Newsgroups: comp.theory.cell-automata,comp.ai.alife,comp.ai.genetic
From: Martin@nezumi.demon.co.uk (Martin Tom Brown)
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Subject: Re: Help for new student of ALife, GA, and CA programming
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Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 09:58:04 +0000
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In article <D3nG09.AL2@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
           mjd4c@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU "Michael J. Daniel" writes:

[snip]
> It is by no means clear that if we placed one monkey for each atom
> in the universe in front of a typewriter and had them type for
> 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 years, that we would create any interesting works
> of literature.
> You may say, "You have not waited long enough!"
> And I would reply, "Your concept of 'long enough' has no meaning
> in this universe, but you expect the results from it to live in this universe."

It is fairly easy to calculate how long you might expect to wait, for a single
configuration to occur by chance - given an alphabet (eg. states for a CA)
and the number of tokens to be specified. So for example:

Using a keyboard 100 with 100 keys and
a target 10000 characters of Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare).
There are		10000
		     100		( 1.0E+20000 ) possible states
Never the less this means that for each random trial there *is* an 
independent probability of 1 in 1.0E+20000 of getting Shakespeare.
It is clear that using a reallisable number of superfast typing monkeys
will not shorten the expected time to wait by much. For example I recall
the total number of particles in the universe is about 1.0E+100 or so.
Working out the expected waiting time is left as an excercise to the student.
This concept of "how long you have to wait is *perfectly* valid" it is just
that the answer is rather longer than the *age* of the universe.

When evolutionary pressures exist, the choices are not random, and very 
quicky bunch around the target region as survival of the fittest rules.
 
> Similarily with the chinese room problem.
> I submit that there is no, and never will be any such, book
> that a non-chinese speaking person can sit in a room,
> receive intelligent, relevant chinese text, (ie a chapters
> from a book of philosophy, along with questions on the chapter)
> and using just the book, translate the questions into intelligent 
> answers. You can not capture intelligence on a piece of paper.
> Or even 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pieces of paper.
> You still only have a stack of paper.

Pure speculation!! I'd like to see your proof.
I don't think you can prove this one way or the other (yet).

The smart answer is that I could find a *Japanese* person who could read
the *meaning* of Chinese characters, and learn the rest from Chinese books
without *ever* knowing what the Chinese sounds like (ie speaking it).
I also expect that the test subject would learn written Chinese as a side
effect in the event that this experiment were ever carried out. 

I am inclined to believe that it will be possible to capture intelligence
on a non-living medium, although I think CDROM or holograms may be needed
to get a practical system. After all a brain is just a complex configuration
of interlinked cells made of ordinary atoms (mostly C,N & O).
A *big* CA might just do it. It's all down to configurational entropy.

Regards,
-- 
Martin Brown  <martin@nezumi.demon.co.uk>     __                CIS: 71651,470
Scientific Software Consultancy             /^,,)__/
