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Antievolution.org is the critic's resource on antievolution. The public bulletin board is a lightly moderated place for general discussions, using a set of rules first implemented in 1992 for the Fidonet "Evolution Echo".
Updated: 3 days 8 hours ago

A Separate Thread for Gary Gaulin

Sat, 2013-05-18 10:39
Post by k.e..
Quote (GaryGaulin @ May 18 2013,12:03) Quote (Nomad @ May 18 2013,03:01)Gary.. I'm confused.. you say:

      Quote Anthropomorphic generalizations are not needed

And then in the description for your first requirement, all you do is talk about how humans act.  You even feel the need to start talking about religion.  There is nothing in that "requirement" that isn't anthropomorphic.

The first requirement is baloney anyway.  "Something to control"?  Really?  I guess neural nets that do nothing but analyze data and come to conclusions can never be declared intelligent then.  Woops, there goes Watson.  You referred approvingly to it before, but apparently you didn't attempt to find your four requirements in it.

This has been touched on by others.  Concepts like neural nets and machine intelligence really aren't my area, I'm not a programmer at all, beyond messing with basic years ago, but it seems you've skipped out on a great deal of stuff.  You don't seem to be defining intelligence at all.  Let's apply your four requirements to my camera, or more specifically only the autofocus system on my camera.

#1 something to control.

Yep, the autofocus motor on the lens.

#2 sensory addressed memory

Yep.  The autofocus sensor feeds data into memory inside the camera.

#3 confidence to gauge failure or success

Yep.  The AF sensor tells the camera how well focused the scene is, providing a sense of better or worse that it uses to converge on the best possible setting.

#4 ability to take a guess

Yep.  It doesn't necessarily know how far it has to adjust the focus, so it takes a guess and evaluates the results.

Well alrighty then.  My camera is intelligent.

I dunno, Gary.  It kind of sounds like you've so loosely defined intelligence that many things that wouldn't normally be considered intelligent qualify.  Preprogrammed behaviors intended to achieve simple tasks qualify as intelligent now.  I suspect this is why you're having such a hard time understand when people tell you that your code is not a neural net, because your code fulfills your notion of requirements of intelligence you've concluded that it must be intelligent and is therefore a neural net.  But it doesn't work like that.  Or else my camera has a neural net AF system.
It's relatively common knowledge that a camera focus system uses a circuit called a "servo"

The rest of your hand-waving mess of scientifically useless generalizations are equally ridiculous.
GiGo a servo is NOT a circuit you don't have clue.

Common knowledge?

On this forum it is common knowledge that all your claims are just blatherings from a deranged mind.

Hand waving?

You would know.
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Joe G.'s Tardgasm

Sat, 2013-05-18 10:33
Post by k.e..
Quote (Henry J @ May 18 2013,08:37) Quote (k.e.. @ May 17 2013,23:08)I wonder if Joe would do any better than AFDave on imaginary numbers?
That's a complex subject.
yeah he couldn't conjugate them
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Uncommonly Dense Thread 4

Sat, 2013-05-18 09:13
Post by timothya
KF included this in one of his comments at UD:
Quote FSCO/I is a good example, such as is manifest in this post.
I couldn't agree more.
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A Separate Thread for Gary Gaulin

Sat, 2013-05-18 09:03
Post by GaryGaulin
Quote (Nomad @ May 18 2013,03:01)Gary.. I'm confused.. you say:

      Quote Anthropomorphic generalizations are not needed

And then in the description for your first requirement, all you do is talk about how humans act.  You even feel the need to start talking about religion.  There is nothing in that "requirement" that isn't anthropomorphic.

The first requirement is baloney anyway.  "Something to control"?  Really?  I guess neural nets that do nothing but analyze data and come to conclusions can never be declared intelligent then.  Woops, there goes Watson.  You referred approvingly to it before, but apparently you didn't attempt to find your four requirements in it.

