Simplexity
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Heres a brief portion of the discussion. It's slightly arguing Induction V deduction but that is language that I think can be understood by computers. So I think it could apply here.
Sorry for the bluewing-esque post.
"I think CC had a good point. I find that a lot of the times the stronger my deductive abilities are the more accurate my inductive reasoning skills become. Granted I haven't taken any philosophy classes so pardon me on some of the more technical terms, but it seems the more i'm aware of the "unconscious premises" dissonance talks about the stronger and tighter my inductive reasoning.
I think I've always sort of had questions similar to dissonance especially in regards to the computational deductive processes of computers and how that makes it hard to replicate human deterministic thought because of induction. I think the trouble is we often times valuate the importance or weight of these unconscious premises in differing and hard to trace ways and then form conclusions based on this. I think that the synthesis analogy is like trying to recreate these premises in a way that new conclusions can be drawn. The pool of premises we choose from whether conscious or not is still vitally important, we just choose to deduce based on the weight we place on each one.
pardon me if that wasn't very clear, its still a topic i'm trying to become more familiar with."---Aimahn
"Furthermore, the question of the"weights" we put on the premises (if you want to put it that way), can also be thought of as deductively chosen as long as other premises lead to the choosing of them.
As in, there is a hierarchical web of premises that pick the ones "lower" on the web.
You can also think of learning in the same way. There are learning algorithms that determine where new concepts are put into the web -- those can also be thought of as a set of premises applied deductively to the new concept.
The way I think about it is, you're genetically programmed with a few basic premises (including learning mechanisms -- premises to be used in application to new concepts, rules of metaphor if you will). Each piece of data you are exposed to is fit into the web of concepts you have so far (a piece of data can even be a new learning algorithm, it's like a Universal Turing Machine). Throughout life, you keep building this concept web until it's ridiculously complex (not that it doesn't start complex, you start with mechanisms for vision and stuff like that that are incredibly intricate).
Anyway, some of the data you will be exposed to is inconsistent with the current structure of the web, so there also have to be learning mechanisms for resolving stuff like that.
But the whole system is entirely deterministic; it runs exactly like a computer program.
Each "new" idea (induction, intuition, guess, whatever you want to call it) is an exact result of a deductive calculation in your brain somewhere. "Incorrect deductions" are not logically invalid, they are only logically unsound. As in, the deductive process MUST go according to laws -- the conclusion must follow from the premises. The premises are the actual problem -- they can be inconsistent or untrue (don't correspond to reality).
Our consciousness is merely an observer of this phenomena -- it makes up a story for what it sees. The story may or not correspond to exactly what's happening on the hardware level. Some of the premises are entirely hidden, in other words. So instead of calling it "deduction" with premises we don't have access to, we come up with a different term to describe it. Intuition, or guess, or whatever.
The consciousness usually assumes that the fact that conclusions are sometimes incorrect means there's something fuzzy about the calculations. There's some imperfection in the brain, or there's something fundamentally different between the brain and any other information processing machine. This is not accurate. The consciousness program just doesn't have enough inputs or computing power to accurately explain other brain phenomena.
Meh.
My point is, there is nothing fundamentally different between brains and computers. They are both machines capable of deduction and deduction only. The labels "induction" "guess" and "intuition" are just our ways of describing deductive processes that we can't fully see." --- Dissonance
Sorry for the bluewing-esque post.
"I think CC had a good point. I find that a lot of the times the stronger my deductive abilities are the more accurate my inductive reasoning skills become. Granted I haven't taken any philosophy classes so pardon me on some of the more technical terms, but it seems the more i'm aware of the "unconscious premises" dissonance talks about the stronger and tighter my inductive reasoning.
I think I've always sort of had questions similar to dissonance especially in regards to the computational deductive processes of computers and how that makes it hard to replicate human deterministic thought because of induction. I think the trouble is we often times valuate the importance or weight of these unconscious premises in differing and hard to trace ways and then form conclusions based on this. I think that the synthesis analogy is like trying to recreate these premises in a way that new conclusions can be drawn. The pool of premises we choose from whether conscious or not is still vitally important, we just choose to deduce based on the weight we place on each one.
pardon me if that wasn't very clear, its still a topic i'm trying to become more familiar with."---Aimahn
"Furthermore, the question of the"weights" we put on the premises (if you want to put it that way), can also be thought of as deductively chosen as long as other premises lead to the choosing of them.
As in, there is a hierarchical web of premises that pick the ones "lower" on the web.
You can also think of learning in the same way. There are learning algorithms that determine where new concepts are put into the web -- those can also be thought of as a set of premises applied deductively to the new concept.
The way I think about it is, you're genetically programmed with a few basic premises (including learning mechanisms -- premises to be used in application to new concepts, rules of metaphor if you will). Each piece of data you are exposed to is fit into the web of concepts you have so far (a piece of data can even be a new learning algorithm, it's like a Universal Turing Machine). Throughout life, you keep building this concept web until it's ridiculously complex (not that it doesn't start complex, you start with mechanisms for vision and stuff like that that are incredibly intricate).
Anyway, some of the data you will be exposed to is inconsistent with the current structure of the web, so there also have to be learning mechanisms for resolving stuff like that.
But the whole system is entirely deterministic; it runs exactly like a computer program.
Each "new" idea (induction, intuition, guess, whatever you want to call it) is an exact result of a deductive calculation in your brain somewhere. "Incorrect deductions" are not logically invalid, they are only logically unsound. As in, the deductive process MUST go according to laws -- the conclusion must follow from the premises. The premises are the actual problem -- they can be inconsistent or untrue (don't correspond to reality).
Our consciousness is merely an observer of this phenomena -- it makes up a story for what it sees. The story may or not correspond to exactly what's happening on the hardware level. Some of the premises are entirely hidden, in other words. So instead of calling it "deduction" with premises we don't have access to, we come up with a different term to describe it. Intuition, or guess, or whatever.
The consciousness usually assumes that the fact that conclusions are sometimes incorrect means there's something fuzzy about the calculations. There's some imperfection in the brain, or there's something fundamentally different between the brain and any other information processing machine. This is not accurate. The consciousness program just doesn't have enough inputs or computing power to accurately explain other brain phenomena.
Meh.
My point is, there is nothing fundamentally different between brains and computers. They are both machines capable of deduction and deduction only. The labels "induction" "guess" and "intuition" are just our ways of describing deductive processes that we can't fully see." --- Dissonance
