
The Cul-de-Sac of the Computational Metaphor - bookofjoe
https://www.edge.org/conversation/rodney_a_brooks-the-cul-de-sac-of-the-computational-metaphor
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hirundo
> Maybe computation isn’t the right principle metaphor to be thinking about in
> explaining this. It’s some sort of adaptation, and our computation is not
> locally adaptive, rather, our computation is only globally adaptive.

So perhaps much of the problem is that we're too often using a metaphor of
non-adaptive computation. If instead we analogize to forms like simulated
annealing, genetic algorithms, neural networks and so forth, the computational
metaphor becomes less cul-de-sac and more throughway.

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jmmcd
> One part of your talk is saying there is this range of metaphorical
> domains—dynamic systems, control systems, biological adaptation, resonance
> models—different kinds of pictures, and of that panopoly, we’ve chosen the
> computational almost uniquely to pursue.

> If instead we analogize to forms like simulated annealing, genetic
> algorithms, neural networks and so forth

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I see all of these things as well within
the boundaries of computation!

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mannykannot
I would say computation provides models for these systems, but, in general,
these systems are not themselves computations - some of them are not literally
the manipulation of abstract symbols by formal rules.

But, from a broader perspective, I don't think the "is this computation"
question is a very useful one to pursue. Any true understanding of the
conscious mind will have to answer the question of why it is different from
the things we understand now: if it is, in fact, computation, then it is
different in some way from the computations that we do understand now, and it
is the differences that will be key to understanding it. When we understand
it, we will have a informed basis for fitting it into our ontology.

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Isamu
Scratching the surface of some VERY interesting points of view.

Look at this list of participants: Daniel Hillis, Neil Gershenfeld, Frank
Wilczek, David Chalmers, Robert Axelrod, Tom Griffiths, Caroline Jones, Peter
Galison, Alison Gopnik, George Dyson, Freeman Dyson, Seth Lloyd, Rod Brooks,
Stephen Wolfram, Ian McEwan.

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jmmcd
Interesting to see McEwan mentioned as present (though he doesn't speak in
this transcript) -- a great writer, with a nice recent novel about AI, but not
really a technical guy!

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Zrdr
Great discussion. However I'm don't find Rodney Brooks arguments very
compelling.

See, near the end, the reply by Alison Gopnik.

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boyadjian
Those English people are really nice, using french words to express negative
things.

