Sentient Cutlery

[Dark Jaguar]

http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-10/100620sentient.html

Dern shame to see a programmer clearly demonstrating how such expertice fails outside of a computer. Unfortunatly, it makes all programmers look bad. I at least understood what he was trying to say (he wasn't really trying to say they were sentient so much as computer programs), but of course it is still silly.

Here's the thing mr programmer fails to consider. That spoon was constructed, like any other spoon. It is not a programming "object" that is instantiated and already defined. It's a mass of metal poored into a mold (or however they are made), so it just happens to exist in that shape, nothing more. You'd have to declare a "metal molecule" object instead, except that's a construct as well. When you get right down to it, the only thing that makes sense is declaring the fundamental forces and a set amount of mass in the universe, and then just letting it go. Of course, any number of exceptions could be designed after that, like if such and such is construed in such and such a fasion, it acts this way instead of normally, but why on earth would the Great Programmer care if something was spoon shaped or not?

Also, there's no evidence at all our universe is a big program or any of the other analogies. Sure it would be interesting but as it stands it seems that programs are limited to the domain of computation.

However, being a great programmer has never required one to be fully rational outside that profession.

 

[joller]

I'd like to add that the mentioned 7-layer model, is not a TCP/IP model that the internet uses, but a reference OSI model.
The TCP/IP model has just four layers - network access, internet layer (or network level), transport layer and application layer.
Besides, the models are just an easier way of representing the problem. There is no need to do it (the internet) this way, this is simply how we decided to do it, because it allows for modular implementation and huge distribution of the system.

 

[Kess]

http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-10/100620sentient.html
However, being a great programmer has never required one to be fully rational outside that profession.

Is Peter Lloyd a great programmer? He seemed to be throwing around lots of buzzwords and techie phrases to impress the layman, but anyone can do that. Personally I wouldn't trust him to create a basic "Hello World" program.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

That is a good question. I'm just pointing out that being one is irrelevent, despite how obvious that may be...

Personally I think his whole "physical layer, application layer" stuff was pretty misleading, if not outright wrong. Another thing about being a programmer is that you don't really need to know much about how most of the computer works to write a program, at least these days. One can be completely oblivious to the nature of the memory management, the way data is handled by the BUS and CPU, IRQ addresses, the various layers of an OS from Kernal to drivers to a layer for handling software requests for hardware (like Directx) and still write a decent program. Having that knowledge is pretty important if you want to make an efficient program though...

 

[phildonnia]

The interface of Spoon object will likely have such members as "ApplyForce" (which it probably inherits from the PhysicalObject class). It is unlikely that the programmers put in a public function to allow the spoon to bend by other means; users would certainly have discovered it long before Uri, as they discovered the rest of the undocumented interface.

It would also be poor design to include such high-level actions as "Bend", since a) there's probably no functional requirements for this in a spoon, b) it would require zillions of parameters to define, and c) if you really need to, you can use the ApplyForce method.

Even if Geller does have some inside knowledge of the private workings of the Spoon object, it would be impossible to hack it without using the interface.

 

[Morrigan]

The interface of Spoon object will likely have such members as "ApplyForce" (which it probably inherits from the PhysicalObject class). It is unlikely that the programmers put in a public function to allow the spoon to bend by other means; users would certainly have discovered it long before Uri, as they discovered the rest of the undocumented interface.

It would also be poor design to include such high-level actions as "Bend", since a) there's probably no functional requirements for this in a spoon, b) it would require zillions of parameters to define, and c) if you really need to, you can use the ApplyForce method.

Even if Geller does have some inside knowledge of the private workings of the Spoon object, it would be impossible to hack it without using the interface.

I'll probably show my geekiness here, but... this post has been nominated!

 

[gmanontario]

Unfortunatley Mr Peter Lloyd "programmer" *snork* for got one very important fact.
<experience mode>
If the spoon is programmed contruct, then somewhere, sometime a user is going to screw it up!!! Then version 2.0 will come out with a new and improved interface that will not be compatible with version 1...
</experience mode>

 

[fuelair]

My cutlery has been plotting recently. I hear it whispering late at night saying something about a party and hinting darkly of edginess and sliced brie.

 

[BillyJoe]

My cutlery has been plotting recently. I hear it whispering late at night saying something about a party and hinting darkly of edginess and sliced brie.