This has been touched on by others.  Concepts like neural nets and machine intelligence really aren't my area, I'm not a programmer at all, beyond messing with basic years ago, but it seems you've skipped out on a great deal of stuff.  You don't seem to be defining intelligence at all.  Let's apply your four requirements to my camera, or more specifically only the autofocus system on my camera.

#1 something to control.

Yep, the autofocus motor on the lens.

#2 sensory addressed memory

Yep.  The autofocus sensor feeds data into memory inside the camera.

#3 confidence to gauge failure or success

Yep.  The AF sensor tells the camera how well focused the scene is, providing a sense of better or worse that it uses to converge on the best possible setting.

#4 ability to take a guess

Yep.  It doesn't necessarily know how far it has to adjust the focus, so it takes a guess and evaluates the results.

Well alrighty then.  My camera is intelligent.

I dunno, Gary.  It kind of sounds like you've so loosely defined intelligence that many things that wouldn't normally be considered intelligent qualify.  Preprogrammed behaviors intended to achieve simple tasks qualify as intelligent now.  I suspect this is why you're having such a hard time understand when people tell you that your code is not a neural net, because your code fulfills your notion of requirements of intelligence you've concluded that it must be intelligent and is therefore a neural net.  But it doesn't work like that.  Or else my camera has a neural net AF system.
It's relatively common knowledge that a camera focus system uses a circuit called a "servo"

The rest of your hand-waving mess of scientifically useless generalizations are equally ridiculous.
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A Separate Thread for Gary Gaulin

Sat, 2013-05-18 08:01
Post by Nomad
Gary.. I'm confused.. you say:

    Quote Anthropomorphic generalizations are not needed

And then in the description for your first requirement, all you do is talk about how humans act.  You even feel the need to start talking about religion.  There is nothing in that "requirement" that isn't anthropomorphic.

The first requirement is baloney anyway.  "Something to control"?  Really?  I guess neural nets that do nothing but analyze data and come to conclusions can never be declared intelligent then.  Woops, there goes Watson.  You referred approvingly to it before, but apparently you didn't attempt to find your four requirements in it.

This has been touched on by others.  Concepts like neural nets and machine intelligence really aren't my area, I'm not a programmer at all, beyond messing with basic years ago, but it seems you've skipped out on a great deal of stuff.  You don't seem to be defining intelligence at all.  Let's apply your four requirements to my camera, or more specifically only the autofocus system on my camera.

#1 something to control.

Yep, the autofocus motor on the lens.

#2 sensory addressed memory

Yep.  The autofocus sensor feeds data into memory inside the camera.

#3 confidence to gauge failure or success

Yep.  The AF sensor tells the camera how well focused the scene is, providing a sense of better or worse that it uses to converge on the best possible setting.

#4 ability to take a guess

Yep.  It doesn't necessarily know how far it has to adjust the focus, so it takes a guess and evaluates the results.

Well alrighty then.  My camera is intelligent.

I dunno, Gary.  It kind of sounds like you've so loosely defined intelligence that many things that wouldn't normally be considered intelligent qualify.  Preprogrammed behaviors intended to achieve simple tasks qualify as intelligent now.  I suspect this is why you're having such a hard time understand when people tell you that your code is not a neural net, because your code fulfills your notion of requirements of intelligence you've concluded that it must be intelligent and is therefore a neural net.  But it doesn't work like that.  Or else my camera has a neural net AF system.
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The Bathroom Wall

Sat, 2013-05-18 07:47
Post by Quack
Indeed, thanks for reminding me, I'll look into it.
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A Separate Thread for Gary Gaulin

Sat, 2013-05-18 07:44
Post by Quack
I'd rather see you tone down your anti-science a lot!
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Uncommonly Dense Thread 4

Sat, 2013-05-18 06:52
Post by Richardthughes
LOL@mullings bellyaching on UD because he can't do the math like Lizzie!  
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Joe G.'s Tardgasm

