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Thinking like a thinking thing?

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

As I am still uncertain as to what exactly I am supposed to be writing about, I will start this post with a bit of trepidation. I’m no philosopher, so I cannot sum up the kinds of questions that have been plaguing great thinkers throughout time with some flip answers of a college student intent on doing maybe a day or two of thinking. Tossing words such as “metaphysical”, “reality”, and “humanity” around are a sure way that someone (probably even myself) is going to stagger under the implications attached to the word. (Maybe I shouldn’t even be writing at all, because this is less of a communication device and more of a virtual vomit; how can I know I’m “thinking” if I can’t even define the word?). Considering the kinds of things brought up by the question, such as what it takes to be human, what it means to think, and how can we define words using other words, the educational plate is pretty crowded. It is almost like looking at a five-course banquet and being told that you are only to eat one course, yet still be able to describe the banquet’s other courses with a degree of knowledge as to how they taste. Regardless, here’s attempt number one of the Emergence homework.

There seem to be two components I can infer from the original question posed to us in class. The first part regards to whether impulse/intention comes from the physical or the ephemeral. The second part is almost a sub-set of the first part, regarding the question of whether or  not thought is an illusion.

Okay… so I tend to get a bit pedantic when I’m nervous. How do I unpack the previous sentences?

First: impulse and intention. Are they the same thing? Probably not. Impulse is something most likely connected to the simplest behaviors perhaps even associating with the concept of instinct. In fact, Wikipedia mentions the strong hints of “a wish or urge“ in relation to control; i.e. a lack thereof regarding the urge. (Surprisingly, the use of “urge” also implies base instincts and the connections back to instinct or “sub-conscious” level of operation). Intention seems to imply a decision or some kind of extra layer to a decision than “mere impulse”. By claiming “intentionality” there are strong hints of conscious thought and philosophy. This brings us to the most important topic at hand: does this matter? By bothering to define the words, it would seem as if this were so; however, the main question being addressed is directly related to this issue regarding impulse and intention.

If we have separate words for impulse and intention, are there also differentiations between the hardware and software of the human body? The physical reality of a human body (the hardware, the chassis, the flesh, the “reality”) versus the software of the human body (the mind, the soul, the spirit, the thinking, the “fantasy”), surely these are not the simple breakdown between impulse and intention? We attribute the ideas of “idea”, “thought”, “metaphysical” to the realm of the brain; however, should it also not be considered that the brain is comprised of both the hardware and software to be called a brain? Does this mean we are to call a “thought” not only a metaphysical event, but also a physical reality? Or tying this back to the original question is a thought only physical manifestation of chemicals?

Okay, so in making a huge circle out of the land of “thinking too hard”, where are we, where we began? (and if Baibh is supposed to be answering a question (as in singular), why are there MORE questions than when this post started?)

Well, in order to get an answer… why not say that the formation of a thought requires both aspects? This is similar to the issue of “maturity” and “making sense” that came from the reading for this upcoming Monday. Children are able to change some physical pieces in order to create new metaphysical pieces (the evolution of body and mind in child development). Is such a thing as creating oneself “pre-programmed”? Is this rushing into the dangerous territory of “nature vs. nurture”?

To bring it back into the realm of semi-understandable, I would like to point out that impulse and intent are a combination of the physical and metaphysical. If we consider a human being to essentially be a “complete robot”, wherein there is hardware and software, then we could come to the conclusion that both physical and metaphysical properties are necessary components in the creation of a thought. A program cannot be run without hardware and hardware cannot run without programs, and there is no true way to say “hardware is the driver” or “software is the key”. As such, the “human robot” (for lack of a better term) is then a product of input. Unless there is something which one can react to, there can be no thought. Without input, there can be no thought. So is thought physical or metaphysical? I’d say both because hardware without anything to run on it is just as useless as software without anything to run it on.

This leads us to the sub-question of whether or not thought is an illusion. Depending on the definition of thought, one can come to different conclusions. If one believes thought to be “hardware” and wired into the brain, then it would probably be tied to a specific portion of the brain. Is there a specific region of the brain for thought? It’s something to think about.

