Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #02447
To: Steven Bolt sbolt@xs4all.nl
From: Bob Shannon bshannon@tiac.net
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 20:58:52 -0700
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: CPU again? (was Beam genome)
Steven Bolt wrote:
>
> On Wed, 14 Apr 1999, Bob Shannon wrote:
>
> ---8<---
> > There have been some very interesting experiments done with cellular
> > automata based robotic controllers. A lot of this work is unpublished
> > currently, existing as trade secrets.
> >
> ---8<---
> > But a sequenctial computer can simulate a cellular automata, and the
> > behavior of that automata has nothing to do with the sequence of
> > instructions being executed by the CPU.
>
> Terry's main point is this:
>
> > > It's something besides whether it's cpu or analog that will determine
> > > if something electronic is "alive" (there's that word again!), who's
> > > to say our little four neuron walkers are not alive? Can we tell?
>
> Is a `bot alive, or can it be alive. You point to cellular automata
> as the answer.
Actually I was pointing to cellular automata as an example where the
deterministic nature of the CPU's operation still allows for a much more
subtle and adaptable form of control.
My point being that the objections against CPU control (that are a part
of
BEAM lore) are totally unfounded and incorrect.
> One might also look at Tom Ray's Tierra, or other
> ways to introduce something like the genetic algorithm. But what
> are we looking at? Is it:
>
> A) Life,
>
> or
>
> B) A simulation of some aspects of life, as perceived by the human
> mind?
>
> If you think A is the right answer, you have an incredibly narrow
> concept of life. And B applies also to Tilden's Walkman. It kind of
> walks, thereby simulating an aspect of certain walking animals.
I think its a bit too narrow minded to limit the options to these two
choices.
At what quality of simulation do we enter the realm of emulation?
In my past work with automata driven robotics we had a very simple test
for this.
We had two identical robots, one equipped with an RF link to a human
operator.
The other was under automata based control. An observer interacted with
the two robots in a controlled environment and had to determine which
was under human
control.
When the observer could no longer tell which was which, we decided that
the
automata was truely 'intellegent'.
> > > Life and consciousness won't rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of
> > > a little chaos. Remember the monkeys, their typewriters and
> > > Shakespeare.
> >
> > Life did apparently arise in just this way!
>
> Terry was talking about adding randomness to some electronic
> circuitry. You can't compare that to life, because we don't begin
> to match the creativity of planet earth. And she took a couple of
> billion years to get from single cells to multicellular beings.
There is a big difference between adding a chaotic element to a robots
behavior and simply adding a randomness. This is especially true for
a leaning machine that must 'guess' at answers to new problems rather
than simply follow a pre-programmed set of rules.
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