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C00002 00002 ON THE NATURE OF AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THEORY OF MIND.
C00006 00003 2.0 Intellectual Entity.
C00008 00004 3.0 The Robot's Mind.
C00010 00005 4.0 The Sentient Conscious Mind Self Ego.
C00012 00006 Intellectual Entities - Pass Two.
C00014 00007 The Impact of a Theory of Intellect.
C00019 00008 Prejudice
C00021 00009 Identifying and Overcoming the Homocentric Prejudice.
C00022 00010
C00024 00011 4. The nature or the soul.
C00025 ENDMK
Cā;
ON THE NATURE OF AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THEORY OF MIND.
Bruce g. Baumgart
0.0 Abstract.
One style of a computer oriented theory of mind is depicted
as an elaboration of the familiar analogy that the brain is like a
computer and that the mind is like a system of programs running in a
computer. The implications of taking this analogy seriously are
discussed; and objections to believing the analogy are stated and
answered. Unfortunately, the detailed construction of sophisticated
artificial mind software (or the reading of natural mind software)
can not be done with present day technology, 1974; so in that sense
this paper is fantasy science, conjectures are made and hung in the
air unsupported. The purpose of this paper is not to confront the man
who doesn't believe the canons of Artificial Intelligence; the
purpose of this paper is to encourage computer freaks to approach
intellectual entities as a programming system design problem.
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1.0 The Grand Artificial Intelligence Reseach Scenerio.
Consider the following dream scenerio: Artificial
Intelligence research suddenly becomes the single top national
priority; that in order to beat the Russians, Chinese, Energy
Crisis, Cancer and so on; nearly unlimited resources (up to 30
gigadollars per year) are to be directed to building truly
intelligent and conscious and benevolent computer robots, whatever
that might mean exactly. The requirements for the robot are somewhat
vague and broad: the robot is expected to be at least as smart as an
average human, to sing and dance, to speak, to program, to think
and to do well on the verbal and mathematical college entrance board
tests as well as the graduate record tests as well as on Turing tests
and so on. The national director of A.I. (a General Groves type)
likes you; and so will support your particular line of research
(which he doesn't really understand); how will you proceed ?
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2.0 Intellectual Entity.
Hardware Systems.
I would proceed, with sangfroid, by viewing the desired robot
as a computer system; and that the design goal is that the system is
to be like a man. Since it will be convenient to be able to refer to
to men, animals, computers, robots, cyborgs and androids
collectively, I will use the term "intellectual entity". An
intellectual entity, is a physical object that has the appropriate
organs of power supply, memory, thought processing, input and output;
to enable effective mind like action in the physical world. In order
to get started, I would divide the robot system into sub systems by
crossing a high school biology definition of life into the
requirements for a Mars explorer.
---------------------------------------------------------
| Seven Intellectual Entity Sub Systems: |
| |
| 1. Power Supply System. |
| 2. Perception. |
| 3. Locomotion. |
| 4. Manipulation. |
| 5. Computation. |
| 6. Communication. |
| 7. Replication. |
---------------------------------------------------------
3.0 The Robot's Mind.
Software Systems.
The mind of the robot is a system of programs and data
structures; that is the mind is the software of an intellectual
entity. There is of course the usual nomensclature confusion having
to do with emulating or simulating hardware; but the confusion can be
avoided by observing that at the very bottom there is real hardware
and at the very top there is real software and that the
hardware/software trade offs for processors in between is not a
system design question but a question of economic implementation.
A second issue of nomensclature concerns whether the software
is being executed or not; as I have defined it, mind is not a process
in the computer sense of the word "process" but is rather a program;
that allows us to say that the mind is running or not running (that
the mind is conscious or unconscious will be a different more restricted
thing).
Memory structures.
Self Model.
World Model Quantitative
World Model Qualitative.
Processors
Clock.
Interrupt.
Job Scheduling & Resource Allocation.
Self Programmer, cerebellum
Program Execution.
4.0 The Sentient Conscious Mind Self Ego.
Interrupt dispatch routine
self grip: safety, emotion, attention, immediate goal,
job scheduling, resource allocator
reality grip: time & place, current external context,
Ego unity principle underlying subjective experience.
Immediate perceptions: pain, emotion, concept.
The stream of consciousness:
self dialogue, attention mechanism,
privacy ? uniqueness.
knows, remembers, desires, suffers pain (pleasure)
goal evaluator,
Difference between a conscious act and a sub-conscious act.
The first and biggest inescapible physical, philosophical and
religious question is: who and what the fuck am I ? The existence
of yourself as the prime observer is the most immediate and unavoidable
fact of life.