If one claims thought as software, the issue of measurement will arise. However, there is an answer in the vague reactions of the brain in response to the thoughts. If one imagines a memory bank sitting in a computer, one knows there are millions of bits and bytes and such stored inside such an object. However, it is not a truly tangible thing as 250Gigs and 500Gigs can fit into the same box with no outer difference. How do we know what such an object can actually hold? Looking at the human brain is a similar experience. We cannot physically map where thoughts in the brain are stored. Likewise, if thoughts are merely a pre-programmed response to the plans encoded into our DNA, then surely we are absolved of anything we might do. Eerily enough, this means I was destined to write this essay IN ENGLISH since my birth. How odd!

Okay, so since thought surely isn’t just an illusion where I’m manifesting something that has been determined since my coding as  little DNA molecule, what is thought? Is it the nebulous connection between the input and eventual output? I would like to think so, but maybe there are other answers out there.

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Anthropomorhphism, Einstein and Homunculi?

Friday, November 13th, 2009

To start this post, I think that some terminology and outlining ought to be explored before running into other thoughts. First, consider Einstein’s brain. It has little neurons that just fire according to (essentially) random patterns that will eventually make some sort of sense, perhaps eventually creating thoughts. Fairly understandable, so what about a brain made of Einsteins? This seems to be a classic case of anthropomorphism (the human desire to give animated traits to inanimate objects. This also applies to “my nerves were screaming in pain” as nerves do not have vocal chords with which to scream, and might even be dubbed a metaphor if one were feeling particularly pedantic that day.) As such, objects like the brain in the Einstein example, are given personalities. A particular comic found here, addresses the concept of anthropomorphism in an amusing visual example.

Second, the idea of a homunculus (the singular form of homunculi… as evidenced by the “i” at the end this word, it derives from Latin) is the concept of a tiny person that unpacks into a full human. This is almost related to the idea of a brain made of Einsteins in that one of the two definitions of Homunculus refers to the idea of a “little human” driving the brain. Expanding the idea of only one driver in a brain ( a homunculus) to multiple drivers (the Einsteins) seems to be a fairly logical next step if combined with the idea of anthropomorphism. If we say that each neuron is an Einstein, then we have independent-thinking decision-makers that create a thinking unit, which in this case is a brain.

Okay, so playing into this idea, what does this mean? An “Einstein” would be a “voter”, and if we’re counting all the “Einstein” in the brain to be equal in value and have equal votes, it is likely that it would take forever to move… if the brain could even function at all. If each “Einstein” has an internal decision-making process and each “Einstein” can develop as a personality on its own, there is no real impetus to work with the other “Einstein”s. As such, the deliberation over an even as simple as “pass this message on” could stop in the originator “Einstein’s” own spot. If a brain requires the passing of a message along a certain path, and if the message never makes it along the path, can the Einstein’s then be considered a brain?

If we are looking at Einstein’s brain, what does that mean? Essentially, we are looking at an ant colony. Without deliberation, the individual neurons are firing or not firing. This is as simple as using 1’s and 0’s to program with binary, if we were to talk in computing terms. As discussed in class previously, there are no leader ants, no monarchies, no universal decision-makers in an ant colony. (Sorry Dreamworks and Pixar, ANTZ and A Bug’s Life are not scientifically sound.)

So, going back to the what’s the difference between Einstein’s brain and a brain made of Einsteins? Well, in a word: depth (i.e. one has one level Brain::neurons, the other has Einsteins::brains::neurons). If I were to expand on the topic a little I would have to also include point of view. Because at the individual level, one could have conversations with Einstein. One cannot converse with Einstein’s brain, but on can talk to the Einstein’s in a brain made of Einsteins. Kind of mind-boggling. It’s similar to the idea presented in “Prelude . . . Ant Fugue” (a chapter in a book, The Mind’s I, by Douglas Hofstadter).

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Metacat – it’s a Copycat that philosophizes about itself! O_O

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Originally I was going to wait and see what others posted so I could respond. Apparently this is not in the cards. So… The Metacat paper was intriguing. (Yes Doug, I know I need to elaborate on the word.)

