps) is that as > an organism we are aware that we are following rules. Software, > being non-intelligent as well as a non-life form, is not aware > that it is even following rules. Ah. So where does awareness come from, and why is that also not algorithmic? > If it doesn't have choice or even a choice in its choices, it > cannot have volition. It is not aware that it does not have a But you're using a very narrow definition of choice. I don't agree that "conform or don't conform to the opcodes" is the only choice available. This is, to me, like saying that the only choices currently available to me are "shoot myself or don't". > putting it there. At least until we know what it is that we have > to put. I suspect that we will find it intrinsic to the > organism and therefore non-transferable. Hm. Is your argument, then, not so much that software with will/awareness is impossible, as that it is impossible right now? I certainly cannot argue that; this is why my heart sinks every time I see another "We're going to solve AI!" effort announced. I personally am not convinced that awareness is intrinsic to the human brain, but that again veers into my personal theology. > You can simulate how a brain works down to the quantum detail and > you still will not end up with a brain. If you want to say that Why not? > there is no difference between this "artificial" brain and a real > one then develop it in its entirety through procreation. Why is procreation so key, if the artificial brain functions just like the real one? > Now meld it with the remainder of the human system. Without this > remainder, without a system in place, the brain has no function > and in fact can do nothing. The brain, the nervous system, the Ah, the embodiment hypothesis. I agree that a brain is obviously useless without I/O, but I don't think that has to be a body as we know it. If we understand a brain well enough to make one, we also understand sensory coding enough to let it see through cameras, hear through microphones, and so on. We can transduce the directory listing of the hard drive on which it resides directly to its optical inputs and go from there. > There's no way that such an abstraction, i.e. selectively leaving > something out, and implementing it (if it were possible) in > software will result in an artificial brain that "behaves" like a > real one. Why not? If you remove the brain from the body and "fool" it by making sure that all the inputs and outputs are receiving data (of any kind), why is it not behaving properly? > whole ball of wax, the human system. The brain is not constructed > according to the rules of logic. Nothing so constructed can ever > be a brain. That is true for the most sophisticated and detailed Again, why not? And what makes you say that the brain is not logically constructed? There are fairly rigidly defined systems of connection in and between all its subparts. These connections vary slightly between individuals, but we've seen that all humans have the same cognitive processes, and therefore those variations are really just noise. > computer. It's 100% logic based. No organism from the > single-cell amoeba on up is so constructed. Logic is our > creation, not vice versa. But an amoeba cannot choose to violate the rules of its own internal workings anymore than I may grow wings or a program may start executing invalid opcodes. > I should remind you of the difference between automatic and > automated. The self-assembly you refer to, which does not effect > the brain alone but the entire organism, is automatic. If it were > automated, then its source would have been another process > different from the current one. Noted. I don't see how it makes a difference, though, as long as the end product is the same. From aswst16+@pitt.edu Wed, 04 Oct 2000 15:35:18 -0400 Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 15:35:18 -0400 From: Alik Widge aswst16+@pitt.edu Subject: Emergence of behavior through software --On Wednesday, October 04, 2000, 9:21 AM -0700 btanksley@hifn.com wrote: > Therefore, I would rather either > > 1) Claim that Tunes cannot be started until volition is achieved, and > divert all work to discovering how to create software volition. > > 2) Base Tunes on something else. Ah. That's another matter entirely. I do not hack on Tunes, and thus I can offer no definite opinions on how it should be built. My argument is solely to establish the idea that sentient software remains theoretically possible although highly difficult and unproven. It is my highly uninformed opinion that if you want to see actual progress on a system anytime in the next twenty years, scrap volition and just implement some decent adaptive heuristics with a good UI. From btanksley@hifn.com Wed, 4 Oct 2000 09:21:46 -0700 Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 09:21:46 -0700 From: btanksley@hifn.com btanksley@hifn.com Subject: Emergence of behavior through software From: Alik Widge [mailto:aswst16+@pitt.edu] >--On Sunday, October 01, 2000 7:17 PM -0700 "Lynn H. Maxson" >I agree --- currently, humans have volition, software doesn't. >However, >given that we don't know what causes volition, why do you >believe that it >is guaranteed not to be generateable algorithmically? I agree that volition *may* be producible in software. I furthermore agree that it's a very worthy topic for research. However, the problem is that, as you say, we know nothing about volition. We don't have the faintest inkling about how to make volition. Therefore, I would rather either 1) Claim that Tunes cannot be started until volition is achieved, and divert all work to discovering how to create software volition. 