All, here is a 4th installment of my very many critiques of this paper.
Again, not all
issues will resonate with everyone so pick and choose what you find
interesting to
debate pro/con and I will defend any of my comments, and even Dreyfus if
your critique is weak.
I will post the paragraph(s) I have a comment about, and highlight the
particular words at issue by enclosing them between "***" characters.
I'll
also include citations in the paper when helpful. I seek (intelligent and
informed) technical/theoretical critique or feedback from anyone on the
issue(s) presented/raised.
See page 14, line 1:
VII. Modeling Situated Coping as a Dynamical System
Describing the phenomenon of everyday coping as being "geared into" the
world and moving towards "equilibrium" suggests a dynamic relation between
the coper and the environment. Timothy van Gelder calls this dynamic
relation between coper and environment coupling, explaining its im****tance
as follows:
The fundamental mode of interaction with the environment is not to
represent
it, or even to exchange inputs and outputs with it; rather, the relation
is
better understood via the technical notion of coupling. ...
The post-Cartesian agent manages to cope with the world without
necessarily
representing it. A dynamical approach suggests how this might be possible
by showing how the internal operation of a system interacting with an
external world can be ***so subtle and complex as to defy description in
representational terms -- how, in other words, cognition can transcend
representation***[asb1] . [i]
Van Gelder shares with Brooks the i existentialist claim that thinking
such
as problem solving,is grounded in a more basic relation of body and world.
As van Gelder puts it:
Cognition can, in sophisticated cases, [such as breakdowns, problem
solving,
and abstract thought] involve representation and sequential processing;
but
such phenomena are best understood as emerging from a dynamical substrate,
rather than as constituting the basic level of cognitive performance.[ii]
This ***dynamical substrate***[asb2] is precisely the causal basis of the
skillful coping first described by Heidegger and worked out in detail by
Merleau-Ponty and Todes.
Van Gelder im****tantly contrasts the rich interactive tem****ality of
real-time on-line coupling of coper and world with the austere step by
step
tem****ality of thought. Wheeler helpfully explains:
***[W]hilst the computational architectures proposed within computational
cognitive science require that inner events happen in the right order, and
(in theory) fast enough to get a job done***[asb3] , there are, in
general,
no constraints on how long each operation within the overall cognitive
process takes, or on how long the gaps between the individual operations
are. Moreover, the transition events that characterize those inner
operations are not related in any systematic way to the real-time dynamics
of either neural biochemical processes, non-neural bodily events, or
environmental phenomena (dynamics which surely involve rates and
rhythms).[iii]
Computation is thus paradigmatically austere:
Turing machine computing is digital, deterministic, discrete, effective
(in
the technical sense that behavior is always the result of an
algorithmically
specified finite number of operations), and tem****ally austere (in that
time
is reduced to mere sequence).[iv]
***Ironically, Wheeler's highlighting the contrast between rich dynamic
tem****al coupling and austere computational tem****ality enables us to see
clearly that his appeal to extended minds as a Heideggerian response to
Cartesianism leaves out the essential tem****al character of embodied
embedding. Clarke's and Chalmers's examples of extended minds
manipulating
representations such as notes and pictures are clearly cases of tem****al
austerity-no rates and rhythms are involved***[asb4].
Wheeler is aware of this possible objection to his backing both the
dynamical systems model and the extended mind approach. He asks: "What
about the apparent clash between continuous reciprocal causation and
action
orientated representations? On the face of it this clash is a worry for
our
emerging cognitive science."[v] But instead of engaging with the
incompatibility of these two opposed models of ground level intelligence,
Wheeler suggests that we must somehow combine them and that "this question
is perhaps one of the biggest of the many challenges that lie ahead."[vi]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MY CRITIQUES indexed by my initials "ASB" followed by the number of my
comment above:
[asb1]again. You are exactly describing a classical neural network,
which
"suffers" from this defying description "problem". Per my comments above,
your "coupling" explanation does not create further distance from a mental
representation system, it actually increases your closeness to it. The
only
difference between your coupling scheme and a typical "representational"
system is that couple distributes the representation over many processing
units such that it is not clear how to extract what those nodes "know".
Yet, the fact one cannot not use ones mind to describe distributed
information does not mean, of course, that the distributed representation
of
the information is any less a (mental) representation. That is one reason
why hierarchical neural networks have never been able to be effectively
implemented. AI researchers are thinking of "central" representation
schemes like you are, even though neural nets are unlabeled distributed
systems. The urge to centralize meaning is too strong for both
philosophers
and AI researchers.
[asb2]You and brooks share this hierarchical notion of mental process.
He
is using it to focus on centralized "mental representations" and you are
using it to prove that they do not exist. Seems to me that you both are
way
off- fighting Don Quixote's windmills... the world is much flatter than
you
think...
[asb3]Again, here you are completely ignoring Neural Networks and Genetic
algorithms (which are global, parallel AI computational architectures),
which are a significant part of AI. You do mention Nuns below, but you
seem
to focus your arguments only on classic AI and Brooks as a modern variant.
[asb4]I don't see how embodied embedding escapes the brittle nature of
mental representations. The body and its interactions with the mental
system can be likewise computationally modeled along with extended minds
manipulating representations. Rates and rhythms are just computational
artifacts of distributed processing scheme. Tem****al austerity is not a
requirement of digital computing system, just a result of poor design and
lack of imagination. Dynamic tem****al coupling is, again, easily done by
classical (tem****al) neural network architectures (implemented on a
digital
system, of course). This is not the problem. Extracting/manipulating the
distributed representational (meaning) information of the parallel
processing node into hierarchical neural networks is what I believe has
completely blocked them from implementing much of this dynamically
coupled,
absorbed coping philosophy you espouse. However, none of this requires an
"embodied embedding", which seems to be just thrown in as an answer to a
wrong problem. The problem of centralized (mental) representations is not
that they are disembodied, but that the world is made of atoms and not
well-behaved black boxes. Even if centralized (mental) representation AI
were to incor****ate "embodied embedding" in a dynamically tem****ally
coupled
"absorbed coping" paradigm, they will not escape the brittleness of
top-down
design, which embodied embedding does not mandate otherwise. Bottom-up,
full system, design, as mentioned above, if beyond the capabilities of
current AI researchers. In this way, "embodied embedding" seem to be a
red-hearing that intellectually misses the real problem, but in the
confusion, seems, on the surface, to add to the discussion. BTW, how is
sensor modeling (which all AI/robotics work must do) different from
"embodied embedding" in that they model sensors that are very similar to
those of humans (eyes, skin, nose, ears, etc.) Classic AI never used
sensors, just logic. However, modern AI's embodiment of our senses into
its
systems has not brought them much any closer to making AI systems that are
robust and not brittle. I do not think adding a physical body aspect to
the
AI will fair any better. Can you argue otherwise in the context of the
sensory embedded embodiment that AI has already done?
CITATIONS MADE IN THE ABOVE QUOTED SECTION OF THE PAPER:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] Van Gelder, "Dynamics and Cognition", Mind Design II, John Haugeland,
Ed., A Bradford Book, (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997), 439, 448.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Michael Wheeler, "Change in the Rules: Computers, Dynamical
Systems,
and Searle," in Views into the Chinese Room: New Essays on Searle and
Artificial Intelligence, John Preston and Mark Bishop, Eds, (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2002), 345.
[iv] Ibid. 344, 345.
[v] Wheeler, Reconstructing the Cognitive World, 280.
[vi] Ibid.
Ariel Bentolila
Principal member, Bay Area IP, llc
P.O. Box 210459
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