Today, my spouse and I somehow got into a long discussion of the Chinese Room argument, and I thought I’d share a little here of what I came up with.
If you don’t know, the Chinese Room (proposed by John Searle in 1980, and summarized nicely at the above Wikipedia link) is a thought experiment about artificial-intelligence work, having to do with the level of “understanding” that can be achieved by an AI system. The idea is this:
Imagine a computer that can understand Chinese. It can read Chinese characters, process them, and produce an appropriate response, that can be read by a native Chinese reader and understood well enough that the reader cannot tell the responses from those that would be given by a human fluent in Chinese.
Now imagine that instead of a computer, you have a printout in English of its algorithm, and a human (who does not understand Chinese) who executes the instructions with pen and paper, and produces the same results. Searle’s argument is that functionally, there is no difference between the computer and the human; and, that since the human operator doesn’t understand Chinese, the computer can’t be said to understand Chinese either–and, without “understanding”, the computer can’t be said to be “thinking”.
I won’t rehash the vast range of discussion that we had about this (particularly since I didn’t take notes). But I do have a reply, which is this: the “intelligence”, if there is any, resides in the instructions, not in the person or machine executing those instructions.
Of course, that would seem to put me in the dualist camp–saying that there’s mind and there’s body and never the twain shall meet. But the experiment, to my mind, is missing one detail: the brain is constantly reconfiguring itself according to new input and data. There are feedback loops between the various symbols in the mind, and these particularly come into play when modeling the behavior of other minds (and most especially when modeling itself). How these symbols are expressed in the brain’s architecture is far from clear, but what is clear is that the hardware responds to changes in the software.
Of course, there’s really no way to answer these questions at all until we figure out what consciousness is, and there are so many competing theories about that that we might be a century or more choosing between them. If it’s not clear from the previous paragraph, I’m a Hofstadterian; I believe that consciousness arises from self-sustaining, self-referential patterns of interaction between the various symbols in the brain. I also think that strong AI might in principle be possible; however, I’m also willing to throw a bone to Penrose and consider that the complex interactions between the brain’s hardware and software might be impossible to duplicate on any other substrate.
But, as I said, it’s hard to find the answers when we’re not even sure how to figure out what questions to ask.
Anyway, this is a pretty good example of the kinds of stuff I get into with my sweetie. I’m definitely with the right person.
(Incidentally, she’s currently reading Peter Watts‘ novel Blindsight, and she got very excited while I was reading her the Wikipedia article on the Chinese Room, because Blindsight apparently deals with many many of these issues relating to the nature of cognition. It’s pretty clear that I’m going to have to read the book–if I can ever squeeze it in among all the other stuff I have to read.)
So I had to get a typing certificate for a job I’m applying for. I don’t want to brag–well, okay, maybe just a little–but every time I’ve taken a typing test, my speed has gone steadily upwards.
Twenty years ago I struggled to do 30 words per minute, which is the minimum for most office jobs (including the one I’m applying for). In recent years I’ve been in the 70’s.
So how did I do today, you ask? 84 wpm, with no mistakes.
I guess there’s some benefit to spending hours every day at the computer, after all.
So here’s a fun little thought to take with you the next time you fly: British intelligence has found that al-Qaeda has started hiding explosives in breast implants:
Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery.
…
“Properly inserted the implant would be virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines. You would need to subject a suspect to a sophisticated X-ray.”
To me, this brings to mind the old line about better mousetraps only leading to better mice. Perhaps, instead of trying ever-more-desperately to defeat the ingenuity of the people who want to kill us, we might try giving them fewer reasons to want to kill us?
Just a thought. But then, I’m a liberal, so what do I know?
Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please! Let it be known throughout the sacred tubes that I, your humble reference librarian, have had the gauntlet cast before me by my beloved spouse to discover the origin of that obscure but oddly compelling bit of cheesy convention: THE VILLAINOUS NECK CRACK.
A bit of explanation. Earlier today, after I spent a pleasant moment amusing myself and annoying my honeybun by reciting at length a bit of Morpheus’ dialogue from The Matrix, she speculated aloud about how it started that the bad guy would crack his neck before a fight. Obviously, she was remembering Agent Smith doing same during one of his endless confrontations with Neo. But, as we well know, this bit of bad-guy action is now seen everywhere from Hollywood to Bollywood. How did this happen?
