From: Philip Goetz (philgoetz@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Aug 17 2006 - 21:35:44 MDT
On 8/16/06, Ben Goertzel <ben@goertzel.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Furthermore, I wouldn't want to emphasize the "hybrid" aspect of
> Novamente too strongly. The hybrid nature is just a matter of
> convenience. The design was arrived at by starting top-down and
> figuring out what the requirements are for components of an AGI
> system. Then, when some existing computer science technology seemed
> like it could be modified and extended to fulfill the requirements for
> one of the components, it was used in this capacity.
I think there are strong connections between the hybrid aspect of
Novamente, and the failings with logical positivism pointed out by
Wittgenstein, and later by post-modern philosophers such as Derrida.
The reason you're free to build a hybrid architecture is that you
aren't clinging to the belief in semantic purity that was a common
feature of logical positivism, 1980s unified architectures for
cognition, and modernism in general. Once you accept that semantics
and syntax can't be analyzed separately - which is a key part of what
the post-modernists said, muddied up with Marxist terminology in an
attempt to lend radical chic to what is basically a linguistic problem
- you're free to put together hybrid systems, without worrying that
you can no longer know exactly what something represents, or what your
architecture can and can't compute.
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