[FRIAM] New ways of understanding the world

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Hmm! I don't think I (or glen) have to be a creationist.  Only a "start-in-the-middle-ist".  I am not interested in the "first structure".  Let's figure out hoW all the others Work and then We'll Worry about the first one.  (sorry, my doubleU key is effed up and Lenovo is back ordered on keyboards.  Does anybody kno a Lenovo executive I could have slaughtered.  )  The interest in the first of anything is just creationism set loose from the constraints of religion.  
n
Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2020 7:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] New ways of understanding the world

How about Try random stuff and possibly reproduce?   It is starting to sound like you are a creationist. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2020 4:45 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] New ways of understanding the world

The AI has to have something to *do*. That mechanism amounts to a theory. If the AI looks for patterns in digits, then "look for patterns in the digits" is a type of theory. If the AI tries to copy a set of encrypted digits, then "decrypt and copy the digits" is the theory.

I would further argue that the AI cannot exist, the recipe/algorithm can't exist, without some schematic definition of the things it'll operate on and for tests of a successful operation. So, it would make sense to claim that all 3 are required for there to be a theory. I'm not making that strong of a claim. I'm only trying to back up Nick on his claim that there must be some sort of prior theory for any of it to "work" ... however "work" might be understood.

On 11/30/20 4:35 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> The one is the AI or the rat and its related gene sequence?  Or you need all three?   I claim that the last two are not a theory, and that an AI could do that data mining.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2020 4:29 PM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] New ways of understanding the world
> 
> Well, that *system*, {one, person, genetic sequence} contains an endogenous theory (or a set of possible theories). If you slice out the {one} doing the operating, then you lose the theory.
> 
> On 11/30/20 4:22 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> So if one is given a person (or a rat) and a genetic sequence that animal amounts to an endogenous theory?  
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
>> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2020 4:14 PM
>> To: friam at redfish.com
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] New ways of understanding the world
>>
>> Well, sure. But just because the theory is endogenous, doesn't imply that theory does not *exist*, nor that it's not *prior* to the launch. So, even in that case, Nick's correct that the theory (or a spanning kernel of it) exists before-hand.
>>
>> On 11/30/20 4:06 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>> Once one figures out how the monitor reacts then one can see how certain registers change as a result of changes in instruction sequences.     The relationship of a perturbation to an outcome is simple, learnable and relatively unambiguous for a typical microprocessor.    Assembly of subroutines follow the same principles.  (One can observe a stack with enough experimentation.)    The language is learned (not given) and the axioms implied by the structure of the machine.  The goal of copying is sort of beside the point. 
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
>>> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2020 3:51 PM
>>> To: friam at redfish.com
>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] New ways of understanding the world
>>>
>>> But if we use the word "theory" in its minimal sense of "a language and a set of axioms", then your "to be copied so that it does the same thing" *is* a theory, albeit a different theory (or containing theory) for one that would treat the [un]copyable application over and above the act of copying. What would be interesting would be the *number* and diversity of theories validatable/executable against any given set of tokens.
>>>
>>> On 11/30/20 3:33 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>>> I spent a fair amount of my youth disassembling boot procedures of various copy protection schemes.   There one is given a list of numbers that bootstrap an operating system and an application.  A small portion of that list of numbers is relevant to preventing that list of numbers from being copied from one media to another.   It wasn’t really necessary to have a theory of the application, generally, to understand how to change the numbers to make that list copyable.   If one had no theory of a computer instruction set or of an operating system, but was just given a disk and the goal of copying it to get the computer to do the same thing when the copied disk was put in to the disk drive instead of the original disk, it is possible to learn everything that is needed to learn which numbers to change.   No oscilloscope needed, no theory of solid state physics, etc.  Ok, maybe one reference manual.   Biology is the same, but without a concise reference manual.
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of 
>>>> *thompnickson2 at gmail.com
>>>> *Sent:* Monday, November 30, 2020 1:25 PM
>>>> *To:* 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' 
>>>> <friam at redfish.com>
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] New ways of understanding the world
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> All,
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> I feel like this relates to a discussion held during Nerd Hour at the end of last Friday’s vfriam.  I was arguing  that given, say, a string of numbers, and no information external to that string, that no AI could detect “order” unless it already possessed a theory of what order is.  I found the discussion distressing because I thought the point was trivial but all the smart people in the conversation were arguing against me.
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