Now, your average person would stop, shrug, emit a noncommittal “Hmm, dunno,” and leave it at that. I admit I was tempted to do the same myself. But after I foolishly concurred in her questioning, the challenge was cast. I was ordered to go, run the origin of this convention to ground, and bring back its head. And so I set forth into the wild reaches of the Internet, seeking the Answer.
(Note: of course, this bit of idiocy is not limited to villains. Heroes do it too; one example that leaps to mind is Blade II. But we’re focusing on the villains here.)
One of the first stops at which Google drops us on our tour is a review of The Fifth Element, which states of antagonist Gary Oldman: “Though we never see his neck-cracking and pill-taking like in Leon…” Aha! Yes, I thought I remembered him doing that. Léon (also widely known as The Professional) came out in 1994. Pretty far back. Could this be it? Could this cliché have originated with the good Mr. Oldman, one of the most extreme and original bad guys in film? That would be nice.
But we shall not rest until we are sure, or until the trail grows cold. This I swear.
Next, I have the bright idea to look for sites on movie clichés in general. A moment later, while I’m trawling through The Movie Cliches List (which is surprisingly unhelpful, btw), my sweetie suggests to me that it might have originated with Kung Fu movies. This seems reasonable, so I start searching for various combinations of “kung fu”, “neck crack”, “movie”, and “cliche”.
After a few tries, this leads me to some gold: the Cracking Up page at Television Tropes & Idioms. This one points out that, indeed, Bruce Lee and other Kung Fu movie stars were fond of this move. Way of the Dragon, in which Lee royally kicked Chuck Norris’s ass at the Roman Colosseum, is mentioned. Came out in 1972.
I’d forgotten about Bruce Lee doing this–and, given his colossal influence on just about everything having to do with movie fighting, I think that’s about as good a place as any to end the quest. Of course, he probably took that particular bit of stretching badassery from Western boxing or weightlifting, or even from some Wing Chun showoff he saw in the fifties. But it would take a far more obsessed fan than I to trace his sources.
So, here the cinematic neck-cracking quest ends, with the baddest mofo who ever lived–Bruce Lee. I think that’s appropriate, don’t you?
And my sweetie was satisfied as well–which, of course, is all that matters.
So, a couple of days ago we finally got around to seeing Avatar for a second time, after digesting it for a few weeks. Found it every bit as impressive as the first time. And that was the day that it reached $2 billion in worldwide gross. And now we learn that it’s received nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, where it will be competing with several other of my favorite movies this year–The Hurt Locker, District 9, and Up. (If you want a prediction, I’m guessing Avatar for best picture and Hurt Locker’s Kathryn Bigelow for best director.)
So, what could I possibly contribute to the massive global swooning over James Cameron’s latest juggernaut? Well, one thing that occurred to both me and my spouse is that Avatar may well be the first science fiction film with a richness and complexity of worldbuilding that equals the best science fiction novels. I see nothing in the second viewing to contradict this. The physics, biology, and anthropology of Pandora are worked out to a degree that one seldom sees outside of, say, Sheri Tepper or Frank Herbert. Cameron spent a good fifteen years thinking about this world, and it’s all there on the screen.
But it wouldn’t have been up there if the filmmaking technology weren’t also up to the task. Cameron wisely delayed making Avatar until it became technically possible to show exactly what he had in his head. As a result, the film has enough detail to flesh out the world without overwhelming the viewer. Such little things as the light shining pink through the Na’vi’s ears, or the bioluminescence under their feet. The first commandment of worldbuilding is “show, don’t tell”, and Avatar shows us plenty.
Now, of course, this was only possible because Cameron had essentially unlimited resources to throw at the problem. But think you on this: what he can do today with $300 million, a major movie studio, and several high-tech companies’ R&D departments on his side, your average pimply teenager will be able to do on a desktop in a decade. Meaning that we’re going to have far, far freakier science-fictional visions to deal with in the near future.
Not that all of them, or even many of them, will be anywhere near as intelligently thought-out and executed. But some will. And those films to come will show us things that we could never have seen before outside of our own imaginations.