Sat, 2013-05-18 05:37
Post by Henry J
Quote (k.e.. @ May 17 2013,23:08)I wonder if Joe would do any better than AFDave on imaginary numbers?
That's a complex subject.
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Joe G.'s Tardgasm

Sat, 2013-05-18 05:36
Post by Henry J
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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Joe G.'s Tardgasm

Sat, 2013-05-18 05:08
Post by k.e..
I wonder if Joe would do any better than AFDave on imaginary numbers?
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Uncommonly Dense Thread 4

Fri, 2013-05-17 01:03
Post by Occam's Aftershave
LOL!  Gordo is now strutting and crowing like a cock-o-the-walk because the IDiots identified the source of Febble's "CSI challenge" picture.  They did it by using Google reverse-image search.

Not a single one of the IDiots actually calculated any value for CSI, which was the only reason for the exercise.  Not a single one of them even tried.  But they're beating their collective chests now over their "great victory"      
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Uncommonly Dense Thread 4

Thu, 2013-05-16 23:18
Post by REC
I think vjtorley went and undid the application of ID to life:

Quote (1) There is a vital distinction that needs to be kept in mind between a specified pattern’s being improbable as a configuration, and its being improbable as an outcome. The former does not necessarily imply the latter. If a pattern is composed of elements, then if we look at all possible arrangements or configurations of those constituent elements, it may be that only a very tiny proportion of these will contain the pattern in question. That makes it configurationally improbable. But that does not mean that the pattern is unlikely to ever arise: in other words, it would be unwarranted to infer that the appearance of the pattern in question is historically improbable, from its rarity as a possible configuration of its constituent elements.

Isn't that umm....exactly what the big numbers game does? It ignores the history of the protein, and calculates its rarity in sequence space?

I agree totally. It is an unwarranted inference.
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A Separate Thread for Gary Gaulin

Thu, 2013-05-16 23:16
Post by GaryGaulin
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A Separate Thread for Gary Gaulin

Thu, 2013-05-16 23:15
Post by GaryGaulin
Quote (NoName @ May 16 2013,14:22) Quote (Henry J @ May 16 2013,12:20) Quote (NoName @ May 16 2013,07:58)He does seem to be a bit, ahem, slow, on the uptake, does he not?

Gary G, as likely to take on a point as a Hydrogen atom to take on a 4th electron in a stable orbital.
Fourth? Would even a second one qualify as stable? How stable is a hydride ion anyway?

Or is that getting off topic?
Surely Gary and his "theory" of "molecular intelligence" should be able to clarify this, yes?

I mean, given how high and deep he insists his "theory" reaches, such a paltry issue should be trivial for him to address, and address correctly.

We're waiting, Gary.
That's all covered in the Behavior (Of Matter) at the top of the causation illustration, therefore I suggest you consult a physics or chemistry textbook.
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A Separate Thread for Gary Gaulin

Thu, 2013-05-16 22:46
Post by GaryGaulin
Quote (JohnW @ May 16 2013,11:32)   Quote (GaryGaulin @ May 16 2013,01:48)Even where you succeed in showing that to be true only one the first of several intelligent causation levels without the others on top that the theory needs to stay standing are not at all changed. Most you would produce is an edit to keep the theory as coherent as possible, that I then would not mind making for you, but that does not make a whole theory go away.
Bonus points for including the word "coherent" in the middle of that steaming pile.
I was overtired when I wrote that, but it still makes sense.

In other words: Reliably showing that there is no such thing as "Molecular Intelligence" would only require me to change  the name to "Molecular Behavior", and the arrow from it would be another "Behavioral Causation". And since the theory is now well into "Collective Intelligence" I would need to at the same time add a new intelligent causation block to the illustration, resulting in it still showing as many intelligent causation events as before, which is more than enough for the theory to still remain true:  

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Joe G.'s Tardgasm

Thu, 2013-05-16 20:55
Post by stevestory
Joe--can a subset a, of a proper superset b, which has members a doesn't have, be the same size as b?