2) Base Tunes on something else. That's it. -Billy From btanksley@hifn.com Wed, 4 Oct 2000 12:51:27 -0700 Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 12:51:27 -0700 From: btanksley@hifn.com btanksley@hifn.com Subject: Emergence of behavior through software From: Alik Widge [mailto:aswst16+@pitt.edu] >btanksley@hifn.com wrote: >> Therefore, I would rather either >> 1) Claim that Tunes cannot be started until volition is achieved, and >> divert all work to discovering how to create software volition. >> 2) Base Tunes on something else. >Ah. That's another matter entirely. I do not hack on Tunes, >and thus I can offer no definite opinions on how it should be built. I share your advantage, although I lack the ability to repress my opinions on the topic. :-) >My argument is solely to establish the idea that sentient software >remains theoretically possible although highly difficult and unproven. I'm not familiar with any work which showed that sentient software is theoretically possible. There is some work which attempted to show impossibility, but I don't buy it. >It is my highly uninformed opinion >that if you want to see actual progress on a system anytime in the next >twenty years, scrap volition and just implement some decent adaptive >heuristics with a good UI. That's one way to do it. IMO, a better way is to scrap all of the talk about AI, and instead implement Intelligence Amplification (IA). People are already smart and already have volition and sentience. Let's just build software which conforms more closely to how they work, so that it can help them with data lookup, precise reasoning, math, and so on. In the process of making the software more usable for humans, we're going to have to make software which displays certain aspects of human behavior -- for example, it's going to have to recognise when the human's expressing a vision, and "buy in" to it. So to some people, some of the software will look intelligent some of the time -- except that it'll never disagree with anything you say (except perhaps the most prosaic points of fact), and of course it'll never initiate anything. -Billy From aswst16+@pitt.edu Wed, 04 Oct 2000 15:58:56 -0400 Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 15:58:56 -0400 From: Alik Widge aswst16+@pitt.edu Subject: Emergence of behavior through software --On Wednesday, October 04, 2000, 12:51 PM -0700 btanksley@hifn.com wrote: > I'm not familiar with any work which showed that sentient software is > theoretically possible. There is some work which attempted to show > impossibility, but I don't buy it. But that's the point --- if you cannot prove it impossible, it is theoretically possible. (Just as P may still equal NP. I really ought to get around to proving that...) > IMO, a better way is to scrap all of the talk about AI, and instead > implement Intelligence Amplification (IA). People are already smart and Well, that's basically what I'm trying to say. Don't think *for* the user, because it is almost impossible to know what the user really wants. Let the user express an intention, and *then* do what he wants. Detect patterns in his behavior (such as saying "No" whenever you ask if he needs "help" writing a letter) and comply. > which displays certain aspects of human behavior -- for example, it's > going to have to recognise when the human's expressing a vision, and "buy > in" to it. Visions are awfully vague things, and I don't see what you mean by buying in. I'm not sure this is something I want my OS to do, either. I mainly want computers to send things through the network for me and to notice when I'm repeating an action and offer to automate it for me in a relatively flexible manner. Of course, some argue that this alone is AI-complete. From btanksley@hifn.com Wed, 4 Oct 2000 13:12:18 -0700 Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 13:12:18 -0700 From: btanksley@hifn.com btanksley@hifn.com Subject: Emergence of behavior through software From: Alik Widge [mailto:aswst16+@pitt.edu] >btanksley@hifn.com wrote: >> IMO, a better way is to scrap all of the talk about AI, and instead >> implement Intelligence Amplification (IA). People are >> already smart and >> which displays certain aspects of human behavior -- for example, it's >> going to have to recognise when the human's expressing a >> vision, and "buy in" to it. >Visions are awfully vague things, and I don't see what you >mean by buying in. It's a marketing term. A "vision" is an expression of what you want the future to be. "Buying in" is when the person who hears the vision adopts it as their own, and it's marked by certain predictable behaviors. I'm not saying that the software should do voice recognition and parse for future-tense subjunctives; I would expect that the user would have to explicitly phrase commands. The point is that the way humans are built, seeing "buy-in" is a rewarding experience. So humans seeing buy-in will be motivated to learn to work more of the system so they'll be able to do more. -Billy From aswst16+@pitt.edu Wed, 04 Oct 2000 16:43:21 -0400 Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 16:43:21 -0400 From: Alik Widge aswst16+@pitt.edu Subject: Emergence of behavior through software --On Wednesday, October 04, 2000, 1:12 PM -0700 btanksley@hifn.com wrote: > not saying that the software should do voice recognition and parse for > future-tense subjunctives; I would expect that the user would have to > explicitly phrase commands. The point is that the way humans are built, > seeing "buy-in" is a rewarding experience. I know what a vision is. I happen to consider most "vision statements" to be vague and bogus, but that is personal opinion. I still don't see how a computer can show a human that it buys in to the human's vision, though. Is it just going to say "That's a great command!" or "It looks like you're writing a great letter here!"? From btanksley@hifn.com Wed, 4 Oct 2000 14:08:49 -0700 Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 14:08:49 -0700 From: btanksley@hifn.com btanksley@hifn.com Subject: Emergence of behavior through software From: Alik Widge [mailto:aswst16+@pitt.edu] >btanksley@hifn.com wrote: >> not saying that the software should do voice recognition and >> parse for >> future-tense subjunctives; I would expect that the user would have to >> explicitly phrase commands. The point is that the way >> humans are built, seeing "buy-in" is a rewarding experience. >I know what a vision is. I happen to consider most "vision >statements" to be vague and bogus, but that is personal opinion. It's hard to come up with a vision at the drop of a hat. Plus, most people writing those statements actually have the vision "make some money and then retire." A nice vision, but hardly one which can inspire buy-in. It also doesn't help that most of those vision statements were probably from companies doing something you could never be interested in. >I still don't see how a >computer can show a human that it buys in to the human's >vision, though. Is >it just going to say "That's a great command!" or "It looks like you're >writing a great letter here!"