CSC366 Blog

Preface 5

2009-10-28T22:03:00.000-07:00

The overlapping and clustering of concepts in our brains can be seen through basic human interaction. For instance, when someone makes a speech mistake and says something that he/she did not mean to say, it is usually due to this overlapping of concepts in our brains. The incorrect word that one says can often be traced back to the similar properties of the word that was meant to be said. One of the most obvious instances of this is when someone mistakenly says a word that is pronounced similarly to the word that was meant to be said. Another example of this clustering example can be seen through mistakes that humans make when writing a program. There are many ways in which different variables can overlap in one's mind, which can cause us to make fundamental coding errors. However, I think that the overlapping of concepts in our brains is a good thing due to the fact that we can quickly relate a current stimulus (object) to other objects that are similar thus creating coherent relations.

Chapter 4

2009-10-26T16:44:00.000-07:00

I find the problem of figured out how humans turn sensory information into mental representations quite interesting. There are many different theories out there, and there really is no "correct" one because the way that humans store mental representations is not scientifically proven. I believe that the way we make mental representations is so complex, it will never be correctly modeled by a computer system. In order for a computer system to create mental representations like humans do, it first needs to gather stimuli in the same way that humans do. The main sense that we use is our sense of sight. As we look around, we are constantly recognizing tens, if not hundreds of objects. There is no computer system that comes close to the effectiveness, accuracy and efficiency of recognizing images as our eyes are. Once we come up with a computer system that is effective as our eyes our, then we will only be scratching the surface on correctly modeling human mental representations.

Preface 4

2009-10-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

I found the discussion about the Eliza effect to be interesting. I think that we fall for this illusion more than we even know. We tend to give computers too much credit for the tasks that they accomplish. I believe that this stems from the fact that we sometimes think of computers as "thinking things", instead of just devices that follow commands that are given to them. One example of this illusion is with the 20 questions computer game. In this game the user thinks of an object and the program asks the user 20 yes/no questions to try and figure out what object the user is thinking of. Most of the time the program answers correctly. Now some people will go and say that the program "knows what you are thinking." But in reality, the computer just making a conclusion of the most likely object based on the answers given. Essentially, it just comes down to a process of elimination, not the program actually knowing what the user is thinking.

Up to p154

2009-10-07T22:17:00.000-07:00

Given the description of how Numbo works I feel that it does a pretty good job of mimicking humans solving these problems. However, even with all the similarities to humans, I still believe that it is still nowhere near close to completely replicating human mental process for Numble problems. This is because every human is different. Some may try to approach the problem different due to the simplest things such as personality differences. An aggressive person may rush and try to compute numbers as fast as he/she can to try and produce a lucky quick result. A passive person may look at all the numbers and develop an efficient plan to solve the problem. Numbo does not have the capability to take these differences into account. Numbo is not specific enough to replicate human mental processes when it comes to these problems. As for what Numbo sets out to do, in a general sense it does have some similarities to human mental processes, but there is just too much missing to call it a model of human mental processing.

Up to p138

2009-10-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

I found the Numbo program interesting and much more plausible than the Jumbo program that Hofstadter talks about in the previous chapter. The reason I think that the Numbo program is more plausible is because unlike the Jumbo program, there is a relatively small set of ways that a particular problem can be solved. A human would figure out the solution in the simplest, most straight-forward way. There lies the task of the Numbo program: out of a list of solutions for a particular problem, which one is the simplest? While this is still a difficult problem to solve, it is not nearly as difficult as the Jumbo program where there are no clear solutions. Words are completely independent from each other, and there is no clear simplest way to solve Jumbo problems.

Up to p126

2009-09-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

The more that Hofstadter explains how the Jumbo program works the more I think that it is impossible to make. I think that with a dictionary database it is impossible to correctly model how humans solve these types of problems. There needs to be some type of middle ground between no dictionary at all and brute forcing it through string comparison. Even as humans solve jumble problems we are analyzing the jumbled word and extracting information from it so we can eliminate words in our mental dictionary. One obvious example, if you are trying to solve a jumble problem of 8 letters, you are not going to be thinking about a short word because that is impossible. I think in order to make the Jumbo program successful, there needs to be a process that analyzes the jumbled word and uses information from it to create a dictionary subset of the possible words. Creating a program that solves jumble problems without a dictionary just seems like a daunting and impossible task.

