A House Cat Knows More Than The IBM Watson

billvon said:
A few papers for you to peruse:

Criticality in Neural Network Behavior and Its Implications for Computational Processing in Healthy and Perturbed Conditions
The Simplest Maximum Entropy Model for Collective Behavior in a Neural Network
Testing Neural Network Models of Memory with Behavioral Experiments
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You are taking the word Behavior out of the context they intended. They use the word Behavior in the same sense as talking about the Behavior of Mathematical Functions.
 
Steve Klinko said:
[...] I think we can explore Knowledge and Knowing by submitting a test question to a Brain and then to a Computer. Let the question be: What kind of animal Meows? Putting aside the difficulties of parsing the Sentence, we can view this as a Memory Association Data Access operation, and the Brain and the Computer will produce the answer: Cat. But now let's examine the differences in the underlying processes that occurred. First for the Brain. We can say that the word Animal and then the word Meow will Associate in the Brain to eventually fire some Neurons that indicate Cat. But there is no Experience of Knowing that the answer is Cat, until the next Processing stage where a Signal of Cat and Knowingness is received by the Conscious Mind. The Knowing is in the Conscious Mind. The Physical Brain Knows nothing. It is just a processor. Now for the Computer. The Computer can have an Associative Database that will retrieve the text string Cat for the given input of Animal and Meow. But the Computer does not have the next processing stage of Knowingness that is implemented in a Conscious Mind. So we can conclude that the Computer never Knows it computed the answer of Cat. With a Computer it is always only Processing. There is never any Knowing. This might seem obvious, but a lot of people seem to think that Computers are operating like Brains and that Computers can in some way Know things. There is nobody home in a Computer, like there is in a Brain.

[...] Let's see what a Cat can Know and what the IBM Watson can Know. The IBM Watson has access to much Information but it can not Know anything. A Cat only has a little Information but it can Know this Information. A Cat therefore can know more than the IBM Watson because, whatever a Cat Knows, is going to be more than what the IBM Watson Knows, which is nothing. Without Consciousness there is no Knowing.
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This is the symbol grounding problem. A crude metaphor would be the closed circularity of a dictionary, where the meanings of terms consist of referring to other terms and their word-combination descriptions. The definitions never capture the original, phenomenal things and events of the world except when a person is reading them (correlating the symbols to stored experiences or live ones occurring in the sensed environment).

However, "smart" machines are tools -- they usually don't have to apprehend the [information] "objects" they manipulate as humans represent them. Just produce the same responses slash actions as people or yield the results that we want.

Smart machines could potentially survive/evolve after we perished, as long as they are harboring a method of "invisible" representation (descriptive symbolism) that successfully jibes with or correlates to our experienced ("shown") environment, and perchance they were of a future self-replicating and autonomous category.

Since the world of scientific realism revolves heavily around the abstract representations of physics, there arguably shouldn't even be much of a drop-off with respect to that. Which is to say, even we can't directly perceive that reality as it is. As far as the routines of everyday life go, we are still stuck in the "commonsense realism" of our ancestors. Smart machines might be designed that entirely "live" within in a realm of physics conceptions (setting aside how brute survival might be compromised).

So that "descriptive knowledge" of [artificial] philosophical zombies (and the technological or syn-biological substrate that such descriptive information reduces to in their AI brains) can still potentially engage with the world very effectively. Though motives stemming from qualitative feelings and sensations will be absent if no physical dynamics and structural relationships have been substituted by engineers to stimulate analogous behavior/goals.
 
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Steve Klinko said:
You are taking the word Behavior out of the context they intended. They use the word Behavior in the same sense as talking about the Behavior of Mathematical Functions.
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What do you think the difference is? The behaviour of something is how it reacts to inputs, is it not? That is true of humans as much as it is of mathematical functions, albeit animal behaviour is presumably somewhat more complex than that of a mathematical function. So please can you explain how you think the context changes the meaning or understanding?
 
C C said:
This is the symbol grounding problem. A crude metaphor would be the closed circularity of a dictionary, where the meanings of terms consist of referring to other terms and their word-combination descriptions. The definitions never capture the original, phenomenal things and events of the world except when a person is reading them (correlating the symbols to stored experiences or live ones occurring in the sensed environment).

However, "smart" machines are tools -- they usually don't have to apprehend the [information] "objects" they manipulate as humans represent them. Just produce the same responses slash actions as people or yield the results that we want.

Smart machines could potentially survive/evolve after we perished, as long as they are harboring a method of "invisible" representation (descriptive symbolism) that successfully jibes with or correlates to our experienced ("shown") environment, and perchance they were of a future self-replicating and autonomous category.

Since the world of scientific realism revolves heavily around the abstract representations of physics, there arguably shouldn't even be much of a drop-off with respect to that. Which is to say, even we can't directly perceive that reality as it is. As far as the routines of everyday life go, we are still stuck in the "commonsense realism" of our ancestors. Smart machines might be designed that entirely "live" within in a realm of physics conceptions (setting aside how brute survival might be compromised).