? I would be irritated if the software interrupted me with things like that. I don't know what it'll take; it's likely that for many people, the only solution will be an avatar (a humanoid form). I don't know exactly how buy-in should be expressed; that's not even close to my field. I do know that many people are very good at detecting it, and some people are very good at generating it. As for an example of when it might be appropriate... Um... You know, I'm drawing a blank here. It's times like this that I wish I could remember that URL at which I read about this. One more thing to add. We're techies; we don't need to see buy-in, and in fact that tends to hinder our social life. So the fact that I can't think of examples simply proves that I'm a techie. -Billy From lmaxson@pacbell.net Wed, 04 Oct 2000 20:14:01 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 20:14:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Lynn H. Maxson lmaxson@pacbell.net Subject: Emergence of behavior through software Alan Widge raises a number of issues that need addressing to his satisfaction. I will attempt to do so here. I am struck by the fascination of some about the "power" of software and that it differs in some manner from the "power" of any other human-created tool. While I putter about with my wood butchering and others may become true wood craftsmen (and the difference in terms of results is significant) it does not change in writing software (where again the difference in terms of results is significant): the quality of the product, the end result, occurs through the efforts of its author(s). The author(s) have no means of transferring that creative property in them to make it intrinsic to their creation, i.e. that their creation can replicate the processes that occur within their author(s). To begin if only slightly(?) out of order. "Ah, the embodiment hypothesis. I agree that a brain is obviously useless without I/O, but I don't think that has to be a body as we know it. If we understand a brain well enough to make one, we also understand sensory coding enough to let it see through cameras, hear through microphones, and so on. We can transduce the directory listing of the hard drive on which it resides directly to its optical inputs and go from there." I refer you again to Antonio R. Demasio's book "Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain". I think you need to spend some time "listening" to those who engage actively with the brain, how it works (in so far as we know), and when it doesn't: its disorders. The point here lies in how little we actually know of the brain and as a result even less our understanding of it. As in any other area of scientific interest we do make progress, however slowly. As a result I cannot guarantee that we cannot make a brain. In fact as a father of four and now a grandfather of nine I can describe to you very well the process necessary for constructing a human system in which the brain participates. So where do we begin? At the beginning? With no need to invoke God what was before the beginning? Even the big bang theory had something before the explosion. You get the feeling that there was (and is) no beginning, that it always was, is, and will remain. This is further reinforced because time, this thing we measure in intervals is entirely an invention of our own to satisfy our own needs. The universe, reality, what's out there has no need for it. Now the real question, which we cannot answer and only speculate, lies in when, if ever, did the first organism, the first single-cell appear. Nothing logical, physical, or otherwise says that it isn't as timeless as the universe itself. We have used very accurate instruments to measure the weight, for example, of an organism, attempting to see if in death some deviation occurs. So far, no. That leads us to believe that it is in the embodiment, the construction, of a living organism passing life onto another, whatever its cause, that separates it from non-organism. So organisms die, return only to their physio-chemical state in death. Yet no organism begins from this state. It takes an organism to begat an organism. Now why we have yet to discover. In discovering it part of that discovery may find it impossible to begat in any other manner, that we cannot assemble it from non-organism components. "However, given that we don't know what causes volition, why do you believe that it is guaranteed not to be generateable algorithmically?" Well, it's a lot like time, another one of our inventions along with others like "mind", "will", "spirit", "purpose" and Lord knows a multitude of others. What we know of the universe is that it is a continuous process, overall in motion from the very smallest quanta to the entire universe. It has no breaks, no separations. It has no separate actors performing a separate action. No subject. No verb. Just a complete universe. In that universe lightning doesn't flash, because the lightning, the flashing, the process just before it, and the process just after it is a continuum. No separation. Our language, my language, your language, our means of creating verbal maps of the universe does not accurately do its job. Moreover it is a map and the map is not the territory. Just because you can express something in the map does not mean that you can do so with the territory. The point is that you draw your maps from the territory. That allows you to gather fact. When you attempt to impose your map on the territory that's when you engage in fiction. What is the difference between an algorithm and a recipe? In terms of function, none. You have this drive to want to construct a brain as you would an erector set except using computer components. Now your computer uses silicon-based circuity. The silicon wafers are cut from a silicon crystal "grown" under laboratory conditions to