Intellectual Entities - Pass Two.
An intellectual entity consists of memory, processor, input
and output. Memory consists of address and assertion. Processor
consists of data conversion, command interpretation and conditional
branching. Input and output, like memory, consist of address and
content but refer to a world external to the memory space of the
intellectual entity.
Memory consists of assertion and address. Assertion consists
of container and contents. Within the frame of reference of a single
intellectual entity, memory assertion container is hardware and
memory assertion content is software. The container has memory
states, memory states have size, the smallest atom of memory is the
bit; a bit has two states.
The Impact of a Theory of Intellect.
The attainment of a TECHNICAL theory of intelligence will
have a massive impact on human existence. At present, there are
several areas of research relating to intellectual systems. There
are cybernetic, genetic, psychological, physiological and
philosophical approachs; there is also the dichotomy between so
called "natural" and "artificial" intelligence research. However, I
wish to speculate for a moment on what happens when all these
intelligence researchers find the knowledge for which they seek,
when the phenomena of intelligence arising in genes and silicon is
well understood and a corresponding intelligence technology is
available.
A theory of intelligence, like the Copernician and Darwinian
theories, will further reduce the self centered divinity in mankind's
image of himself. The mind and soul of man will be exposed to study
and modification and man will no longer be the culmination of
evolution, but will replace himself with better intellectual entities
some of which will grow out of individual men who build themselves
into androids; other entities will be built by men as robots; and
finally androids and robots will replicate themselves and others.
A theory of intelligence will have a massive affect on
national, international, political and military affairs. Like nuclear
physics, a theory of intelligence has a number of atomic bombs that
will become accessible even before the whole theory takes shape. For
better and for worse there will be the potential of robot soldiers,
super minds, bio-engineering, monsters, oracles, disasters,
immortality, interstellar space travel, genetic modification, brain
modification, group intelligence, inter mind communication, and
transmigration of souls.
The impact of a theory of intelligence on mankind will exceed
the scientific, social and philosophical impact of the atomic bomb,
Darwin, the steam engine, Copernicus, the printing press, Christ,
fire and agriculture. A massive landing of extra terrestials is
humdrum when compared to the implications of knowing the nature of
intelligence.
Prejudice
A technical discussion of the nature of a theory of intellect
is highly prone to becoming dead ended in a circular argument based on
honest but irreconcible prejudice.
1. Homocentric Prejudice.
2. Supernatural Prejudice.
3.
Revelation and unsharable introspection.
Inaccessible Knowledge,
that the mind mystery should not be solved.
The "Well, we don't understand
the brain yet" kissoff prejudice.
There are several theistic positions; god given soul and Berkelian
theist.
A second kind of supernaturalist is the person who puts great
store on the fact that present day physics is incomplete. The
ultimate nature of matter, the unified field theory, and the
cosmology of the primeval singularity are still awaiting a physical
explaination; from these mysteries the ultraphysical supernaturalist
argues that the mystery of mind could depend on hereto undiscovered
kinds of force, particles or whatever.
Identifying and Overcoming the Homocentric Prejudice.
1. Star Trek Transporter Trauma.
2. Software soul.
3. Transmigration of souls.
1. The mind is a finite hierarcy of processors.
The homiculum theory of intellect is essential correct. Within the
head of the larger man is a set of smaller men; and within the head of
each of the smaller man are yet smaller men; and so on, AD FINITUM,
to a finite number and no further.
In the end there is a smallest intellectual entity.
2. Mind is to matter as software is to hardware.
The mind is a program running in the hardware of the brain.
So in order to grasp the relation between mental events and
physical events; we must investigate the relation between software
and hardware.
The interface between the hardware and the software seems to be well
understood at the informal social level; hardware people use...
The physicist, Richard Feynman, lectured that although an electron
does not act entirely like a particle and light does not act entirely like
a wave, there is one consolation: light and electrons act like each other.
Men do not act entirely like angels; computers do not act entirely like
simple machines; however men and computers act like each other.
3. The free will illusion.
4. Emotions.
Love - hate.
4. The nature or the soul.
Transmigration of souls: over telephone.
Simu-Man vs. Mind Transfer.
5. Privacy of mental events fallacy.
The conjecture is stated that the mental events of an
intellectual entity are absolutely private. That
To "infer" pain is different than to "experience" pain.
The alternative is that any number of gods, demons, telepaths and
cyber-neuro-surgeons can read an individual's mind.
Scientific American Math Column -
What will it take to convince you that an external intellectual
entity is totally aware of your mental events.