kestrell

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A MIT professor is exploring this idea
http://www.csail.mit.edu/csailspotlights/unlocking_the_key_to_intelligence
although, if you want a science fiction-ish exploration of he idea, I recommend Richard Powers _Galatea 2.0_ (I think that is the correct version number).

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From:

ambyr

It's Galatea 2.2, and I agree, it's an awesome book.

From:

kestrell

Thanks for the correction--it's one of those titles which I always seem to misremember, even though it inspired me to name this laptop Galatea.

From:

capri0mni

That fits very nicely into a thesis I've held for close to fifteen years now -- at least, if your definition of "Artificial Intelligence" is "A Thing that Thinks Like a Human" (It's one of my pet peeves that, in many circles, only human intelligence counts as a model for what intelligence looks like).

More and more, we're finding other animals besides us (crows, groundhogs, chickens, monkeys) who seem to use signals in a symbolic, linguistic, way. So if language, as such, isn't unique to humans what is? One day, after I caught sight of a pair of mocking birds driving off a pair of crows while cawing at them like crows (tailoring their message to their audience). I started watching animals and people a lot more closely. And the only behavior I've seen that is unique to humans is that we will gather in groups, and sit in silence, with wide eyes and slack jaws on one individual (or smaller group) who does all the talking.

...In other words, storytelling. I've come to believe that the willing surrender of individual daydreaming to another is one of the key ways we humans maintain social bonds, and coordinate our actions (such as is needed for group hunting). And that maybe we developed such a complex array of languages because word play helps us tell better stories.... Rather than we tell stories because we have all this extra language to play with.

From:

kestrell

Interesting--I hadn't thought of actions such as reading as being a willing surrender to someone else's daydream, but it makes sense.

I actually brought up the idea of teaching AI through storytelling narrative while I was sitting in on Marvin Minsky's course at MIT, but the TAs and the audience, mostly made up of students with either computer science or psychology backgrounds, seemed really uninterested in discussing it. There is still a split between sciences and humanities in academia, so I hope theories like this manage to acquire some serious support.

From:

capri0mni

There is still a split between sciences and humanities in academia, so I hope theories like this manage to acquire some serious support.

*Strong nodding*

As for "The willing surrender to someone else's daydream" bit (and I was thinking, primarily, of oral storytelling and live theater, but the same dynamic continues in text and broadcast media): Back when this notion first popped into my head, I still self-identified as Neo-Pagan with Wiccan leanings (I now identify as atheist). And I noticed, in the New-Age "How to Do Magic" literature, that the structure and rhythm of built-up mental energy that was described as a well crafted spell was the same structure and rhythm described in my "How to write fiction" literature.

And leaving aside the New-Age "White Light and Crystal Set" jargon for a bit, "positive visualization" is a well demonstrated technique in athletic activities. And if it works on a private, individual, level, chances are good that "magnifying" the visualization to the whole group would magnify its effect. So our ability to quiet our own "Brain roof chatter" long enough to listen to someone else's ideas, and accept them into our own, without having to physically live through the experience, may be an ingrained human survival mechanism.

Oh, and as for sciences vs. humanities: "Theory" (as in scientific theory) comes from the same root as "theater" -- in other words, it's the way scientists present their learning to an audience of their peers.

From:

kestrell

I'm also thinking of hose texts which combine science, theatre, story, magic, metaphor, and mysticism, namely, alchemical texts, which still have a life in fantasy, horror, graphic novels, and more mainstream books such as _The Da Vinci Code_, which is all abou hwo there are secret stories hidden within other texts.

From:

capri0mni

A few years ago, there was a Nova special dramatized episode on Isaac Newton. One of the things the show talked about was his theory that the ancient Greek Myths were actually encoded alchemical "recipes" for producing different alloys.

And it doesn't have to have anything to do with conspiracy theories; if our brains are hard-wired to think narratively, then fitting complex information into a storyline is one of the best ways to remember it.

From:

kestrell

When I was in high school and my vision was so poor that I couldn't see the board, I pretty much failed every science and math course I ever took, even though I have always liked math and science. I just was not able to absorb information in the way teachers taught math and science as a series of board diagrams, instead of full narratives. One summer, I had a summer school teacher who taught chemistry without using board diagrams at all, and I got a B in that course.

It's been demonstrated hat when you teach verbally as well as visually, that is, by also teaching the vocabulary and language of a subject, that studens learn better. Unfortunately, his way of teaching narratively is not the way math and science are traditionally taught, and I think that penalizes a lot of students, not just those who can' see the board diagrams.

From:

capri0mni

*nod*

I had a hard time with biology and physics / chemistry in high school, because the lab tables used in all the class experiments were designed for students to stand up at them. ... Also, in general, my mathematical intelligence is not as high as my verbal intelligence. What mathematical understanding I have now has mostly come to me through thought play on my own, after official schooling was over.