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#3644·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 3 days agoHaven't thought about it like that. The purpose of speaking of an embodied agent is to generalize cognition. To understand what's relevant to an agent, you need to understand how that agent is embodied in the world.
The purpose of speaking of an embodied agent is to generalize cognition.
It’s possible that the actual purpose of such language is more sinister than that, having to do with static memes: to continue the age-old mystical tradition of portraying man as a pathetic, helpless being at the mercy of a universe he cannot understand or control.
But I’m purely speculating here and would have to think more about it. So I’m not marking this as a criticism (yet).
#3644·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 3 days agoHaven't thought about it like that. The purpose of speaking of an embodied agent is to generalize cognition. To understand what's relevant to an agent, you need to understand how that agent is embodied in the world.
Again, to me, that’s how programmers think about their video-game characters, and how researchers think about lab rats in mazes. I would avoid talking about people as ‘agents’ and instead treat them as human beings.
To understand what’s relevant to a person, you need to understand their problem situation.
Why would an AGI use spacial metaphors like understand, arrive, close to understand ideas? Don't you think our particular perspective (which is filtered through the body) affects our conceptual system and ways we understand ideas?
Why would an AGI use spacial metaphors like understand, arrive, close to understand ideas? Don't you think our particular perspective (which is filtered through the body as sense perception) affects our conceptual system and ways we understand ideas?
This is also borrowed from cognitive science. But what's I meant was to point to the fact there is "pre-conceptual" models, desires, attential salience etc. that impinge on and filters input to concious cognition. An example is how brain regions originally used for moving the body through 3D space are repurposed cognitively to "move around" in idea-space. Some anecdotal evidence for this: notice how many movement metaphors structure propositional thinking. We say we're close to the truth, we under-stand, we grasp a concept, we arrive at a conclusion.
This is also borrowed from cognitive science. But what I meant was to point to the fact that there are “pre-conceptual” models, desires, attentional salience etc. that impinge on and filter input to conscious cognition. An example is how brain regions originally used for moving the body through 3D space are repurposed cognitively to “move around” in idea-space. Some anecdotal evidence for this: notice how many movement metaphors structure propositional thinking. We say we’re close to the truth, we understand, we grasp a concept, we arrive at a conclusion.
#3630·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 days agoThis is also borrowed from cognitive science.
Yeah, the cog-sci guys don’t understand Popper or epistemology generally. They seem to view minds and brains as input/output machines. But that isn’t how that works.
I think that's pretty accurate. But if you believe reality simply works by executing a formal set of fundamental rules, how can you believe anything else? By this model, any system only ever has input, output, and functions that determine how that output is generated. What else is there?
I'm probably critiquing a different idea of rationality. My point was simply that there seems to exist arational domains where rationality (as critique of propositional content) is not a sufficient criterion for evaluation, arational domains. In other words, the knowledge of riding a bike is only partially possible to critique by reason. But to get a sense of what you mean. Do you think there always exist a way to get all ideas to jibe that's achieavable through reason?
I'm probably critiquing a different idea of rationality. My point was simply that there seems to exist arational domains where rationality (as critique of propositional content) is not a sufficient criterion for evaluation. In other words, the knowledge of riding a bike is only partially possible to critique by reason. But to get a sense of what you mean. Do you think there always exist a way to get all ideas to jibe that's achieavable through reason?
How do you evaluate an implicit idea rationally?
By what criterion do you evaluate an explicit idea versus an implicit idea?
Why would an AGI use spacial metaphors like understand, arrive, close to understand ideas? Ideas can be grasped in alot of different ways, which is why the metapahors we use to understand reality matters.
Why would an AGI use spacial metaphors like understand, arrive, close to understand ideas? Don't you think our particular perspective (which is filtered through the body) affects our conceptual system and ways we understand ideas?
Why would an AGI use spacial metaphors like understand, arrive, close to understand ideas? Ideas can be grasped in alot of different ways, which is why the metapahors we use to understand reality matters.
