[MD] LC Comments

[david buchanan]

Magnus said:
.., I was discussing A.I. and if the MoQ allowed it. If it didn't, I probably would have left there and then, but I thought I devised a cunning way around the obvious obstacles.

dmb says:

If Herbert Dreyfus is right, A.I. is impossible. Or more precisely, the A.I. researchers are operating on a misconception about the nature of intelligence. He says they've been trying to create an artificial version of something that they don't properly understand in the first place. Wiki has an entire page on his critique of A.I., which is linked to their article on A.I. in general. I've copied and pasted a section that shows how his critique fits with the MOQ. I think you can see that Dreyfus's distinction between "knowing-that" and "knowing-how" are roughly the same thing as "intellectual" and "pre-intellectual" or "static" and "Dynamic". What computers can't do, according to Dreyfus, is include the "unconscious sense of the context, of what's important and interesting given the situation", which is an essential component in any intelligent decision-making process. Please notice how he insists that these "unconscious intuitions" are not symbolic and that this "unconscious knowledge could never be captured symbolically". In other words, computers will never be able to respond intelligently because they can't respond dynamically. What they can do is manipulate symbols, but only in mechanical, mathematical, logical ways. It's based on a mistaken model of human intelligence as purely rational. But the MOQ says the affective domain is actually the central part of reality and that's exactly what A.I. can not include. 


The primacy of unconscious skillsIn 1986's "Mind Over Machine", written during the heyday of expert systems, Dreyfus analyzed the difference between human expertise and the programs that claimed to capture it. This expanded on ideas from 1972's "What Computers Can't Do", where he had made a similar argument criticizing the "cognitive simulation" school of AI research practiced by Alan Newell and Herbert Simon in the 1960s.Dreyfus argued that human problem solving and expertise depend on our unconscious sense of the context, of what's important and interesting given the situation, rather than on the process of searching through combinations of possibilities to find what we need. Dreyfus would describe it in 1986 as the difference between "knowing-that" and "knowing-how", based on Heidegger's distinction of present-at-hand and ready-to-hand.[14]Knowing-that is our conscious, step-by-step problem solving abilities. We use these skills when we encounter a difficult problem that requires us to stop, step back and search through ideas one at time. At moments like this, the ideas become very precise and simple: they become context free symbols, which we manipulate using logic and language. These are the skills that Newell and Simon had demonstrated with both psychological experiments and computer programs. Dreyfus agreed that their programs adequately imitated the skills he calls "knowing-that."Knowing-how, on the other hand, is the way we deal with things normally. We take actions without using conscious symbolic reasoning at all, as when we recognize a face, drive ourselves to work or find the right thing to say. We seem to simply jump to the appropriate response, without considering any alternatives. This is the essence of expertise, Dreyfus argued: when our intuitions have been trained to the point that we forget the rules and simply "size up the situation" and react. (Malcolm Gladwell would later name this "fast" process of expert thinking as a "blink" in a bestseller of the same name.[15])Our sense of the situation is based, Dreyfus argues, on our goals, our bodies and our culture—all of our unconscious intuitions, attitudes and knowledge about the world. This “context” or "background" (related to Heidegger's Dasein) is a form of knowledge that is not stored in our brains symbolically, but intuitively in some way. It affects what we notice and what we don't notice, what we expect and what possibilities we don't consider: we discriminate between what is essential and inessential. (Gladwell calls this "thin-slicing"). The things that are inessential are relegated to our "fringe consciousness" (borrowing a phrase from William James): the millions of things we're aware of, but we're not really thinking about right now.Dreyfus claimed that he could see no way that AI programs, as they were implemented in the 70s and 80s, could capture this background or do the kind of fast problem solving, or blinking, that it allows. He argued that our unconscious knowledge could never be captured symbolically. If AI could not find a way to address these issues, then it was doomed to failure, an exercise in "tree climbing with one's eyes on the moon."[16] 


Pirsig commented:
I don't recall saying you can't skip levels, but in this case none are skipped.  The hand that taps the computer keys is biological.  The school that taught the computer programmer how to program is social. He had to learn  programming from somebody through social interaction unless his name is Von Neumann.  But Von Neumann didn't grow up in the jungle.  Social institutions had to educate him.



Magnus said:
"The hand that taps the computer keys is biological."?? Come on! We're trying to be serious here but *that's* disrespectful! When looking at what kind of patterns something is made of, it has nothing to do with who built it, or made it. It's "metaphysically irrelevant". ... I'm just exploring what the levels really are and how they relate to each other. But to claim that a computer is supported by biological patterns just because a hand is tapping the keys is, well, more like a child's riddle than metaphysics.


dmb says:

No, I think the keyboard of your computer is an intelligible and useful artifact precisely because of the way it accommodates the human hand. Same thing with doorknobs, light switches and motorcycles. Our houses are creature comfort machines, with the key components being bathrooms, bedrooms and kitchens. This whole architecture is built with our biological functions in mind. Houses also serve as security devices and status symbols. They're a big part of the economic system, family structure, the larger community in which they exist, etc., etc.. And I think this is one the interesting aspects of the levels. Any given "thing" can be, and usually is, a complex mixture.


Magnus said:

... also, he says that social patterns are subjective.? Isn't the very core of MoQ's message that "subjective" is *not* something we can just end a discussion with? In SOM, we can, because in SOM, subjective is that which every one of us has a unique and personal viewpoint of. So to say that something is subjective means that everyone is entitled to her own view of it.   I can guess that Pirsig has had to revert to using those terms because he probably get endless questions about it, and to say that intellectual and social patterns are subjective, and biological and inorganic objective is probably the easy way out. But it's WRONG! And I hoped he at least would have talked to us in MoQese, but I guess not.



dmb says:

Well, I see what you mean but I don't think Pirsig is saying that social patterns are just somebody's personal viewpoint. He's not reverting back to those terms, of course, because his concern here is to clarify the MOQ's classification, to clarify the levels. He's only using the term "subjective" to point out that social level values are not physical objects. You might recall the other example he used. Biologically and physically, the difference between you and the President can not be detected. The difference between you is social. Is the President just in your mind? Is it just somebody's opinion? Well, no. It's a well known fact of our political reality and it'll go down in history as an indisputable truth, but you can't see that in Barack's physiology or in the atoms that make up his bones. It's not objective in the sense that the Presidency is not a physical thing, and yet it is as real as rocks and trees. That's what he's saying about the team of robots. You could teach them to salute the flag if that only meant a series of physical actions but you'll never find patriotism under a microscope, you know what i mean?



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