So that "descriptive knowledge" of [artificial] philosophical zombies (and the technological or syn-biological substrate that such descriptive information reduces to in their AI brains) can still potentially engage with the world very effectively. Though motives stemming from qualitative feelings and sensations will be absent if no physical dynamics and structural relationships have been substituted by engineers to stimulate analogous behavior/goals.
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Good Link. Yes, the Meaning of things. So, in order to Know some stored Information/Data, we have to Know the Meaning of that Information/Data. I suppose that I just pack "Know the Meaning" into simply "Know". I'll give this some more thought.
 
Sarkus said:
What do you think the difference is? The behaviour of something is how it reacts to inputs, is it not? That is true of humans as much as it is of mathematical functions, albeit animal behaviour is presumably somewhat more complex than that of a mathematical function. So please can you explain how you think the context changes the meaning or understanding?
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I thought we were talking about the Behavior of Conscious Beings as compared to the Behavior of Machines. Talking about the Behavior of Mathematical Functions is a whole different concept. But if that actually is the sense that you were using the word, when talking about Neural Nets, then I understand.
 
Steve Klinko said:
I thought we were talking about the Behavior of Conscious Beings as compared to the Behavior of Machines. Talking about the Behavior of Mathematical Functions is a whole different concept. But if that actually is the sense that you were using the word, when talking about Neural Nets, then I understand.
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You haven't explained what you think the difference is in the meaning of behaviour between the behaviour of conscious beings, and the behaviour of a mathematical function. How do you think the context changes the meaning? Why is talking about the behaviour of mathematical functions a "whole different concept" of the term? Or are you once again simply refusing to address any question or issue that you don't agree with?
 
Sarkus said:
You haven't explained what you think the difference is in the meaning of behaviour between the behaviour of conscious beings, and the behaviour of a mathematical function. How do you think the context changes the meaning? Why is talking about the behaviour of mathematical functions a "whole different concept" of the term? Or are you once again simply refusing to address any question or issue that you don't agree with?
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If you don't already know what the difference is between the Behavior of a Conscious Being and the Behavior of a Mathematical Function, then you are either just trying to Obfuscate and Distract this discussion, or if you think there is no difference then you need to Explain that.
 
Steve Klinko said:
If you don't already know what the difference is between the Behavior of a Conscious Being and the Behavior of a Mathematical Function, then you are either just trying to Obfuscate and Distract this discussion, or if you think there is no difference then you need to Explain that.
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I'm asking you to explain what you think the difference is, rather than just appealing to it. If you can't, then you shouldn't appeal to it as you do. In getting you to explain what you think the difference is, there is some hope that this thread will actually be a discussion rather than you simply defining, and then asserting a trite truism based on that definition.
 
Sarkus said:
I'm asking you to explain what you think the difference is, rather than just appealing to it. If you can't, then you shouldn't appeal to it as you do. In getting you to explain what you think the difference is, there is some hope that this thread will actually be a discussion rather than you simply defining, and then asserting a trite truism based on that definition.
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So you do know what the difference is, and you are merely messing with me. Ok fine.
 
Steve Klinko said:
So you do know what the difference is, and you are merely messing with me. Ok fine.
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You continue to evade the question. What do you think the difference is that you asserted? Explain that difference, please, and why you think it significant to the issue? Or are you simply going to continue your troll-like ways?
 
Sarkus said:
You continue to evade the question. What do you think the difference is that you asserted? Explain that difference, please, and why you think it significant to the issue? Or are you simply going to continue your troll-like ways?
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Still messing with me I see. Ok fine.
 
If "messing with you" is asking you to explain yourself and, in your unwillingness to, highlighting your troll-like positioning on this website, then yeah, I guess I am.
 
Sarkus said:
If "messing with you" is asking you to explain yourself and, in your unwillingness to, highlighting your troll-like positioning on this website, then yeah, I guess I am.
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So you are going to insist that I explain the difference between the Behavior of Conscious Beings and the Behavior of a Mathematical Function. Haaahhh! And you call me a Troll. Come on man go do the research yourself. This OP is a College Calculus course and you want me to teach you basic Arithmetic. Don't have the time for this. Go get you High School GED, then come back to this forum.
 
Steve Klinko said:
So you are going to insist that I explain the difference between the Behavior of Conscious Beings and the Behavior of a Mathematical Function.
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No, I want you to explain the difference in what the word "behaviour" means with regard those two. You claimed that there is a contextual difference to the meaning of the word. I am asking you to explain it. So please put the goalposts back, stop arguing strawmen, and explain this difference that you claimed exists in the meaning of the word, based on the contexts in question.
I get that you want to avoid questions you're unable to answer. I get that your inability to answer this also highlights that you simply appealed to the as-yet-unexplained difference to avoid the issue raised by billvon. I get all that. And I get that you will do everything you can to continue to evade the matter. Trolls will do as trolls will do.
 
Sarkus said:
No, I want you to explain the difference in what the word "behaviour" means with regard those two. You claimed that there is a contextual difference to the meaning of the word. I am asking you to explain it. So please put the goalposts back, stop arguing strawmen, and explain this difference that you claimed exists in the meaning of the word, based on the contexts in question.
I get that you want to avoid questions you're unable to answer. I get that your inability to answer this also highlights that you simply appealed to the as-yet-unexplained difference to avoid the issue raised by billvon. I get all that. And I get that you will do everything you can to continue to evade the matter. Trolls will do as trolls will do.
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I know when I'm being Trolled. Trolls like to call OP writers Trolls when they don't get their way on some absurdity. Bye to you.
 
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