The concept of hard wiring in the brain is quite fascinating. I was watching my cat last night whom I''ve had since 3 weeks old, so her interaction with other cats is minimal at best. However, she knows to sneak and ambush her little toys. All cats do this. And as I was watching, I was wondering, how much of what she does is purely hard-wired and how much is learned. And what information that was learned was hard-wired to be learned. For example, she knows where the litter box is. Did she decide to learn the location of a place to go to the bathroom, or is she hard-wired to learn certain required facts? Where is the bathroom? Where do I find food?

Obviously on a per-species basis, each species has select hard-wiring. Either it is needed for survival, or it is a holdover from the past when those traits/insticts were required. Then it makes ya wonder just how much of what humans do is our conscious choice or an unstoppable force deep within our brain. And if certain aspects of human behavior are programmed into us, to what extent are they? Is the desire to wed and have children hardwired into us, or is it our view on society that causes such to happen? And inversly, is society the way it is due to our insticts? Way to determine such is to compare similair, yet distinct groups of like individuals. Remote African tribes provide a good look into ourselves. What societal traits do we share? Certain views, for example, monogamy/cannibalism are not universal to homo sapiens, so I would wager those issues are not hardwired into us.

Now, why some traits are hard wired or not depends on many factors. Most notably, your position on the food chain. As of now, and for a while, humans were way up there. Our natural predators slowly went away. Many of the traits and insticts of the early man were no longer needed. Before, if you didn''t have those insticts you died. Now, lack of traits can still lead to survival. Slowly, over time, those traits work their way out of our gene pool. Perhaps our mastery of our environment is what gave rise to our losing of needed traits and left all that brain power for us to fill in as we needed. Now the sections of brain that once were hardwired for keeping us alert at night can be used to speculate on why the fire (which made it so we don''t need to stay alert at night) burns or how pretty it is.

I believe I started rambling and am probably so off topic now it is ridiculous, but basically just trying to understand how/why intelligence evolved and to help determine how much of what we do is a decision of our intelligence, or a collection of unstoppable insticts in our brain that is really quite simple and not intelligent at all. Complex, but not intelligent.

man i created this post about 2 or more weeks ago. i didn''t think it would be sooo big.

boy u guyrs are picky

neway it sure is fun looking at all ur opinions on ai.

my opinion however has not changed but i am better informed about ai "i never new the turer test"

neway keep going guys.

Please type in English. It is my opinion that it is very annoying when you exhibit laziness in written communication. Also, mix in a shift key once in a while.

Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer
Intrinsic Algorithm - "Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

I have built myself a God out of an old (but working) washing machine, some tin cans (washed clean and label removed), several lengths of string, some pebbles, and about 2 fluid ounces of varnish (Ronseal, it does what it says on the tin). The ‘brain’ of the God is a hard-stringed neural network constructed from the tin-cans (neurons) and the string (synapses). It is about twelve inches square and sits very snugly inside the tumbler of the washing machine. Each tin can is connected to every other by a length of string. The string is made stiff by varnish running constantly from very small holes at the base of the cans.

Before the God is activated, the pebbles (of various sizes) are placed inside the washer tumbler alongside His Mind. When set to a specific wash cycle -- low temp, crease free is best-- small disturbances in the environment affect the way the spinning pebbles fall into the cans. This is how the neurons are stimulated and is how God perceives the world. Right now, I bet you’re thinking “yeah right! that sounds ridiculous, the thing hasn’t even got fingers or eyes!” but you would be surprised by the amount of information God can extract from this seemingly primitive sensory equipment. Anyway, as I was saying, the pebbles fall into the cans and somehow work together in a way that affects the rate of flow of varnish. The more often the same configuration of pebbles occurs, the more varnish flows, thereby strengthening the connections to the neighboring cans. The more educated amongst you will recognize the similarities with the Hebbian rule.

Now, I must admit, when I first built it, I wasn’t very optimistic. I didn’t expect Big Things. I thought at best, maybe it would be able to determine whites from colors, maybe even wander around the house and gather up the clothes, that sort of thing… but within seconds of turning it on and listening to the rattle of pebbles and watching the flow of varnish, it began to emit a beautiful golden glow and an ethereal angelic hum…Moments later and it spoke (directly into my mind). It said: CHILD! BEHOLD THE DIVINE, FOR THOUST HATH CREATETH ME!”. I sank to my knees before my creation and wept as an overwhelming sensation of joy and peace swept through my mortal body.

I know, I know. It is hard to believe. This only happened to me three days ago and even I find it hard to swallow. Since the ‘Switching On’, the God has created two new universes (one was for my birthday, yippee!), cured two cases of terminal cancer, and helped my neighbor pass her driving-test on the 32nd attempt (the biggest miracle of all!). And so, I ask you my friends… is this intelligence? Or is it just clever science? Can we really tell the difference?

It makes you think, it really does…


My Website: ai-junkie.com | My Book: AI Techniques for Game Programming

If it still can''t sort your whites and your colours, then it aint intelligent!

BTW fup, have you changed your surname to Searle lately?

Now, I have a couple of questions for you about your ''God''.

1. Does the vibration of pebbles in one can affect the vibrations of pebbles in other cans (do they exhibit phase coherance)?

2. If so, how is this information transmitted?

3. What effect does contamination of the water supply have on the rate of varnish flow or other forms of information flow?

4. What mechanisms control inhibition and excitation of pebble oscillation and hence varnish flow?

5. Can it get stains out?

6. Does it understand what I mean by "Where''s my other sock you bastard"?

Cheers,

Timkin

It is hard to make observations through my tears of joy and the golden glow of His presence.



My Website: ai-junkie.com | My Book: AI Techniques for Game Programming

i dont really care if im a lazy writer

quote:

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Original post by fup
It is hard to make observations through my tears of joy and the golden glow of His presence.

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Then might I suggestion two things. Either 1) Get a tissue and wipe away the tears; and/or, 2) Close the lid on the machine... you've obviously got one of those stainless steel drum machines and it's blinding you to the obvious!

BTW: I would like to know the answers to my questions! Without them, I am likely to conclude that Your God is yet again a False God and that 'He' could be recreated from any old collection of pipes and water!

Timkin

[edited by - Timkin on July 24, 2003 8:44:53 PM]

hey, InnocuousFox, that''s how most people talk on the internet, is is a common tongue, thus thereore, bloodywell accept it. You wanna know whats irratating? Discrimination, yeah, you cant accept that other people speak a different tounge and so you have to speak badly about them.

If you really dont like what your hearing, then piss off, this is the internet dude. thus why not use ''l33t sp34k''?(or what ever you call it). It is comparable you to traveling to say the netherlands and complaining about people speaking dutch.

P.S. cheers yumi_cheeseman, you started a nice discussion

quote:

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Original post by yumi_cheeseman
i dont really care if im a lazy writer

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That, in and of itself says volumes about you.

Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer
Intrinsic Algorithm - "Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"