Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #02459
To: Bob Shannon bshannon@tiac.net
From: Steven Bolt sbolt@xs4all.nl
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 07:45:34 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: CPU again? (was Beam genome)
On Sat, 17 Apr 1999, Bob Shannon wrote:
> > Little and large robots invariably get stuck, turn turtle, fall
> > down vulcano's, and run out of oomph. I can think of many tasks for
> > a `bot with the speed, agility and stamina of a mouse...
---8<---
> This sounds like BEAM mythology.
Making `Dante' a BEAM `bot :)
[ Robotic lawn mower ]
> > But recognizing grass! I can't think of a sensor that will do a
> > proper job. And I don't want to dig in a perimeter wire.
>
> This is a controller problem Steven. Its not a sensor problem.
What our (un)conscious mind sees, feels, hears and so on has been
preprocessed quite a bit, from raw data to information. I condsider
that preprocessing to be a part of the sensor system; the
controller is there, um, to controll.
> Unless your lawn is on the move often, you could use differential
> GPS to keep the mower on course and in bounds.
>
> Thats a better sensor than any in an ant!
Ants perceives the green stuff and other parts of their environment
well enough to farm. You may have been thinking transistors too
long to see the hopeless inferiority of machinery when compared to
life.
On Sat, 17 Apr 1999, Bob Shannon wrote:
> My point being that the objections against CPU control (that are
> a part of BEAM lore) are totally unfounded and incorrect.
Who's objecting? I design and build uC-controlled `bots and enjoy
it. They just don't belong on the BEAM list.
> 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'.
In that test, the human operator is limited by the possibilities of
the link and by the robot's body. Imho it merely proves the
importance of the biological body and its sensors.
> > > > 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.
There is an even bigger difference between a guessing automaton
and the learning abilities, the creativity of life.
We have this wonderful new technology: electronics, and now those
fascinating little uCs, cheap small camera's, lots of other great
stuff. And as with any new tool, we get carried away a bit. Like
the guy who just bought a hammer, and suddenly thinks that
everything looks like a nail. Life is not a nail.
Best,
Steve
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# sbolt@xs4all.nl # Steven Bolt # popular science monthly KIJK #
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