What is "Mind?"

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MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Apr 14, 2017 - 01:44pm PT

In my field, however (and for example), that approach doesn’t work very well because different functionalities have different objectives and hold different beliefs and values.

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Jan

Mountain climber

Colorado & Nepal

Apr 14, 2017 - 02:15pm PT

I don't think jgill's latest is the Big Bang and the beginning of space and time. Two square for one thing when it should be radiating concentric circles. I would do the colors in deep purple- black and white but red and green will do if following the classic Hindu formulation - red for immense creative energy and green for great heart power. They say the universe is held together by the design of Brahma, the energy of Shiva and the love and compassion of Vishnu so this could be an abstract version.

The center is too assymetric however. I am reminded of a crab moving to the right in the center. Maybe the space time grid for the Crab Nebulae only? Then there are the initials near the center. Colorado (CO) is a great place but the center of the universe??? And what in the universe are the initals D.C. doing there ? I know they think they are the center of the universe along with Eastern Standard Time, but if I have to choose, I'll go with Colorado.

Microcosm and macrocosm, what a mysterious web we weave.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Apr 14, 2017 - 03:08pm PT

The origins of space & time were not pretty! We can merely speculate on the creature in the center.

;>)

Jan

Mountain climber

Colorado & Nepal

Apr 14, 2017 - 05:21pm PT

As usual, thought provoking on many levels !

Marlow

Sport climber

OSLO

Apr 14, 2017 - 11:37pm PT

The Big Bang has no center: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/nocenter.html

Religious framing with only one crystal heaven

Jan

Mountain climber

Colorado & Nepal

Apr 15, 2017 - 02:09am PT

I must admit I think of the Big Bang as having a center or starting point.

Interesting Christian scheme too, I haven't seen it before. What is the source?

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Apr 15, 2017 - 08:24am PT

Re: “The Dark Secret of AI.”

I think someone said it upthread. This is nothing particularly new in this domain. It’s interesting, however, that there seems to be a shift in nomenclature: “machine learning” has now become “deep learning.” There would seem to be much to comment on that, culturally.

Years ago when I was a doctoral student, we read about a team from Carnegie Mellon traveling to a small hydroelectric dam in the Northwest to encode into an AI system the knowledge of a single man who ran the dam almost by himself. (The man would be retiring in a couple of years, and there was no one to take his place.) The team employed the typical Turning methodology to extract what the dam operator knew. After 3 years the Carnegie Mellon team gave up. The complexity of the knowledge the man had could not be captured. People simply know more than they can say.

Whether it's AI, your own decision-making capabilities, creativity in an artistic endeavor, biological evolution, or whatever . . . we don’t *really* know anything. We have models. It’s useful to understand just what any model is. Any model is an kind of self-reflection, an eduction. Eduction is a projection into what seems to be one’s reality, with the projection being informative to what’s there. It’s an ever-recurring feedback loop that starts with the mind.

If some AI researchers are worried about what machines that employ self-learning processes can or will do, then we should equally worry about what human beings might do that are unforeseen.

The way human-kind has dealt with unknowability and unpredictability of behavior is politics. Some folks want to give individual human beings lots of liberty / freedom (liberals), whereas other folks (conservatives) want to limit liberty and freedom for more oversight and rules of conduct. The conservatives also seem to be a bit more oriented to the education of stricter moral standards, whereas the liberals seem to be more oriented to technical education.

Marlow

Sport climber

OSLO

Apr 15, 2017 - 08:38am PT

Jan

Here it is: http://journalofcosmology.com/Cosmology4.html

Upon the dark secret of AI: I don't find the health prediction machine well documented. Is the machine's predictive power commonly accepted in the scientific community?

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Apr 15, 2017 - 11:36am PT

I don’t have any political orientation that I think is worth discussing, but I can report that there seems to be a distinction among on-line communities regarding their rules of conduct (called, “governance,” in certain business circles). One good example of the distinction is the perceived differences between eBay and iTunes. In the world of eBay, it’s a pretty rough and tumble environment, a kind of wild west of trading. There are not that many rules or restrictions on what people can do or how they can do it, and that encourages more players to join in the community (with the hopes that the community gets bigger). In the world of iTunes, there are many restrictions and rules of behavior that are enforced. Yet for that, the quality of the experience on iTunes is reportedly much higher. In the realm of on-line communities, the more rules tend to lead to higher quality experiences, whereas fewer rules leads to less quality of experience for its members. In both instances, eBay and iTunes only provide / facilitate a meeting place of action.

Look at ST. Fewer rules, more rough and tumble experiences, but a broader attracted audience, IMO.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Apr 15, 2017 - 11:44am PT

Look at ST. Fewer rules, more rough and tumble experiences

The Wild West. May it never be tamed.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Apr 15, 2017 - 11:54am PT

convergence?
just read Ted Chiang's short story... The Evolution of Human Science

"It has been twenty-fives years since a report of original research was last submitted to our editors for publication, making this an appropriate time to revisit the question that was so widely debated then: what is the role of human scientists in an age when the frontiers of scientific inquiry have moved beyond the comprehension of humans?"

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v405/n6786/full/405517a0.html

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Apr 15, 2017 - 12:11pm PT

“Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature."

"[T]he interest of science lies in the art of making science.”
(Paul Valery. “Moralites. 1932)

“Freedom of mind and mind itself have been most fully developed in regions where trade developed at the same time. In all ages, without exception, every intense production of art, ideas, and spiritual values has occurred in some locality where a remarkable degree of economic activity was also manifest.”
(Paul Valery. “Regards sur le monde actuel. “ 1931.)

Marlow

Sport climber

OSLO

Apr 16, 2017 - 10:37am PT

Maybe in a few years, if America continues to be about the freedom of business and the freedom to buy:

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Apr 16, 2017 - 10:49am PT

science and its relationship with commerce?

more indicative of "the actual world"

why were/are the French so seduced by American commercial culture? I guess we'll see the result in this next election...

American Freedom, made in China... who holds the IP?

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Apr 16, 2017 - 11:05am PT

and on another front... the beauty of mathematics... some of you art fashionistas will respond with a guffaw over this one... a pity, really

The World’s Most Beautiful Mathematical Equation

"Still, it makes me wonder what it is about mathematical thinking that is so elegant and aesthetically appealing. Is it the internal logic? The unique mix of simplicity and explanatory power? Or perhaps just its pure intellectual beauty?"

spoiler alert: it is just intellectual beauty... lights up the prefrontal cortex

i-b-goB

Social climber

Wise Acres

Apr 16, 2017 - 11:15am PT

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jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Apr 16, 2017 - 05:39pm PT

If I recall correctly, years ago I read the joke shown above, where the man looks for a coin, as Nasrudin looking for his keys at night under a street lamp, in a Sufi context. Wizard, what say you?

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Apr 16, 2017 - 06:33pm PT

Hi John. I think no matter how strong the light - mathematical, existential, artistic, musical, etc. - so long as we work from a fixed vantage, we can't even see what we're looking for.

A flashlight is indicated, I'm thinking...

And Ed, classical music and even some jazz compositions (prolly all great music) fits your description (elegance, intellectual genius, explanitory power, etc) pretty well.

For that matter, I would consider this a work of genius, for certain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A3THighARU