restrict the introduction of "impurities". So far no one has even suggested creating silicon crystals using software and computer hardware. Why not. Here you have a pure non-organism of only one component type. Why is it that you have to grow them. Why can we not just crowd them together? The answer that you seem to sneer at is "embodiment", the means of construction. The means that occurs in nature we basically follow in the laboratory. When we create computer logic we do so with three basic logic components: the "and", "or", and "not" circuits. The logic components have two-state (on/off) inputs (legs), an internal process (which does the anding or oring) and a two-state result. A pure IPO model. For the "not" we use an inverter, converting a result on to off or off to on. I am fortunate in that I began in the tube era when such logic was visible (and in my first job, reparable). That basic process remains today. Ask Jecel who designs systems. It's a 100% pure logic system. Now there is none of that in a neuron. No logic. No ands. No ors. No nots. What you have is a connection, an interconnection, unlike any in any computer. I would refer you to Ashby's homeostat described in his "Design for a Brain". No logic necessary. No programming necessary. Just a set of interconnecting physio-chemical-electrical components. It exhibits "adaptive" or "goal-seeking" behavior. Let me carry this a step further. Take a programmed automatic pilot. How you connect it into the plane makes a difference because the connection must correspond to the internal logic. It's a feedback system. On the other hand constructing a non-programmed, but adaptive homeostatic unit means only that you have to connect it. Completely random. Not this to that nor that to this. Now the difference is that a properly connected programmed unit when you flip the switch will maintain current altitude and speed. The homeostatic one may give you a wild ride as it adapts to the changes and their distance from its goals. In fact you may very well crash while it is in the process of learning. The truth is that you can fake it out, have it in a simulated run while on the ground, never putting it into an actual plane until it has "learned", until it has become "stable". Now which one, which process, would you as an airline company use? Organisms use homeostasis to maintain a very intricate balance in order to continue to "live". Failure to do so results in "death". Having recently lost a business associate and more recently a sister to liver failure, I have had the importance of this balance brought home to me. When you write of faking out the brain by somehow switching it instantaneously or gradually from its natural system into an artificial one you are engaged in science fiction. You do not appreciate how intricate a system the human organism is. Having experienced a stroke, albeit a minor one, for just denying blood flow for an instant to the brain, and for a period not having your legs "obey" your orders, this is not a plug-and-play system. So the brain in combination with the nervous system has no logic-based circuits. The eye is not a camera nor the camera an eye. The connection is not a cable. This is a completely non-logic-circuit-based system that you propose replicating with a completely logic-circuit-based one. It is one thing to have a logic in the construction which somehow forms, integrates, and differentiates functions within the human organism. It is another to replicate a logic we do not understand using pure logic circuitry. The brain is not a computer nor the computer a brain. Moreover the human organism is "hard-coded". That means there is no separation from what is doing from what is telling it to do. Both occur as part of the same process. Now you want to take hardware which is entirely differently constructed and add software to it which is entirely differently constructed to create a whole which is entirely differently constructed in an attempt to replicate an isolated brain which does not exist. "There are fairly rigidly defined systems of connection in and between all its subparts." You see there are connections and what they connect. You can't replicate the connections or what they connect with a von Neumann machine operating under Turing rules. The brain is not a von Neumann machine nor does it follow Turing rules for computability. You would talk then about replicating the function of one with the other. "But an amoeba cannot choose to violate the rules of its own internal workings anymore than I may grow wings or a program may start executing invalid opcodes." To you rules are logic-based only. We have no reason to believe (or disbelieve) that the internal-working rules for the amoeba are based "strictly" in logic. That systems of logic can arise from organisms not so derived (from non-logic-based) suggests that we have examples of fact for the one direction and only speculation for the other (also conditioned by the same system). "Why is procreation so key, if the artificial brain functions just like the real one?" That's a big "if", you see. To function like the real one means embodying it within an organism that functions like the human organism. That's how the brain functions. It does not function in isolation nor does it operate on simply a subset of its capabilities. "However, we do start with an organism: the human programmer. I argue that whatever magical things are passed through sexual (or asexual) reproduction may also be passed through programming. After all, both are just an exchange of information." "Hello, Miss, I'm a programmer. Would you like to experience some magical transformations." If you succeed in this approach, put aside any thoughts of software and enjoy the magic. The answer here is strictly, no. There is no transference, no organism-based seed, in programming. If there were, programs would develop on their own without need for further assistance. "You were arguing, though, that software couldn't be an organism because it's dependent on its hardware. I'm saying that there could be a software organism, with the hardware playing the same role that the planet does for us." Nope. There cannot be a software organism. "I chose