Ah, you're just perpetuating Randi's error instead of correcting it. Shame.

 

[Mosquito]

My cutlery has been plotting recently.

Your cutlery is compatible with your plotter?

You are SOOO my hero!

Mosquito - doesn't even have a working printer, forget about a spoon compatible one

 

[Jekyll]

Even if Geller does have some inside knowledge of the private workings of the Spoon object, it would be impossible to hack it without using the interface.

Not so. It's possible that a pre-alpha release of the spoon could be manipulated to return a pointer to the function bend, this pointer could then be applied to later descendants of the spoon even if the original hole has been patched.

 

[BillyJoe]

Ah, another poster ignoring the authors line of reasoning, just like Randi.

 

[Jekyll]

Ah, another poster ignoring the authors line of reasoning, just like Randi.

As far as I could tell the guy's line of reasoning was entirely irrelevant as he assumed a priori, that Uri Geller could bend spoons with the power of his mind and was telling the truth when he said he didn't know how he did it.

If you think that's wrong, maybe you could explain how?

 

[BillyJoe]

If you think that's wrong, maybe you could explain how?

Using The Matrix as an analogy, Lloyd was attempting to explain how Geller could bend spoons - presumably there is a Superintelligent programmer who has written an object-oriented program and here we are, all instantiations of the object:Human in His program, surrounded by instantiations of object:Table, object:Spoon etc etc. So, all the intelligence is in the Programmer, not the objects.

Instead of arguing against that explanation, Randi makes a series of irrelevant comments, making it sound as if Lloyd is positing something else entirely.
Here are some examples of his irrelevant comments...

Note, please, “the spoon interpreted that signal by bending…” These folks have been watching far too many special-effects movies. Now they have spoons possessing a thinking process and free will.

That old conventional theory says that spoons are dumb metal objects that don’t think for themselves...

Okay. Now we have “intelligent” tables, chairs, and spoons communicating with one another, folks

 

[Jekyll]

Using The Matrix as an analogy, Lloyd was attempting to explain how Geller could bend spoons - presumably there is a Superintelligent programmer who has written an object-oriented program and here we are, all instantiations of the object:Human in His program, surrounded by instantiations of object:Table, object:Spoon etc etc.

Yup, and it's an entirely pointless argument because there really is no reason to think that Geller can do magic. He's trying to justify the existence of something which almost certainly isn't real.

So, all the intelligence is in the Programmer, not the objects.

So you're criticising Randi for mocking the idea that spoons are intelligent, even though you think that according to Lloyd spoons are just as intelligent as people. Fine.

Instead of arguing against that explanation, Randi makes a series of irrelevant comments, making it sound as if Lloyd is positing something else entirely.
Here are some examples of his irrelevant comments...

I think your missing the point here, firstly Lloyd's ideas are so out there and ridiculous that they don't need debunking, and secondly Randi's criticism are not that far out. According to this OO paradigm, the spoon is actively interpreting functional calls and "deciding" just as a human (another object in the code) would how to respond to them.

Designating a Spoon::Bend function is clearing giving spoons a responsiveness to the environment which just isn't there. Whether or not such a responsiveness would count as free will or even if the idea of free will actually means anything is a question for the philosophy forum, but I don't think Randi's use of it was misleading or necessarily wrong.

 

[BillyJoe]

Jekyll,

Yup, and it's an entirely pointless argument because there really is no reason to think that Geller can do magic. He's trying to justify the existence of something which almost certainly isn't real.

Yeah, but for some it is real.

So you're criticising Randi for mocking the idea that spoons are intelligent, even though you think that according to Lloyd spoons are just as intelligent as people. Fine.

Lloyd assigns intelligence to the Programmer not the spoon.
Randi is attacking a claim that Lloyd is not making.

I think your missing the point here, firstly Lloyd's ideas are so out there and ridiculous that they don't need debunking...

Well let's just forget about it then.

....and secondly Randi's criticism are not that far out. According to this OO paradigm, the spoon is actively interpreting functional calls and "deciding" just as a human (another object in the code) would how to respond to them.

I've written a few programs in my time, but I've never been under the illusion that the objects in my program are thinking, conscious, interpreting, or deciding anything.

Designating a Spoon::Bend function is clearing giving spoons a responsiveness to the environment which just isn't there. Whether or not such a responsiveness would count as free will or even if the idea of free will actually means anything is a question for the philosophy forum, but I don't think Randi's use of it was misleading or necessarily wrong.

