AI and cognitive psychology rant (getting more and more OT - tell me if I should shut up)

[Alex Martelli]

Stephen Horne wrote:
   ...
>>no understanding, no semantic modeling.
>>no concepts, no abstractions.
> 
> Sounds a bit like intuition to me.

Not to me.  E.g., an algorithm (say one of those for long multiplication)
fits the list of no's (it may have been _invented_ or _discovered_ by some
human using any of those -- or suggested to him or her in a drunken stupor
by an alien visitor -- or developed in other ways yet; but that's not
relevant as to what characteristics the algorithm itself exhibits) but
it's nothing like intuition (humans may learn algorithms too, e.g. the
simple one for long multiplication -- they're learned and applied by
rote, "intuition" may sometimes eventually develop after long practice
but the algorithm when correctly followed gives the right numbers anyway).

> Of course it would be nice if
> computers could invent a rationalisation, the way that human brains
> do.
> 
> What? I hear you say...

You must be mis-hearing (can't be me saying it) because I'm quite aware
of the role of rationalization, and even share your hypothesis that it's
adaptive for reasons connected to modeling human minds.  If I have a
halfway decent model of how human minds work, my socialization is thereby
enhanced compared to operating without such a model; models that are
verbalized are easier to play what-if's with, to combine with each other,
etc -- they're generally handier in all of these ways than nonverbal,
"intuitional" models.  (You focus on the models OTHER people have of
me and our "need for excuses to give to other people", but I think that
is the weaker half of it; our OWN models of people's minds, in my own
working hypothesis, are the key motivator for rationalizing -- and our
modeling people's minds starts with modeling OUR OWN mind).

> 1.  This suggests that the only human intelligence is human
>     intelligence. A very anthropocentric viewpoint.

Of course, by definition of "anthropocentric".  And why not?  "The
proper study of mankind is man" is after all the central credo
of "humanism" (from "homo", meaning "human being") and the reason
the "humanities" (ditto) used to play a central role in education.

Humanism (besides being the core philosophy that engendered the
Renaissance -- properly accounting for it, since its still-murkish
beginnings in 13th-century Italy) also has an interesting biological
connection: that "proper study of man" may well be the key reason
that made "runaway" brain development adaptive in our far forebears --
at some point, the competitive development of abilities to convince
others, to not be too easily convinced by others, etc, etc, became
an evolutionary pressure for brain development (to the point where
head size became a very serious issue during birth).  Of course it
then had interesting side effects outside the area of socialization,
and I understand (the child of a very dear friend of mine having
Asperger syndrome) that Asperger syndrome is very connected to this
area -- what kind of mental approach / modeling is used for purposes
of socialization vs for other purposes.

But the point remains that we don't have "innate" mental models
of e.g. the way the mind of a dolphin may work, nor any way to
build such models by effectively extroflecting a mental model of
ourselves as we may do for other humans.  In a way that gives us
more objectivity in the matter (except where we end up projecting
our mental models of humans on non-humans anyway, inappropriately
and ineffectively), and I do see the interest of that in science
or philosophy (perhaps in the very long run with practical returns,
but intrinsically motivated by joy of understanding things _for
the mere sake of understanding_, without thought of returns).  Being
an engineer, myself, rather than a scientist or philosopher, I do keep
an eye out on "returns", though (Plato would doubtlessly be utterly
appalled...).  I cherish all my living brethren, sure, but my name,
which happens to be the same as that of the author of that "proper
study" quote, DOES after all mean "protector of men" (ok, ok, it's
"men" in the masculine sense, as opposed to "anthropos" being "men"
in the "human beings" sense -- that's why I call myself "Alex",
just the "protector" part of the name, and drop the qualification;-);
marine mammals, silicon circuits, and vortices of pure energy, take
a secondary role in my interests.


> 2.  Read some cognitive neuroscience, some social psychology,
>     basically whatever you can get your hands on that has cognitive
>     leanings (decent textbooks - not just pop psychology) - and

Done, a little (I clearly don't have quite as much interest in the
issue as you do -- I spread my reading interests very widely).

>     then tell me that the human mind doesn't use what you call brute
>     force methods.

Of course we do -- we can and do learn (by rote -- brute force) such
algorithms as long multiplication, Bayes', etc, and can apply them,
just for example.  But I can for example observe the way people play
bridge, and their rationalizations about why they've done X or Y;
and the way GIB plays bridge, and _its_ "rationalizations" (fully
deterministic cause->effect steps, except for the montecarlo sample --
a mere matter of time: there are only C(26,13)=10,400,600 ways two
unseen hands can be dealt -- just a few more turns of Moore's Law
and complete brute-force analysis of the whole range of them will
become quite feasible); and (with the help of some introspection on
how _I_ play bridge and rationalize about it) come to my conclusions
about the mechanisms involved.  Bridge has the advantage of having
attracted some very deep thinkers from different areas -- I have
already mentioned Borel, and how important his "Theorie Mathematique
du Bridge" was, but the one I had in mind now was Geza Ottlik --
not very well known in the West, perhaps, but an important figure in
Hungarian literature... with maths and physics as his university
background.  A famous quote of his is "the writer should not talk,
should never explain his work" -- but he did not extend this theory
to bridge play.  In "Adventures in Card Play", a masterpiece without
equals, he develops, through a series of hands, many with multiple
alternative lines of play and defense which he analyzes carefully,
the full theory of a series of card-play strategies never previously
systematically developed in the vast literature of the game.  The
process of "rationalization", the building of a reasonably abstract
but usable theory to account for a vast set of concrete possibilities,
is one fascinating area to study; the play of those hands at the table,
before AND after strudying the theory Ottlik developed, are two more
areas of even more fascination in the endless quest to understand
the actual workings of the human mind.  Should I ever manage, at the
table (or virtual table -- these days online bridge is often more
convenient than actual pasteboard-pushing:-), the possibility of e.g.
a "backwash squeeze" (one of Ottlik's inventions/discoveries) -- and
how to perform such recognition is one fourth fascinating subject --
my play of the hand will use completely different mechanisms from
those it would have used before I had read Ottlik's work (in his
articles for Bridge World, before it was collected into a book).

The "brute force" bit would come into play if (ha, fat chance) I
ever recognized that the hand has e.g. two possible lines of play:
I could play for a backwash squeeze which will succeed in case
A, B or C, or I could play for (e.g.) a reverse-dummy which will
succeed in case D, E or F.  Now, if I am to compute what is the
best line, I _can_ (if I have enough ability for mental computation:
paper and pen not allowed, much less calculators -- hard to police
in online play, of course) do some mental combinatorial arithmetic
(often including a spot of Bayes theorem if I can infer the chance
that an opponent would have followed a certain line of play if he
or she had holding X, to go back from the line actually followed
to the probability of holdings) and determine the probabilities.

But that's the least of issues in practical play.  I may well be
in the upper tenth of a centile among bridge players in terms of
my ability to do such mental computations at the table -- but that
has very little effect in terms of success in at-the-table results.
My published theoretical results (showing how to _brute-force_ do
the probabilistic estimation of "hand strength", a key issue in
the bidding phase that comes before the actual play) are one thing,
what I achieve at the table quite another:-).

And I sure DO know I don't mentally deal a few tens of thousands
of possibilities in a montecarlo sample to apply the method I had
my computer use in the research leading to said published results...;-)


Alex