Anyway, yes, I loved Avatar. But I’m even more excited about what will come after. Cameron wanted to reinvent the movies, and damned if he didn’t pull it off.
So, I’ve just gone through one of my periodic phases of agonizing over the direction of this blog, as utterly predictable as the sunrise. It always happens; I start off with lots of enthusiasm, post semi-regularly for a while, and then gradually drift away. It’s quite boring.
This happens pretty frequently, as you may have noticed if you’ve been reading me for awhile. I’ve blogged off and on since well before they started calling it that, starting in roughly 1998 (cue Grumpy Old Man: “In my day, we didn’t have Wordpress; we wrote raw HTML files in Notepad, and we liked it!”).
And this is my usual pattern. I decide that I want to talk about things that interest me and to hone my writing skills, and so I go and write about some subject or other: science fiction, technology, politics, libraries, even my personal life. And I always end up losing interest and quitting–until I decide to relaunch with a post that reads much like this one. Lather, rinse, repeat. And I go around in circles without ever gaining the benefit of writing regularly.
But I think I’ve found a solution (somewhat inspired by John Scalzi–whose blog collection Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded is currently bringing the funny in the Eisley household).
See, I’ve come to believe that the reason I keep getting bored with blogging is that all this time, I’ve focused mostly on being informative when I could have been working a hell of a lot harder to be entertaining. At least to myself. If I were to start having fun doing this–rather than putting pressure on myself to be informative–then it stands to reason that I’ll keep doing it, right?
Oh, and there’s also the small perk that making my blog entertaining might actually keep YOU coming back. You get something interesting to read, I get ego gratification. Everybody wins!
So: as of this moment, I’m going to stop giving a damn whether I’m informative or not, or knowledgeable or not, or holding to a chosen theme or not. From now on, I’m writing solely for fun. My goals are going to be to (a) write every day if at all possible, and (b) enjoy doing it. Whatever it takes.
And if anybody else likes it, awesome. But if not, hey, there’s millions of other blogs out there that I’m sure would appreciate some refugees from mine.
So, enough of this. Let us go forth and see what we find, shall we?
So here it is, New Year’s Eve, and wouldn’t you know it, I’m sick. Been getting there for a couple of days now. My spouse went through it last week, so it was pretty much inevitable that I would catch it, but I’m not too happy about the timing. Can’t I just enjoy my New Year’s Eve in peace?
Of course, given that this has been a pretty sucky year overall, it’s probably just as well. Yes, I finished my MLIS, but that was the only bright spot. Still not working yet as a librarian, and thanks to the state of the economy, I’m not sure when I will be.
And I might as well jump on the bandwagon and agree that the 2000’s were a terrible decade, despite some really wonderful stuff that happened to me personally. Meeting my best friend, and then, through her, my spouse, were the major highlights; finally getting back into school came a close third. But overall, it was a difficult time for just about everyone.
So, I’m glad to put this year and this decade to rest. Here’s to 2010. Nowhere to go but up.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go try to get my overflowing sinuses under control. See you next year.
I have a few books left over from my MLIS program that I don’t need anymore. They’re available free to anyone who wants ‘em; all I ask is that you pay shipping. All are in fine condition, no marks or writing.
Carol Kuhlthau, Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services
Patricia Senn Breivik, Student Learning in the Information Age Henri-Jean Martin, The History and Power of Writing
If interested, drop me a line via a comment here, through Twitter, or with the “Contact Me” link below the picture on my site.
UPDATE: I’ve removed the Martin from the list. I didn’t particularly enjoy it; while it’s very informative, it’s terribly dense and not a lot of fun to read. But I did learn something from it that immediately became an important part of the Roman alternate-history epic I’m plotting. So I’m keeping it.
The others, however, are still available. If I get no offers here, their next stop is eBay.
So, I finished my NaNoWriMo novel with no trouble. Well, with a little trouble; I lost a lot of ground during our Thanksgiving trip to visit the in-laws. Thankfully, with the help of one 5000-word day (on my birthday, no less!), I was able to get back on track. Finished my 50K shortly before midnight on the 30th.