In one of my programs, a knight traverses a chess board landing on each square only once and ending up one move away from its starting point. Who is the intelligent agent here, me or the knight?

regards,
BillyJoe

 

[Jekyll]

I've written a few programs in my time, but I've never been under the illusion that the objects in my program are thinking, conscious, interpreting, or deciding anything.

An if statement is interpreting current memory states and responding accordingly from a set of predeclared rules.
A case statement decides which block of code to evaluate based on current memory states and predefined rules.

I'm not playing games here, this is just what those words mean in everyday English.

In one of my programs, a knight traverses a chess board landing on each square only once and ending up one move away from its starting point. Who is the intelligent agent here, me or the knight?

Well when I run your code, it will be the program which is intelligent, if anything is . You won't be thinking about how it works, I won't care how it works, it will just be off there doing it's own thing. Any intelligence in the system would have to be said to be the program's, even if you created it initially.

Apart from this, you are disagreeing with Randi over a matter of semantics, he says the spoon would be of similar intelligence to a human, you say a human would be of similar stupidity to a spoon. TOEmato, tomARTo. It's not a distinction worth making in every day English.

 

[BillyJoe]

Jekyll,

I'm not playing games here, this is just what those words mean in everyday English.

I think you are playing games, even if you don't know, and you know sometimes words have two meanings (apologies to Led Zeppelin)

An if statement is interpreting current memory states and responding accordingly from a set of predeclared rules.
A case statement decides which block of code to evaluate based on current memory states and predefined rules.

Here is what I would have written to include the idea that sometimes words have two meanings:

An if statement is "interpreting" current memory states and "responding" accordingly from a set of predeclared rules.
A case statement "decides" which block of code to "evaluate" based on current memory states and predefined rules.

The intelligence behind the words in parentheses is in the programmer , not the program .

Well when I run your code, it will be the program which is intelligent, if anything is . You won't be thinking about how it works, I won't care how it works, it will just be off there doing it's own thing. Any intelligence in the system would have to be said to be the program's, even if you created it initially.

Substitute "intelligent", "thinking", and "doing its own thing"

Apart from this, you are disagreeing with Randi over a matter of semantics, he says the spoon would be of similar intelligence to a human, you say a human would be of similar stupidity to a spoon.

That would be like saying the chess board is playing a similar role to the knight in my program. The object::Human has a much more complex role than the object::spoon. All it has to do is bend when Uri's brain locks onto the appropriate code written by the intelligent programmer.

regards,
BillyJoe

 

[Jekyll]

Jekyll,
The intelligence behind the words in parentheses is in the programmer , not the program .

I think you'd be better off trying to argue that there is no intelligence present when the code runs than it being the programmer's. The programmer could be a complete Muppet with three left thumbs and his code only works by accident. Someone else running this wouldn't know or care providing they got the working snippet of code.

Substitute "intelligent", "thinking", and "doing its own thing"

That would be like saying the chess board is playing a similar role to the knight in my program. The object::Human has a much more complex role than the object::spoon. All it has to do is bend when Uri's brain locks onto the appropriate code written by the intelligent programmer.

But according to your reasoning, if this guy's right we're not really intelligent we're only "intelligent". The spoon is also "intelligent" although to a lesser degree. Isn't this saying that we're as dumb as spoon in terms of real intelligence, rather than "intelligence".

 

[BillyJoe]

I think you'd be better off trying to argue that there is no intelligence present when the code runs than it being the programmer's.

No. I said the programmer's intelligence is behind it.
And, yes, there is no intelligence present when the code runs.

But according to your reasoning, if this guy's right we're not really intelligent we're only "intelligent". The spoon is also "intelligent" although to a lesser degree. Isn't this saying that we're as dumb as spoon in terms of real intelligence, rather than "intelligence".

It's my extrapolation of what Lloyd is claiming. You could use it as a criticism of Lloyd's claim if you feel this extrapolation is valid but that it doesn't agree with reality. But then you would be doing what Randi criticised Dan for doing - sustaining the idea that there is anything other than fakery to what psychics do.

.....unless I'm mistaken about what Randi said: Randi is going to comment further in the next Commentary (see his post in "The typo that failed to bark in the night" thread)

Perhaps we can let it rest till then.

regards,
BillyJoe