a few hundred because I wanted to make the probability come out right. Do you concede the point, then, that a program may be generated through random opcode-picking?" I'll concede the point as it is theoretically true on the basis of probability theory (another human invention not present in the universe). However, take a look at the probabilities for a simple program like "hello, world". You get one right and umpteen zillion wrong. Whereas if you eliminate the random opcode picking and use logic, it comes more in balance. I'll leave it to your employer which he prefers you use. A Turing machine has no intrisic purpose, will, emotion, feeling, imagination, concept building, sense of the universe, or any of the other things which differentiate it from organisms in general and humans in particular. You are stuck with achieving your goals through logic while an organism has no such limits and is never separate from its environment. You have an imaginary world which does not accurately portray the real one. Once our real world accuracy reaches a certain threshold of knowledge and corresponding understanding chances are that we will stick to procreation for humans and their integrated brains, using non-organism-based means of providing tools for their use. I suggest that Billy has the correct approach in terms of constructing software to support and extend human capabilities, something within our current ability. From fare@tunes.org Thu, 5 Oct 2000 13:08:20 +0200 Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 13:08:20 +0200 From: Francois-Rene Rideau fare@tunes.org Subject: Emergence of behavior through software On Sun, Oct 01, 2000 at 07:17:48PM -0700, Lynn H. Maxson wrote: > The thing that stumps me most in communicating with Fare lies in > his metaphors, of confusing similar with identical, I do not use more metaphors than anyone. But you seem to fail to understand what metaphors are all about. Metaphors are about sharing mental structures. It's code factoring inside one's brain. Now, try to grok this piece of wisdom: There is NO SUCH THING AS OBJECTIVE IDENTITY that be accessible to the mind. Everything one sees and understand is but metaphor. Metaphor is the basic encoding technique with which the human brain integrates information from the environment and tries to find patterns in it. Any "identity" in anyone's mind is but an old deeply rooted metaphor. You may question the range and precision of a metaphor, but questioning the existence of a metaphor is ridiculous. > Here you posit an impossible situation, a system deciding that it > can become an organism. You're a system. Did you ever decide to become an organism? The earth is a system. Did it ever decide to become an organism? The initial puddle whence life sprung is a system. Dit it ...? Your argument is gratuitous, rooted in some deeply flawed notion of yours about life that you'd better question. There's no use discussing about the superficial consequences of whatever notion of life you have when we have such a deep disagreement. If you stick to your notion of things, at least explicit your root beliefs, so we can agree to disagree. That said, your theories really sound like you believe life comes from some extraphysical divine "soul" that somehow directs empty physical receptacles that are bodies. I bet your theory is isomorphical to this soul thing. > The truth is that we have no means of > creating an organism without starting with one: procreation. I bet, that, by induction, you can recurse down the bigbang, at which time there was some fully developed seed for each of modern-time species, as created by god. This is just ridiculous. > It is a problem with a computer and software in that > neither start as an organism. Why couldn't they? I imagine AI and A-life programs precisely as starting as some simple symbolic organism, and evolving thereof. > One passing note. Artificial means not real. DEAD WRONG. Artificial means man-made. My toothbrush is real, yet it doesn't grow on trees. > Software is not an organism. Maybe not yours. Maybe not most anyone's today. Yet, I've seen people who did grow software. Genetic systems, reflective expert systems, data-mining pattern-extracting systems, etc, do evolve (and I hope to eventually bring them all together). You may blank out this assertion, as you did up to now; but if you do, then there's nothing left to discuss, and I wish this whole thread dies right away. > the fact that two > non-organisms cannot join to form an organism. Maybe not two. What about 10^28? Your body is made of about 10^28 atoms. So, ok, it took interaction of many more atoms so as to create such an organism from scratch. But then, we need not work at the atom level, and we do not start from scratch. As said Carl Sagan, "To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." > [Software] does no more than what the programmer told it. DEAD WRONG. You blank out the notions of input and persistent state. Not to talk about chaotic behavior and evolution. If you're only to blank out what other people say, let's stop the whole "discussion" and return to more productive activities. > Humans do not "obey" mathematically expressible rules. DEAD WRONG. Humans do obey the mathematically expressible statistical rules of physics, of genetics, of demographics, of economics, of psychology, etc. So these are not enough to predict their final behavior, because the too many unknown parameters? That's precisely the point. Same with a programmer's code for an evolving meta^n-program that runs with lots of persistent state, including meta^(n-1)-program-level state. > Unfortunately software is a fragile beast, DEAD WRONG. Designed software is only as fragile as it is designed to be. Fragile with respect to what? Some people work on very resistant software. Organic software will likely differ a lot from designed software. > overly sensitive to "illogic" Organism are sensitive to toxical intrusions in their chemistry. So what? > and prone to failure. Organisms may die. Eventually, they do. So what? You provided no intrinsic reason why AI be impossible. Certainly, you proved that it can't be done with current designed software technology. But there's no need to expand