p97-111

2009-09-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

Reading about the Jumbo program was interesting to me. I was very surprised to read about how Jumbo has no dictionary to match the words up to. When I first read about the purpose of Jumbo I thought to myself that it will need a dictionary of all English words in order to function properly. However, once reading about how they are going to construct Jumbo by making it like a human mental process, I don't think it is possible to correctly create it so it behaves this way. The reason I think this is because at this moment we don't even know all the details about how our actual minds store and fetch words (and parts of words for that matter). So, if we don't even know how our minds store and fetch words, how can we possibly create a program that is supposed to mimic that mental process?

p87-95

2009-09-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

I found it interesting to read about how Hofstadter can take the letters of a word jumbled up and quickly produce the correctly-spelled word. I have always had a great deal of trouble trying to solve these problems, and it takes me a very long time to do so. It seems elegant in the way he describes solving these problems by, "toss(ing) the letters back up in the air and see how they come down the next time" (Hofstadter, 88). I struggle trying to solve it this way and end up trying to "brute-force" it by slowly starting at each letter and trying to add the remaining letters to try and make sense of a word. It makes me wonder why some people are good at solving these types of problems and why some people aren't.

p70-86

2009-09-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

I found it interesting to read about the Tylenol murders and what they did after in order to prevent an attack like that from happening again. It is fascinating to see that people become so paranoid over one particular product that was poisoned as they ignored every other product that could be contaminated with a different poison. I think that the reason this happens derives from the irrational emotions that all humans share and how we all have the need to correct the things that cause us anxiety. When things like the Tylenol murders happen, or any bad thing that causes disorder in one's life, humans strive to fix what has bothered them rather than fix what could potentially bother them. We are much better at fixing something that has obviously gone wrong rather than anticipating what could go wrong in the future. This happens because when something has gone wrong, our negative emotions kick in and our drive to rid ourselves of these emotions greatly increases. However, when thinking about something that could potentially (rarely) go wrong, no/less emotions are involved, so our drive to react upon it is nowhere near as strong than if something actually did go wrong.

p55-70

2009-09-14T21:26:00.000-07:00

This week we had to read pages 55-70 and reflect upon it. Hofstadter states that, "If mathematics is anything, it is the art of choosing the most elegant generalization for some abstract pattern" (Hofstadter, 70). I am quite confused as to why he considers math the art of choosing elegant generalizations to patterns. From my perspective, math is discrete, there are no elegant generalizations but only one universal correct solution to a specific problem. Nobody elegantly generalizes the answer to 2+2 to be 4, it is just 4 because two of one thing combined with two of another is 4 of that thing. What if the opinion of the world changes to think that the most elegant generalization of 2+2 is 5, the answer would not change to 5. This is why math being the most elegant generalization for some abstract pattern does not make sense to me, 2+2 will always be 4, no matter where you are, in the past it was always 4, and in the future it will always remain 4.

Up to p55 Reflection

2009-09-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

I found it interesting when Hofstadler talks about the differences between being number savvy and being sensitive to patterns. I never realized that being number savvy and being able to recognize patterns in numbers were two distinct processes. After reading this section, I believe that if a person is good at both being number savvy and recognizing patterns in numbers, he/she cannot do both well at the same time. There needs to be a mental "shift" into a different gear to effectively complete each task. Also, in reference to last semester's course COG266, I believe that being number savvy is a left-brain activity while being able to recognize patterns in numbers is a right-brain activity. Being number savvy involves completeing problems in parts (which is left-brain) rather than the whole, and recognizing patterns in a series of numbers requires you to look at the series in a whole (which is right-brain).

Chapter One Reflection

2009-09-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

In reading the first few paragraphs in the book, the author states that, "one thing I had become convinced of was that pattern-finding was close to the core, if not the core, of intelligence." This is one thing that I truly agree with also. Another thing that I believe that determines intelligence is to be able to actively observe patterns in real-time and being able to recognize them. Just simple patterns such as being able to spot the tells that someone gives off when they are lying. I know there are some people who can do great on an IQ test (basically all pattern recognition questions), but are completely dismal at actively searching for and recognizing patterns in everyday life. I truly believe that being able to observe and recognize patterns in real time in everyday life is essential in determining the level of one's intelligence.