Why would an AGI use spacial metaphors like understand, arrive, close to understand ideas? Ideas can be grasped in alot of different ways, which is why the metapahors we use to understand reality matters.
#3629·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 days agoAn example is how brain regions originally used for moving the body through 3D space are repurposed cognitively to "move around" in idea-space. Some anecdotal evidence for this: notice how many movement metaphors structure propositional thinking. We say we're close to the truth, we under-stand, we grasp a concept, we arrive at a conclusion.
That has nothing to do with brain regions. An AGI running on a laptop would use the same phrases.
Why would an AGI use spacial metaphors like understand, arrive, close to understand ideas? Ideas can be grasped in alot of different ways, which is why the metapahors we use to understand reality matters.
#3636·Dennis HackethalOP revised 3 days ago…feelings and other nonrational mental contents…
Feelings aren’t “nonrational” per se. There’s a rational place for feelings. See #3632: I mean no disrespect when I say this but I think you don’t yet understand the notion of rationality I use.
Do you mean something more than finding unanimous consent between different kinds of ideas about rationality?
#3631·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 days agoI don’t think any of this addresses my original criticism that calling people “embodied agent[s]” is dehumanizing. It sounds like we’re studying rats. So what if cog-sci is dehumanizing? That doesn’t make it better.
Haven't thought about it like that. The purpose of speaking of an embodied agent is to generalize cognition. To understand what's relevant to an agent, you need to understand how that agent is embodied in the world.
There seems to exist arational domains where rationality (as critique of propositional content) is not an sufficient criterion for evaluation, arational domains. In other words, the knowledge of riding a bike is only partially possible to critique by reason. But to get a sense of what you mean. Do you think there always exist a way to get all ideas to jibe that's achieavable through reason?
I'm probably critiquing a different idea of rationality. My point was simply that there seems to exist arational domains where rationality (as critique of propositional content) is not a sufficient criterion for evaluation, arational domains. In other words, the knowledge of riding a bike is only partially possible to critique by reason. But to get a sense of what you mean. Do you think there always exist a way to get all ideas to jibe that's achieavable through reason?
There seems to exist arational domains where rationality (as critique of propositional content) is not an sufficient criterion for evaluation, arational domains. In other words, the knowledge of riding a bike is only partially possible to critique by reason. But to get a sense of what you mean. Do you think there always exist a way to get all ideas to jibe that's achieavable through reasoning?
There seems to exist arational domains where rationality (as critique of propositional content) is not an sufficient criterion for evaluation, arational domains. In other words, the knowledge of riding a bike is only partially possible to critique by reason. But to get a sense of what you mean. Do you think there always exist a way to get all ideas to jibe that's achieavable through reason?
#3634·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 days ago…cannot be reduced to explicit reasons…
Favoring explicit ideas over inexplicit ones is an example of irrationality.
How do you evaluate an implicit idea rationally?
#3632·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 days agoYou cannot ride a bike or maintain a relationship by thinking through quantum mechanical or propositional theories to word.
That isn’t what I mean by unity of knowledge. Of course we can’t process our knowledge in its totality at once. That’s necessarily piecemeal. But that doesn’t mean we can’t live a life guided by reason.
If you consider riding a bike an example of irrationality, and reasoning through quantum mechanics an example of rationality, then you haven’t understood Deutsch’s/my stance on rationality. I think you should study it, ask more questions about it, before you’re ready to criticize it.
There seems to exist arational domains where rationality (as critique of propositional content) is not an sufficient criterion for evaluation, arational domains. In other words, the knowledge of riding a bike is only partially possible to critique by reason. But to get a sense of what you mean. Do you think there always exist a way to get all ideas to jibe that's achieavable through reasoning?
Option 2: Go on hiatus from the day job/career, and focus on creative pursuits and research, full-time, for some number of months (duration perhaps depending on job opportunities).