I’m actually quite satisfied with how it turned out. My spouse is reading it now and she says I’ve got the science down, and the plot, while slow at first, is interesting. But I really need to work on characterization. I agree; that’s always been my weakest point, and this book was no different. With one exception, everything said by the characters was there to advance the plot. Lots of telling rather than showing.
But there’s quite a lot of reason for hope. Part of it is that one exception. This book has one character, a ship captain, who entered the story halfway through (after being mentioned several times beforehand), and who quickly became possibly my first fully developed character. There’s a speech she gives early on, about her career, where she actually managed to surprise me. I wasn’t sure where it came from when I was writing it, and it felt like it hadn’t really come from me, but from her.
In other words, she came to life. At least briefly. And I was shocked, and very pleased, when I was done writing it. We’ll see what my sweetie has to say about what happens to her at the end, but I think she’ll like it.
So, where from here? I took a week off from writing after finishing NaNoWriMo, but I’ve started again now. I’m hoping to be able to keep up the momentum, and especially to learn to create more living characters so that it becomes second nature. We’ll see where it goes.
Ray Bradbury said once that you need to be prepared to write, and discard, a million words, before you can succeed as a writer. I’m well on my way toward that, although I’d hope to publish something well before then. But I’m beginning to see his point. Slowly but surely, I’m learning.
I haven’t been writing too much here, but I have an excuse: National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo.
In case you’ve never heard of it: it happens every November. You have 30 days to write 50,000 words. If you succeed, your prize is a lovely batch of bragging rights.
Sounds crazy, I know. But it can be done. 50,000 words over 30 days averages to 1667 words per day. That’s difficult, but not at all impossible. If you’re dedicated, you can do that much in two or three hours. I average around 700 words an hour, so I can write my quota in a little over two hours–if I’m on the ball.
The point is volume and nothing more. You don’t have to worry about plot, or characters, or logic. You can make all the spelling and grammar mistakes you want. It doesn’t even have to be remotely coherent. All that matters is the word count.
Or, at least, word count is the only goal that NaNoWriMo imposes on you. (Insofar as they impose anything. It all runs entirely on the honor system. They have no way of knowing if you’re cheating.) There are lots of ways that people use it to help their writing discipline; I’m using it to try to get into the habit of writing every day.
The interesting thing is what happens when you give up on every goal other than headlong flight toward your 50K. Desperate for ideas, you start grabbing at anything that bubbles up out of your subconscious. People use all kinds of crazy strategies to extend the book–including killing major characters, abruptly shifting genres, inserting long dialogues about random topics. Whatever works to hold the writer’s interest.
My first NaNo novel was called Best Intentions. When I sat down to write it, at 12:01 am on November 1, 2005, I had nothing but an opening sentence:
If you ask me, it all started with that damn fire truck.
And from that, I spun a strange little yarn about two brothers. One of them, mentally retarded, underwent an experimental intelligence-enhancement procedure. (Yes, I ripped it off from Flowers for Algernon.) The other brother, the protagonist of the story, watched as his brother suddenly surpassed his family–and then, as a side effect, began committing inexplicable acts of violence.
Honestly, the book was dreadful. My spouse read it and said there might be a decent short story screaming to get out from inside it. But quality wasn’t the point: the point was the creative act, the complete indulgence and surrender to the creative impulse. I had a great deal of fun writing it, as horrible as it turned out to be.
And now I’m doing it again. This time, though, the work is quite a bit better. It’s called Labyrinths. I went in knowing only that I wanted to write a cheesy space opera. What I’m getting is definitely a space opera, but it’s not particularly cheesy; the writing is below par, once again, but the science is actually pretty strong. (Although I’m sure any physicists reading it would laugh hysterically at my clumsy reinterpretation of quantum mechanics.)
So, I’m currently at 15,079 words. My quota for today, the 14th, is 23,333. So I’m well behind (I started very slow). But today was my best day yet–2826 words–and I’ve just put in a major plot twist that will keep it interesting. I don’t expect I’ll have any trouble keeping up from here on; in fact I expect to catch up with quota over the next 10 days.
We will see. Hopefully, by the time I’m done, I’ll have freed my writing impulse to where I’ll be able to routinely turn out a thousand or two words per day. Onward.
