Wesley R. Elsberry
Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002
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| Quote (GaryGaulin @ July 14 2013,21:21) | [...]
And as you requested (but I'm not going to search for the the page number just to call your bluff) is this from theory:
| Quote | The core computer model of this theory was reduced/simplified by experimentation with (primarily) Beta Class intelligence generating algorithm from Heiserman, D. L., in the book “How to Build Your Own Self-Programming Robot”, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, TAB Books, Inc., 1979. The following are David’s thoughts on classes of intelligence as they relate to the robotic system named “Rodney”.
(1) ALPHA CLASS
While Alpha Rodney does exhibit some interesting behavioral characteristics, one really has to stretch the definition of intelligence to make it fit an Alpha-Class machine. The Intelligence is there, of course, but it operates on such a primitive level that little of significance comes from it. ....the essence of an Alpha-Class machine is its purely reflexive and, for the most part, random behavior. Alpha Rodney will behave much as a little one-cell creature that struggles to survive in its drop-of-water world. The machine will blunder around the room, working its way out of menacing tight spots, and hoping to stumble, quite accidentally, into the battery charger. In summary, an Alpha-Class machine is highly adaptive to changes in its environment. It displays a rather flat and low learning curve, but there is virtually no change in the curve when the environment is altered.
(2) BETA CLASS
A Beta-Class machine uses the Alpha-Class mechanisms, but extends them to include some memory - memory of responses that worked successfully in the past. The main-memory system is something quite different from the program memory you have been using. The program memory is the storage place for Rodney’s basic operating programs-programs that are somewhat analogous to intuition or the subconscious in higher-level animals. The main memory is the seat of Rodney’s knowledge and, in the case of Beta-Class machines, this means knowledge that is grained only by direct experience with the environment. A Beta-Class machine still relies on Alpha-like random responses in the early going but after experiencing some life and problem solving, knowledge in the main memory becomes dominant over the more primitive Alpha-Class reflex actions. A Beta-Class machine demonstrates a rising learning curve that eventually passes the scoring level of the best Alpha-Class machine. If the environment is static, the score eventually rises toward perfection. Change the environment, however, and a Beta-Class machine suffers for a while, the learning curve drops down to the chance level. However, the learning curve gradually rises toward perfection as the Beta-Class machine establishes a new pattern of behavior. Its adaptive process requires some time and experience to show itself, but the end result is a more efficient machine.
(3) GAMMA CLASS
A Gamma-Class robot includes the reflex and memory features of the two lower-order machines, but it also has the ability to generalize whatever it learns through direct experience. Once a Gamma-Class robot meets and solves a particular problem, it not only remembers the solution, but generalizes that solution into a variety of similar situations not yet encountered. Such a robot need not encounter every possible situation before discovering what it is supposed to do; rather, it generalizes its first-hand responses, thereby making it possible to deal with the unexpected elements of its life more effectively. A Gamma-Class machine is less upset by changes and recovers faster than the Beta-Class mechanism. This is due to its ability to anticipate changes. |
The theory does not consider Alpha class intelligent but that does not matter since cells are now known to be far more complex than thought, back then. |
There is a reason Gary doesn't provide "the page number": His quotes are likely a pastiche from a variety of places in the book.
For example, part of his quote, the second part highlighted as germane to Gary's claim, is from p. 157:
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We have been fooling around long enough. It's high time that we get something rolling around the floor and behaving in a semi-intelligent manner. After completing the work and conducting the experiments outlined in this chapter, you will have been exposed, first hand, to a bit of genuine machine intelligence.
Recall that the essence of an Alpha-Class machine is its purely reflexive and, for the most part, random behavior. Alpha Rodney will behave much as a little one-cell creature that struggles to survive in its drop-of-water world.The machine will blunder around the room, working its way out of menacing tight spots, and hoping to stumble, quite accidentally, into the battery charger.
This chapter also includes...
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It is not connected there to either what Gary prepends or appends.
For the passages to aid Gary, though, there needs to be an unequivocal relation of Heiserman's statements to the conjecture that intelligence precedes and obviates evolutionary processes. Notice Heiserman's phrasing within the passage invokes phrasing common to popular descriptions of evolution: "struggles to survive". For Gary's argument, he'd need to assert that Heiserman is not, as it seems, writing in a fully evolutionary context, but is instead deploying the phrasing as an ironic reference. The essence of what Gary needs for his conjecture is not only absent in the passage as quoted (both by Gary and by me), but also there are other passages in the same book that indicate the the conjecture Gary is pushing has nothing to do with what Heiserman is saying. For example, early in the book (p. 16), we find the following:
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Alpha-Class robots might seem too simple to be of any real importance. Indeed, they are simply little creatures, but they do not represent a trivial step in the evolution of real robots. They manage to survive quite well in a moderately complex environment just as their organic counterparts, one-celled creatures, have survived throughout earth's biological history.
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Again, we see the reliance Heiserman places on evolutionary process, that evolution gives rise to intelligence, and no hint that some immanent "intelligence" precedes and obviates evolutionary process.
The notion that single-celled organisms possess some degree of intelligence is not an antievolutionary stance in and of itself. I had originally written the following as part of my request for the Heiserman citation, but figured that giving Gary too much scope for digression would be counter-productive.
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As for cells being intelligent, that isn't a claim that is unusual in science. Jeff Shallit and I make the point that intelligence can be assigned in a certain degree to single-celled life:
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But this skepticism is apparently based in part on belief in a sharp distinction between intelligent and non-intelligent causes: agency is always either natural or intelligent, and cannot be both. But what if purpose, intelligence, and design are words we assign to emergent properties of complex systems? What if intelligence is not a binary classification, but a multifactorial gradation, with thermostats and bacteria being only slightly intelligent, and computers and rats more so?
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Merely making the statement that intelligent behavior can be seen in some degree at the level of single cells is not an endorsement of Gary's claims. Been there, done the one, definitely am not doing the other.
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This will also "deal with" any number of citations of intelligence existing at any scale throughout biology. A degree of intelligence in evolved organisms is not the issue. Gary needs a process that precedes and obviates evolutionary processes. And doesn't have it.
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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker
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