Hi John,
On Mon, 4 Dec 1995, John O'Neill wrote:
> How de we do this? I think if we knew this we'd understand the
> creative process (and thus know whether or not it is possible to
> build a truly artificially intelligent creature :->).
You're reminded me that there's a listserv based at St. John's University
on Machine and Human Induction Learning. What is Induction? Finding the
similarities between different ideas and then mapping those similarities
to other domains. Don't ask me what the correlation is between induction
and your comment above, because I'm not really sure what it is. :)
I'm not a member of the listserv yet but I've got a blurb about how to
join. If you're interested, I can look it up. I'm not sure if the list
get's much traffic. I guess induction skills aren't that common.
> Kuhn describes
> the process of somebody recognising the noise, causing a crisis
> (which involves testing hypotheses and theories within a paradigm),
> which may lead to scientific revolution (when the assumptions on
> which the previous paradigm were based are challenged and the world
> is redefined).
I've been thinking about this. Dr. Ivan Blanco wrote something which I
think is relevant - the time factor in theories.
I think timing is a big part of scientific revolution. There's doesn't
necessarily need to be a crisis, just a person who has the right skills at
the right time and an environment that is receptive to that person.
Some people call this ability to be in the right place at the right time,
"destiny." I think that "destiny" can be engineered. How? That's for
someone else to write about and for someone else to teach. :) I think it
has a lot to do with synchronicity which, by the way, I think can also be
engineered.
> Is this the process you were describing Michael, and the one you
> were interested in Andrew? OR can we describe it better somehow?
First, I think I need to clarify. The process of recognizing patterns in
noise outside of the current paradigm is learning level 3, not learning
level 2. This is called enlightenment, if I'm not mistaken. Operating
within a paradigm is learning level 2, generating the context of context.
You could ask Marilyn Darling for more info on Bateson's learning level's
at mdarling@warren.med.harvard.edu (funny how I can remember her address
now.) She wrote her master's thesis on Bateson's learning levels.
Second, making this "process" systematically and methodically available to
people requires a bit more. I think it requires someone operating on
learning level 4 and then having them codify a set of distinctions that
other's can use to operate on learning level 3.
If you want to sporadically and randomly generate enlightenment and
scientific revolutions, then you wouldn't need those distinctions, you
would just need to continue to be curious and engage in the process of
discovery.
Since you, like me, want to build a "truly artificially intelligent
creature," I think we'd need to be able to use that set of distinctions
ourselves and then program an artificial intelligence that can use those
distinctions also.
"You think you know when you learn, are more sure when you can write,
even more sure when you can teach, but certain when you can program."
- Alan Perlis
Yale University computer scientist
By the way, I developed some high level contacts in the Philippine
government that would be interested in this area of AI research. I think I
can line up some funding to start a research institute. Maybe you'd be
interested in doing some joint research in this area? I think you work for
the Australian military so this might not be possible, but who knows?
Nice chatting with you,
-- Andrew Moreno Andrew Moreno <amoreno@broken.ranch.org>