In class we covered a lot of pertinent points regarding the Metacat paper: mostly what made Metacat so important to emergence as well as what the differences between Metacat and other models that had come before. I’m fascinated by the different categorizations required to look at the “world” of Metacat. Introducing the idea of having a computer make decisions for itself regarding analogies also emphasizes that the old categorization methods of “Reagan::parents as drugs::candy” does not make sense as the categorization itself is based on something totally different from the computer’s perspective. This seems to stress the fact that computers do not “think” in ways that humans do, but also takes advantage of how a computer “thinks” in order to interpret and create analogies. In this instance, Metacat is really awesome because of “self-awareness” in which there is an additional component of memory. The introduction of bias, even if it is small (as we discussed with the segregation model that was mentioned in class previously) has a noticeable effect on the outcome of a given test. Therefore, the weights are still important, yet useless without the memory implemented by the Metacat model. In this self-referencing in order to look towards the future Metacat is amazingly more concise. Instead of looking only at the present (as seen by most previous models) to springboard to the future speculation, there is also a reference check of past attempts, which makes for a far stronger model of emergence. (We noticed this problem of “no looking back” when we attempted to use the gaca.py to match a string.)

Okay… I think I’m starting to get incoherent, so I’ll sign off for now.

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Emergence (the book)

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Hey ladies and gents!

I guess the discussion we had in class regarding the reading should be continued here in the blog. I am not certain exactly where I wish to go with this discussion, save that it is about the emergent properties of a book versus a blog.

In finishing the book (Part Three… I know it’s not required, but it asks pertinent questions) Johnson mentions that although writing about Emergence, there is no actual emergent behavior evident in his book. (I guess there’s “semi-evident” behavior where we “mind read” an implicit conversation into the book with the author, but I wouldn’t bet too much on the implicit.)

Basically, in class it is possible to discuss Emergence and perhaps even evolve emergent behavior to be able to talk about the subject, but a book is a one-way street. This is like saying, “so what” at the end of a thesis statement; yeah we talked a good game, but can any of us really say what emergence really is? Also, by the end of the book, have we actually pinpointed anything?We kind of decided on no. However, with this blog, will we be able to “emerge” and answer, or because it is in an implicit “book-type” format will we be making statements into the ether?

Is a recap of class in order? In pursuing the discussion of Emergence, we stumbled upon the idea of “learning” as being a property of inanimate objects such as cities. This led to a further distinction: the internet versus the computer. Whereas a computer can be programmed to produce emergent behavior, it is an impossibility at present to do so with the internet. We rehashed the folly of believing the internet could produce emergent behavior through learning as it was a repository and not “self-using”. (Similar to the idea of a feral library, the internet can’t spontaneously develop self-changing learning patterns. A library holds the books, and the books do not incite revolution on the part of the library). This idea of the Internet not being like a brain. On Page 118 of Johnson’s book, he quotes Steven Pinker to express how the Internet would fail at being a brain, “The Internet is in some ways like a brain, but in important ways it is not. The brain doesn’t just let information ricochet around the skull… But the Internet, not being a cohesive replicating system, has no such organization” [italics added] (118, Johnson; 2001). In looking over this difference between “learning” through self-change and feedback (as mentioned by Johnson in Emergence) and being a repository of knowledge, could we come to the conclusion that there is a lack of feedback in a blog form?

I think it is inarguable that there is no feedback in book form. As informative as a book may be, there is no dialogue which could lead to learning and changed behavior through feedback. Therefore, I ask whether a blog is closer to a book, or closer to the conversation we have in the classroom. I am under the impression that there is a general consensus that interaction in the classroom is emergent behavior (similar to the sidewalk theory posited by Johnson).

Granted, unlike in class where I can rudely interrupt my fellow classmates (who surprisingly don’t tell me to shut up, they’re so nice ^_^), I can monologue on for HOURS in this post. (Really, don’t test me, because I am totally willing to blog until I fall asleep at the keyboard.) If this is possible, does it negate the whole feeling that we’re communicating through posting and then “comment” as a reply (exhibiting “feedback” behavior which seemed to be important to the “learning” of emergence)? Will the blog exhibit emergent behavior through the changing conversations, or is it a bunch of monologues formed into some semblance of an agreeable argument similar to that of a book?

Will I ever stop posting questions? (Will I ever get around to ANSWERING my own questions?) Also, I think I might have stopped making sense a few paragraphs back, as I am a little wonky from lack of sleep.

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