Please please please answer this JoeG.
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Uncommonly Dense Thread 4

Thu, 2013-05-16 20:27
Post by JohnW
Quote (damitall @ May 16 2013,10:17)KF is now ranting about "progressivist" anti-Christian bias in education (another huge URL that makes you tired just reading it)

DonaldM asks questions of us.

Quote 1. How do you know scientifically (and I emphasize “scientifically” here because I want to make it clear that theological, metaphysical or philosophical opinions – while important for other reasons – have no bearing on the question at hand) that the properties of the Cosmos are such that any apparent design we observe in natural systems can not be actual design, even in principle?

2. How do you know scientifically that Nature (or the Cosmos) is a completely closed system of natural cause and effect? (Recall Dawkins claim that a universe superintended by a Deity would look much different than ours as he says in The God Delusion several times)

3. How do you know scientifically that the properties of biological systems are such that any apparent design we observe in them can not be actual design, even in principle? (The Blind Watchmaker and Dawkins’s claim that “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance [emphasis mine] of having been designed for a purpose.”)

4. How do you know scientifically that no supernatural being, if such actually existed, could ever take any action within nature itself that would produce observable phenomenon or effect any change in the arrangement of matter or energy anywhere in the Cosmos?

I guess the answer to each one is "Scientifically, we don't know. Just as soon as you've worked out a way to investigate these things scientifically, let us know. In the meantime, absent any evidence for supernatural designers, we'll carry on with something useful, thanks."
This is just absurd.

"You have to demonstrate that the universe wasn't created by a god, couldn't have been created by a god, there cannot be a god in principle, and the concept of a god is unimaginable.  Otherwise we win."
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A Separate Thread for Gary Gaulin

Thu, 2013-05-16 19:22
Post by NoName
Quote (Henry J @ May 16 2013,12:20) Quote (NoName @ May 16 2013,07:58)He does seem to be a bit, ahem, slow, on the uptake, does he not?

Gary G, as likely to take on a point as a Hydrogen atom to take on a 4th electron in a stable orbital.
Fourth? Would even a second one qualify as stable? How stable is a hydride ion anyway?

Or is that getting off topic?
Surely Gary and his "theory" of "molecular intelligence" should be able to clarify this, yes?

I mean, given how high and deep he insists his "theory" reaches, such a paltry issue should be trivial for him to address, and address correctly.

We're waiting, Gary.
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Uncommonly Dense Thread 4

Thu, 2013-05-16 18:50
Post by Febble
Quote (damitall @ May 16 2013,12:17)KF is now ranting about "progressivist" anti-Christian bias in education (another huge URL that makes you tired just reading it)

DonaldM asks questions of us.

Quote 1. How do you know scientifically (and I emphasize “scientifically” here because I want to make it clear that theological, metaphysical or philosophical opinions – while important for other reasons – have no bearing on the question at hand) that the properties of the Cosmos are such that any apparent design we observe in natural systems can not be actual design, even in principle?

2. How do you know scientifically that Nature (or the Cosmos) is a completely closed system of natural cause and effect? (Recall Dawkins claim that a universe superintended by a Deity would look much different than ours as he says in The God Delusion several times)

3. How do you know scientifically that the properties of biological systems are such that any apparent design we observe in them can not be actual design, even in principle? (The Blind Watchmaker and Dawkins’s claim that “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance [emphasis mine] of having been designed for a purpose.”)

4. How do you know scientifically that no supernatural being, if such actually existed, could ever take any action within nature itself that would produce observable phenomenon or effect any change in the arrangement of matter or energy anywhere in the Cosmos?

I guess the answer to each one is "Scientifically, we don't know. Just as soon as you've worked out a way to investigate these things scientifically, let us know. In the meantime, absent any evidence for supernatural designers, we'll carry on with something useful, thanks."
heh.  I just did a post about that.

I must get something more interesting up.  Nagel, and Krauss.
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