this point on which everyone agrees. > It is one thing to put monkeys in front of typewriters > where whatever order of letters is acceptable. That's simply not > true of software. The difference between random and fit? Selection. > If I have no choice but to follow them, then spontaneity is out. DEAD WRONG. Rules offer partial information. Internal state provides another body of information. Still same blanking out. > That piece of "magic" which exists at least in human organisms Yes, you believe in magical soul. All is said. Now let's stop it all. > Now meld it with the remainder of the human system. Without this > remainder, without a system in place, the brain has no function > and in fact can do nothing. The brain, the nervous system, the > blood system, the organs, the skeleton, the muscles, the skin--all > exist as a single entity, all interconnected. YES. > The fascination with the brain and with emulating it in software > deliberately "abstracts" it from the system of which it is a part. No, it doesn't abstract "from", but just abstract. The role of the brain is to integrate information so as to drive interaction towards selected behaviour. Well, an abstract brain will have abstract interaction to drive; it will input and output text, sound, video, sensors from an arm, etc. Certainly, a human-understandable AI will have to have interaction devices similar enough to those of humans, at some abstraction level. We're not here yet. There will be a lot of research in dumb A-life before we can seriously tackle complex brains. We'll have to tame some lower forms of information integration before we can tame the higher ones. Karl Popper distinguishes roughly 4 levels of languages (expressive, communicative, descriptive, and argumentative); before we reach the latter, we may have to master the former. How is that an absolute barrier to AI? > All computers are based 100% in pure logic. All organisms are 100% in pure chemistry. > All software which executes successfully > cannot violate the rules of the host computer. No organism can violate the rules of chemistry. So what? Chemistry is the underlying low-level paradigm. It is irrelevant as to the general structure of higher-level phenomena. This is seemingly an essential point of disagreement between us: you're obsessed with the low-level aspect of things, and do not accept that high-level structure may be independent from underlying implementational details. Now, think about it: if you consider the logic gate model with which all digital electronics is designed, you cannot deny that the underlying implementation hardware has changed considerably in 2 centuries (rotating wheels, electromagnetic relays, tubes, transistors, and then a lot of finer and finer transistor technologies). The details vary a _lot_, but the abstract structure stays the same. Similarly, in as much as some high-level structure can implement a system capable of having "intelligent" conversation, it doesn't matter whether the underlying implementational hardware be human brain cells, interconnected electronics, silicon, or software running on a von Neuman machine. Yours freely, [ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ] [ TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System | http://tunes.org ] If the human mind were simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it. -- Pat Bahn From fare@tunes.org Thu, 5 Oct 2000 16:22:35 +0200 Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 16:22:35 +0200 From: Francois-Rene Rideau fare@tunes.org Subject: Emergence of behavior through software On Mon, Oct 02, 2000 at 10:34:38AM -0700, Lynn H. Maxson wrote: > (2)All software executes in a manner consistent with its embedded logic. Again, you insist on this trivial point that is completely irrelevant to any debate regarding emerging systems and artificial intelligence. > "Volition does NOT consist in choosing the rules. No single human > chose his genetic code, his grown brain structure, his education. > Yet all humans are considered having a will." > Volition deals ultimately with choice. NO. There is no absolute notion of "choice". Volition, free will, or whatever name you give to it, is a property of a system with respect to its environment. It is about a system's behavior being largely determined by its own internal state rather than by externally modifiable factors. You cannot easily change what I think by simply pushing a lever; hence I am largely free from your own opinions (however, obviously, my behavior is affected by yours, since I'm replying to you). That a system obeys its own rules is no offense to its own free will. What would be an offense to its free will would be its having to track the dynamic state of another system that it cannot affect; for instance, I wouldn't be as free had I to obey your whims (in as much as I can't influence these whims). > In the dictionary this is qualified as a "conscious" choice. I don't care about dictionaries written by people who have no clue about what intelligence is. > Consciousness lies in self-awareness. You've just been using "conscious" in two different meanings. Welcome among the users of the fallacy of equivocation. http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/equiv.htm I deny meaning to the very words "volition", "consciousness" and "self-awareness" in the context where you use them. I refuse to disagree with you when I consider you didn't assert anything meaningful. I similarly refuse to disagree to the statement "the smurf boinks", because I deny meaning to this sentence. If you think there is more than empty words in your discourse, I prompt you to explain what you mean in terms of observable behaviour of dynamic systems. Or maybe instead can we agree to deeply disagree on the validity of our respective points of view, and possibly explore each other's meta-arguments about this validity. > transfer an intrinsic property of an organism [...] Once again, you're a believer of the soul. I deny any meaning to the notion of immaterial soul. And I reject the notion of a material soul, for which not no evidence exists. > You certainly can make a choice. > However your ability to do so depends upon your structure, your > human