Category: Philosophy

The question is this: Are we, as AI-interested people, going in the right direction in our research? Don’t we get stuck in a local minimum of the research and lose the currect direction?
Let’s be more precise. I assume that the goal of AI research is making a machine as intelligent and as capable as a human is (or even more). In this regard, I am a strong AI believer. Although I consider applied-AI (the AI that is used for helping human feel better and solve their daily needs) worthy, I do not believe it as the ultimate goal of the field (though it is just a subjective viewpoint).

Todays we have many different and powerful tools that all of them are considered as a part of AI, e.g. sophisticated margin maximizer used as a classifier for our pattern recognition problems, mathematically sound statistical theory of learning, different searching methods, several evolutionary-inspired methods, and many others. Now, if I ask you whether we can make an intelligent machine or not, what will be your answer? My answer is not! We cannot build it by our current level of knowledge. And I suspect we cannot make it even if we find better and tighter generalization bounds in the future! (;

I cannot prove it for sure (nobody can do!), but I feel so. I like this mathematical sophistication, but I think research on these topics distracted our mind from seeing the big picture. Where is a SVM is supposed to be in our intelligent robot? In its visual cortex?! 😀
What is the current way? I do not know. However, I have a guess. I will write more about it later.

Sometimes we think,
and sometime we think about our thoughts.
Is there any difference between these two?

Many people believe that intelligence is an embodied phenomenon: one cannot be intelligent without having a body to interact with the environment. It is not definable at all.
Moreover, intelligence or looking intelligent (which in someone’s opinion might be the same) needs that all intelligent-looking process of interaction do their job well. If you are able to do many symbolic processing very fast, but you cannot speak at all (or in the way you want) or you understand what you are required to do, you are not considered intelligent by others. I guess in this situation, not only you are not “considered” intelligent, but also you are “not” intelligent at all!

Once ago, I became interested in the cognitive mechanism behind jokes. I find these articles about them. Do you have any suggestion on this topic?

Marvin Minsky, JOKES and the Logic of the Cognitive Unconscious, 1980.
Abstract: Freud’s theory of jokes explains how they overcome the mental “censors” that make it hard for us to think “forbidden” thoughts. But his theory did not work so well for humorous nonsense as for other comical subjects. In this essay I argue that the different forms of humor can be seen as much more similar, once we recognize the importance of knowledge about knowledge and, particularly, aspects of thinking concerned with recognizing and suppressing bugs — ineffective or destructive thought processes. When seen in this light, much humor that at first seems pointless, or mysterious, becomes more understandable.

David Chalmers, A Taxonomy of Cognitive Jokes, 1989.
I read it once. I must think more about it and see if our jokes obey the same categorization. However, it is not apparent if it reveals much about the cognitive process of understanding jokes and humors.

Theory of Humor
I don’t know the author of the text. But it may give us some ideas.

Some categorization of jokes. Might be useful to do the same in Farsi.

One who is interested in philosophy shouldn’t miss this great collection of People with online papers in philosophy compiled by David Chalmers. You may also find out when any new philosophical paper have been added to the cyberspace by visiting Online Papers in Philosophy. You can find good resources on David Chalmers’ site.

This is a very interesting article showing a sample for the effect of language on thought. It is shown that different languages can shape the way people think and act in their world. This idea is extremely plausible in my mind and I have believed in it for a while.

Usage is right
Usage wins
All language is folk language
All language is slang

…
So where does that leave us and our term “water” and our associated concept of water? We have 1) molecules of stuff somewhere out there in the world in our rivers and streams. These molecules, as we encounter them, cause physical events to occur, which cause still other events, etc. until some event(s) in this chain ultimately impinge in some way upon 2) some mysterious things happening in our heads; and finally we have 3) our observable linguistic behavior, which presumably is caused or influenced by 2). We have a long way to go before we understand 2) and the exact relationship between it and 1) and 3), but once we do understand these things, there will be nothing left to explain about language and meaning. It is sometimes said that meaning is merely mediated by causal connections between the outside world and our minds. I, however, would say that meaning just is those causal connections, plus some mysterious stuff happening entirely within the mind. Any talk of meaning beyond this has no explanatory or predictive power at all. There simply are no facts about the universe, either extrinsic, third-person “scientific” facts, or subjective phenomenal what-its-like-to-see-red-type facts, that are explained by assuming magic meaning rays connecting our thoughts to trees, cars, and the Milky Way galaxy.

…

from John Gregg, “Language and Meaning”

“Two Cartesian Arguments for the Simplicity of the Soul”, American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3 (July, 1991), pp. 217-226