Option 1: Continue working the day job and balancing the other pursuits on the side.
Indicate omissions
feelings and other nonrational mental contents
Feelings aren’t “nonrational” per se. There’s a rational place for feelings. See #3632: I mean no disrespect when I say this but I think you don’t yet understand the notion of rationality I use.
…feelings and other nonrational mental contents…
Feelings aren’t “nonrational” per se. There’s a rational place for feelings. See #3632: I mean no disrespect when I say this but I think you don’t yet understand the notion of rationality I use.
#3625·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 3 days agoThe act of making different types of idea jibe ((propositional ideas, feelings etc. ), doesn’t seem to me to be best explained as a rational process. They don’t have a shared metric or intertranslatability that would enable comparison. If feelings and other nonrational mental contents cannot be reduced to explicit reasons, then the process of integrating them cannot itself be arrived at through reasoning alone. This doesn’t mean reason cannot critique feelings or other nonrational content, only that the integrative process itself operates differently than rational deliberation.
…rational deliberation.
Rationality isn’t the same as deliberation. Deliberation can be part of a rational process but it’s not synonymous with it.
#3625·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 3 days agoThe act of making different types of idea jibe ((propositional ideas, feelings etc. ), doesn’t seem to me to be best explained as a rational process. They don’t have a shared metric or intertranslatability that would enable comparison. If feelings and other nonrational mental contents cannot be reduced to explicit reasons, then the process of integrating them cannot itself be arrived at through reasoning alone. This doesn’t mean reason cannot critique feelings or other nonrational content, only that the integrative process itself operates differently than rational deliberation.
…cannot be reduced to explicit reasons…
Favoring explicit ideas over inexplicit ones is an example of irrationality.
#3625·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 3 days agoThe act of making different types of idea jibe ((propositional ideas, feelings etc. ), doesn’t seem to me to be best explained as a rational process. They don’t have a shared metric or intertranslatability that would enable comparison. If feelings and other nonrational mental contents cannot be reduced to explicit reasons, then the process of integrating them cannot itself be arrived at through reasoning alone. This doesn’t mean reason cannot critique feelings or other nonrational content, only that the integrative process itself operates differently than rational deliberation.
feelings and other nonrational mental contents
Feelings aren’t “nonrational” per se. There’s a rational place for feelings. See #3632: I mean no disrespect when I say this but I think you don’t yet understand the notion of rationality I use.
#3622·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 3 days agoEven if knowledge is unified at some fundamental level, we might not be able to live by means of this unified knowledge alone (because of how we function or pure complexity). Living life might require operating through other «kinds» of knowledge which are pre- cognitive. You cannot ride a bike or maintain a relationship by thinking through quantum mechanical or propositional theories to word.
You cannot ride a bike or maintain a relationship by thinking through quantum mechanical or propositional theories to word.
That isn’t what I mean by unity of knowledge. Of course we can’t process our knowledge in its totality at once. That’s necessarily piecemeal. But that doesn’t mean we can’t live a life guided by reason.
If you consider riding a bike an example of irrationality, and reasoning through quantum mechanics an example of rationality, then you haven’t understood Deutsch’s/my stance on rationality. I think you should study it, ask more questions about it, before you’re ready to criticize it.
#3623·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 3 days agoThis is also borrowed from cognitive science. But what's I meant was to point to the fact there is "pre-conceptual" models, desires, attential salience etc. that impinge on and filters input to concious cognition. An example is how brain regions originally used for moving the body through 3D space are repurposed cognitively to "move around" in idea-space. Some anecdotal evidence for this: notice how many movement metaphors structure propositional thinking. We say we're close to the truth, we under-stand, we grasp a concept, we arrive at a conclusion.
I don’t think any of this addresses my original criticism that calling people “embodied agent[s]” is dehumanizing. It sounds like we’re studying rats. So what if cog-sci is dehumanizing? That doesn’t make it better.