system and whatever in it is responsible for "life". When > that leaves you, when you die, you can no longer make a choice nor > exhibit purpose. So what? How does a running program differ? People _routinely_ use computers to make choices for them. The computers make choice depending on their own structure and state, and when they're shut down, they no longer make any choice. Choice is in no way an exclusive property of "the living". As far as we can observe it, even the Sun chooses to behave in impredictable ways. And in the most regular physical systems, you have spontaneous events that break the symmetry of the system, thereby making a "choice". Choice for a system is about some event being dependent on the system's internal state, and independent from external events. > First comes "knowledge", then "understanding", and then "wisdom". > Knowledge comes from "knowing" you are doing something. > Understanding comes from knowing what you are doing and if > possible why. Wisdom comes from using the understanding of what > you know to possible change what you do. Excuse me, but this sounds as meaningless ranting to me. To me, there is no absolute magical notion of knowledge, understanding or wisdom. It's all about the structure of the feedback between a system and its environment, and the relative ability of the system to anticipate it's environment's potential behaviour during its internal decision process, as compared to a potentially different system in the "same" environment. > The only "seed" for an organism is an organism. Once again, you're blanking out 15 billion years of evolution. Which of the chicken or egg has come first? > Man thus far has > had no success in creating an organism in any other manner. You keep bringing up irrelevant points on which everyone agrees, with a fallacious tint of equivocation. (In this case, the term "organism" has stricter or larger meanings). > Clearly software is not an organism Once again a subtle semantic shift that brings equivocation. I'm sick of it. > We have a history of increasing our knowledge and > understanding of such events leading in turn an increasing ability > to predict them. Following our assumption and the basis of Fare's > metaphor, this means our gains have occurred at the loss of life > within those events. That, my friends, is logic. I reject your inference, and I am find your grin preposterous. The more one knows, the more one knows that one knows not. Science extends the field of our (meta)ignorance even more than the field of our knowledge. -- Faré Actually, this is the very quantitative basis of Cantor's, Russell's, Gödel's, etc, diagonal argument: the complexity of a system grows exponentially with its size, including the size of subsystems used for an internal model of itself. You cannot add (reflective or not) information in the system without introducing room for even more information to gather so as to have a "complete" view of the system. Acquiring knowledge about yourself may increase your freedom with respect to the rest of the world, by bringing more opportunities of action. > Fare takes this, our inability at times to predict and understand > the results of software execution, as a means of giving software > something (life, independence, freedom from the programmer) that > it must lose in the event that we gain the ability to do either. > Note that this "loss" occurs without a change in the software > logic or in its execution. Therefore it must be a property > independent of them, perhaps even a "soul". Bullshit. In the circumstances you describe, the relative "loss" of freedom of the computer wrt us comes from our "gain" of knowledge about it. The software didn't change. We did. Hence the relative change between it and us. You think of "freedom" and "life" as absolute terms. I don't. Not only don't I, but I reject as meaningless any absolute notion of freedom or life. Once again, a fallacy of equivocation between my conspicuously relative rational notion of freedom and some undefined absolute notion of freedom. Your grins don't make me smile. They are no support for your fallacies. > This property arises from a more serious claim by Fare that we > have software whose results we do not understand or we cannot > predict. To me both are patently false. Let's stop it here, then. When the fundamental disagreements have been identified, it's time to terminate the (successful) discussion. > Fare pooh-pooh's this by saying it is "postdict" not "predict". No. "Predict" is different from "postdict", because cost matters. Only in mathematicians count inferences as free. Computer scientists know better. If you can predict the outcome of a brute-force attack against mainstream cryptographic protocols, I'm most interested. If from equations of a system, you can "understand" the system to the point of predicting the outcome, a lot of physicists will want you. "Understanding" is about anticipation (see Popper). If you cannot gather enough information to make a useful decision before it's too late, then for all that matters, you haven't understood anything. Understanding matters only in as much as it is a prelude to doing. What ultimately matters is doing. I deny as meaningless any notion of understanding that cannot lead to action. > Fare seems to forget that we write software and > construct host machines to form a tool system. Don't you resort in insulting other people so as to explain disagreement. I am most aware of machines being tools, but we seem to have wildly different explanation structures in our respective minds about what "a tool", "to use", "useful" mean. Of course, each one is convinced that his conscious mental structure is more adequate, or he'd change it. Don't be so irrational in your mental modelling of other people! > We do so as a means of extending "our" own ability. Which is precisely why cost matters, and why prediction is not same as postdiction. Computers are useful only in as much as they can assert things that we couldn't otherwise assert (in time|as cheaply|as precisely|at all). If we could effectively predict the outcome, we wouldn't need them. > Moreover we do so for "reasons of our own". Machines might have reasons of their