Re: Finding useful functions- part 1
From: patty (pattyNO_at_SPAMicyberspace.net)
Date: 11/05/04
- Next message: David Longley: "Re: Finding useful functions- part 1"
- Previous message: Stargazer: "Re: Finding useful functions- part 1"
- In reply to: Wolf Kirchmeir: "Re: Finding useful functions- part 1"
- Next in thread: David Longley: "Re: Finding useful functions- part 1"
- Reply: David Longley: "Re: Finding useful functions- part 1"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 19:15:41 GMT
Wolf Kirchmeir wrote:
> Stargazer wrote:
>
>> Bill Modlin wrote:
>>
>>> [big snip]
>>> An organism cannot survive using extensional reasoning alone:
>>> heuristic intensionality is required to deal with the frame problem
>>> and reduce the dimensionality of problems sufficiently to bring them
>>> within the scope of extensional analysis. Extensional analysis is
>>> icing on the cake, we can survive without it. We can't survive
>>> without heuristics.
>>
>>
>>
>> Your whole post could have just said the above, and that would be
>> enough to make your point. Congratulations.
>>
>> *SG*
>
>
>
> IMO this is a specious disinction, or else shows a misunderstanding of
> extensionality, or else uses extension/intension in an unorthodox way. I
> can't tell which, since I'm not privy to Bill's intensions.
Translating that last sentence into Vally Girl Talk (VGT) you get "you
can't read Bill's thoughts". But in a more serious vein I asked about
this use of these terms when i first started posting here. You can read
the thread off of
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4e799a1d.0308240420.65309d34%40posting.google.com>
For me the best answer came from Stephen Harris referring to Anders post
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=599i7m%24p6u%40usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>
From Quine we get
""An opaque construction is one in which you cannot in general supplant
a singular term by a codesignative term (one referring to the same
object) without disturbing the truth value of the containing sentence.
In an opaque construction you also cannot in general supplant a general
term by a coextensive term (one true of the same objects), nor a
component sentence by a sentence of the same truth value, without
disturbing the truth value of the containing sentence. All three
failures are called failures of extensionality""
And from Longely himself we get words to the effect that an intensional
context is one which fails extensionality. Note that Longley does not
(usually) use the intensional\extensional distinction in the set
theoretic sense of the word. It is difficult for us who come from other
backgrounds to keep that straight and frequently there is confusion on
that point.
Longley uses the term "intensional opacity" a lot. Just this morning i
figured out how to translate that into VGT. It just means that people
don't understand each other. Where a context is extensional then people
are talking about the same thing, otherwise they probably are not. We
do see a lot of that on cap.
> To the
> extent that heuristics work, they are extensional. The intensional
> component is relevant only to the degree to which it affects extension
> (which may be great.)
Which can be true by definition. It does, however, presume that there
is some God's eye extensional context to which we have access. My point
is that we can remove that presumption by talking of the relationship
between contexts rather than some extesionality "property" of a single
context. For example: Israel's context of the defense of its nation is
intensional to the context of the plight of Palestinians. In VGT, they
don't understand each other.
> See Quine on the translation problem, w/ IMO
> crystallises the extension - intension issue. WQ shows that a) two
> people with a different intension for a term may have the same
> extension; and b) that common extension is the necessary condition for
> communication. The same principle applies to heuristics: the intensional
> component can be utterly different for two systems, yet so long as they
> have the same extension, they will be equally effective.
Well, i think you are using the set theoretic sense of the dichotomy
here, but i still understand what you mean. Quine's joking that the
class of animals with hearts has the same extension as the class of
animals with kidneys comes to mind. But if a forensic examiner's
heuristic for determining whether people had kidneys was to look for
their hearts, then he would be jumping to some bad conclusions. In this
case the definition of the class by intension (by the test for the
particular organs) is what works. I think that there has been a lot of
confusion on this point.
> At the level of
> NNs, IMO it's an irrelevant issue, since the only test that makes sense
> is efficacy: presumably (if we're still on topic for this thread) we
> want to design the NN so it performs "useful functions". In that case,
> extensions rule. Its intension(s), if any, don't matter.
>
In this case i think it is you who are playing free and loose with this
word "intension". But i still think i know what you mean :) Now using
our new "intensional to" predicate we can state your thesis above from a
wider context: "A designer wants to design the NN so that it performs
useful functions for the designer. Functions which are intensional to
the NN do not matter to the designer. "
> Footnote:
> Quine's result has implications for the communicating-with-an-alien
> problem, w/ took up a lot of unnecessary space on thsi forum not so long
> ago. IMO this one reduces to communicating-with-other-species, a problem
> that every person who interacts with domestic animals has solved more or
> less successfully. Of course, there will be people who insist that
> unless you have the same intension as your interlocutor, you haven't
> "really communicated."
That's a funny one. We communicate well with our domestic chickens ...
err we eat them. Yes, we have solved our problems of communicating with
them. Remember that famous twilight zone episode where humans were
translating an alien manual and just as the humans were getting on the
alien's ship to be taken to their home planet, somebody found out it was
a cook book.
> Such people have a touching trust in the ability
> of humans to guess correctly at each other's intensions, a trust that 15
> minutes in a literature class discussing a poem should dispel forever.
>
I am totally with you here. Now could you tell me why DL plays so many
guessing games ?
> If BM merely means "internal" vs "external", the distinction is fuzzy,
> to put it mildly.
Personally i don't see what your problem is with this distinction.
Specify a time-space manifold, like for example the skin of an
individual, those processes which occur inside that manifold are
internal, those outside are external.
> But IMO BM has a fuzzy notion of internal - extrenal
> anyhow, since he ignores levels: analysis at the level of a single
> (minimal) NN automatically makes all other NNs connected to it external
> to it. That's a distinctction that matters IMO, since it affects the
> extension of "external signal" and "quality of external signal", both of
> which are necessary concepts, I think (allowing for the ambiguity of
> "quality, w/ should be resolvable.)
How the manifold is defined is entirely up to the convenience and
purposes of the agent and the technology making the analysis.
Incidentally, TIA, for a rational discussion of these issues :)
patty
- Next message: David Longley: "Re: Finding useful functions- part 1"
- Previous message: Stargazer: "Re: Finding useful functions- part 1"
- In reply to: Wolf Kirchmeir: "Re: Finding useful functions- part 1"
- Next in thread: David Longley: "Re: Finding useful functions- part 1"
- Reply: David Longley: "Re: Finding useful functions- part 1"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