own, too. You're back to your clichés, describing common agreed features of systems, intelligent or not, that have ZERO relevance to the possibility or impossibility of artificial intelligence. > Among these "reasons of our own" are curiosity, amusement, and a > desire to increase our knowledge, our understanding, and our > ability to predict. I'd rather say lust, urge, and anxiety for food, defecation, sleep, social approval, sex. There's no reason why vital urges cannot be built into computers. This has been done before. Moreover, in a sense, the urge of the system to reply to human queries is such a builtin urge, even in primitive interactive computers. > That we > cannot predict or cannot understand does accrue to an intellectual > failure or weakness. Of course it does. You sound like a dogmatic human supremacist. That we use tools to cope with our failures and weaknesses is precisely our victory. > We may not take the time to either know or understand what > occurred and why within such a process. That is our choice. I didn't choose to not brute-force crack RC5-64 by hand. I am just unable to do it. At the speed I am able to do it, the expected completion time before I manage it by hand is longer than the expected life of the universe, not to talk about my own. And even "by hand", I'd use paper and pencil, i.e. tools. Same about most all computer-solved problems. > the tool did not acquire a "life of its own" because we > chose to neither know nor understand. It did acquire some independance from our choice of not caring. But even with our caring, it would still be very much independent, in as much as we are unable to fully understand, even when caring. The more complex the emergent system, the more independent it is, relatively to the severe limits of our potential understanding. >> If your "encoded logic" is universal, just any behavior is >> consistent with it. So conformance to the logic is a null >> statement. > Yes, but you see the encoded logic, particularly that of software, > is not universal. I think that's the root of our disagreement. Let's agree to disagree here. The ability of software to accurately simulate complex physical systems seems strong evidence that it is, but I'd rather not argue about that. > "I strongly dislike your way of turning around arguments, > completely avoiding to answer to points others claim as relevant, > not even acknowledging them, and claiming as victories their > concessions on points they claim are irrelevant. This is no > rational discussion, only self-delusion thereof." > > I imagine that you do, considering the arguments you make. The > matter of relevance or not lies in the eye of the observer. > I didn't reproach you your disagreement in opinion, but your complete lack of acknowledgement of other people's opinion, your consequential repeating over and over again of the same points that were long agreed upon, and your lack of any response (up to then) to my objections. Even now, you still blank out half of my arguments. > To me > the issue of software execution "always" consistent with its > encoded logic is relevant. But it isn't the root of the disagreement, so stop boring everyone with it, instead of discussing the deeper disagreement. There's no use whatsoever in discussing stuff everyone agrees upon. "Do you agree that 2+2=4? Haha! Then the rest follows from it!" Obviously, it doesn't. > I, therefore, have something that the software does not: > a life of my own. You keep gratuitously extending the same statements from existing designed software to all software. This is no rational discussion. Just repeated ranting. You don't try to identify initial disagreements, you just repeat your opinion over and over again, without much regard for other people's argument structure. > I suggest that the charge of self-delusion here is one of > projection, in the source and not the target. I claim once again that you're in a self-delusion of rational discussion, in an objective way observable by neutral observers, independently from the outcome of the main debate. A rational discussion isn't about repeating one's point over and over in the hope of getting it accross, but about discovering the other people's argumentative structure and identifying root disagreements between parties. Gratuitously repeating is noise. Rational parties look for signal. I'm not sure I want to waste more time on this particular discussion if you don't improve your attitude. > I doubt very > seriously if progress in software, in doing the things specified > in the Tunes HLL requirements, has any need for any properties > outside those available in formal logic. I admit said page is antique and lacking in both contents and rationale. I will state so on the page. > It hasn't required > anything else in getting to this point. Note that at no point in time has it required any further progress to get up to said point in the past of said point. > We certainly haven't > exhausted all the logical possibilities. > When and if we do, > considering parallel progress in other fields including biology, > then we can consider non-logical, statistical-based approaches. > Meanwhile let's complete what we can with von Neumann and Turing. None of these is the point discussed. I've been pushing for a direction of development that is none of those you propose, that is mostly independent from them, whereas the development of one need not prevent the development of the other, on the contrary. Anyway, this whole discussion is becoming more and more pointless. Again, understanding is about taking action, and whether AI is ultimately possible or not, people in the TUNES project agree that in the foreseeable future, we'll be working towards making much more primitive emergent systems, that will be used as a complement, tool, amplifier, to human intelligence, rather than an all-or-nothing complete replacement thereof. [Note to Billy: I prefer to avoid the acronyms IA vs AI, because in french, the acronyms are reversed! Also I see no dynamic opposition between the two points of views.] Yours freely, [ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ] [ TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System | http://tunes.org ] In