IS PHILOSOPHY THAT NECESSARY??

i've written an article which argues whether philosophy is necessary for understanding and imitating human intelligence .here's the article

"Every great physical theory starts as a heresy and ends as a dogma".
Although AI can't be justified as a physical theory but i wonder whether its fate will be the same as cited above by the incisive remark.It's been decades since the advent of the "IDEA" that we can mimic our own intelligence and now it has been shaped into a full researched field of cognitive sciences.
The most intriguiging part of this science is the fact that the absolute is absent here,and the degree of relativity takes a spiral path.Take the term most commonly used "artificial intelligence".even the term intelligence is ambiguous.And it is this relative misery which leads me to think whether we are on war with biology? and if yes can we ever win at this rate?? I answer this question in the affirmative and i believe we are already on a winning spree.How?? Let me explain .
"TURING TEST" cited to be the ultimate goal of AI researchers for decades is loosing its importance now,well at least symbolically!! I go along with the breed of modern AI researchers who believe that the turing test doesn't provide for a justifiable goal of AI because it is suggested conversely that the turing test needlessly costraints machine intelligence to fit a human mould.Perhaps machine intelligence is somewhat radically different from human intelligence and trying to evaluate it in human terms is a fundamental mistake.If you still don't get what i mean ,then have it more detailed!
During the turing test when it was seen that the interrogator could ask "any" question in order to differentiate between the computer and the human, it was seen that the interrogator often asks for some lengthy calculation which definitely the computer could solve and the human could be prone to mistakes,so again researchers had the problem of making computers take decisions as to when they should provide the "wrong answer" just to fool the interrogator. But isn't it crazy??
Firstly we device machines having great computational speed, accuracy and diligence and then we challenge those very machines to behave in a human like manner and make mistakes??? well to err is human; to compile ....digital.Do we really wish a machine would do mathematics as slowly and inaccurately as a human??
On one hand we have developed technologies which can transfer electric signals around 10'000times faster than those done by the neurons.It's been proven that the retina tranfers electric signals to the brain at the same rate at which two computers transfer data between them and the recent developments regarding 'neuro chips'which could easily prove how far we have come and what all we have achieved but when it comes to application we again stumble and fall.It's then, when i think whether the imitation is futile. I don't mean we should stop exploring and experimenting but i believe instead of programming machines do superficial imitation of human intelligence, the whole field of the AI should be broken down into 'snippets of AI' and specific problem domains to be identified. Fields like psychology and philosophy should be done away with. I know i'll be termed as somewhat 'audacious' for this line but i strongly believe that these two fields are not concerned with human intelligence at all, as they are concerned more with individual perception and belief rather than logic.Studies have proven that culture is just as important in creating humans as humans are creating culture, and if we try to take everything in account, we fail miserabely. As a great rationalist Hissels said that, 'INTELLIGENCE IS NOT KNOWING WHAT IS TRUE, BUT RATHER KNOWING HOW TO COPE IN A WORLD THAT WAS CONSTANTLY CHANGING AND EVOLVING'.
Being interested in AI i am not condemning the work being done but i beleive that it is still in its primitive stage and any jump without thinking of the consequences could be fatal to the work and morale of the researchers.
There is an extremely different theme specified in the book i am reading which says that "intelligence is reflected by the collective behaviours of large numbers of very simple interacting ,semi-autonomous individuals or agents.Whether we take these agents to be neural cells ,individual members of a species,or a single person in a society,their interactions produce intelligence".
So,rather than wasting time ,money and effort in making machines produce pieces of poetry or to rank faces on a baeuty scale, the problem of building intelligent machines should be approached from the view point of mathematics,with the belief of logical reasoning as paradigmatic of intelligence itself.Who knows one day, we might be able to create machines which are able to think and take decisions based on pure logic without any emotional bondages to hamper their logical decision and then we can actually surpass our intelligence and create our own "artificial being".

experts are made ,not born

According to scientific american , experts in their respective fields don't have any innate capability as such but it's all about rigorous practise and training which makes them the experts that they are.There is this rapid knowledge-guided perception also called apperception.The article tells us how the chess grandmasters have revealed clues to how people become experts in other fields as well.Nice article describing that there is not much of a difference between an expert and a novice as such,its just the amount of mid night oil that you have burnt that counts.Interesting read altogether.Access the article at http://www.ScientificAmerican.com/

have a heart too!!

Nowadays, i feel inclined towards the environment and the associated sciences.No, no i am not turning into an environmentalist!! but its only after you study and work hard on imitating nature(as in artificial intelligence)then you come to realise the beauty and power of mother earth.I gasp and wonder on the extreme biodiversity which is on our platter.The sheer beauty of plants and varied flora and fauna leads me to think even if we copy the way our brains work ,the genetic code or the DNA will we be able to imitate emotions such as the wonderful feeling of being in love, the feeling which a mother has for her children , being in anger or for that matter hatred?? True that we know the chemical secreted when we are happy, still is it just so simple????I don't think so!! and even if it is ,then i feel that it's out of the reach of our common sense and perception.As a budding engineer i should not be pessimistic but deep inside i know no machine can give the joy which a baby's innocent smile gives!! So, it's on us to shoulder the responsibility of conserving the natural heritage bestowed on us,because the people who toil night and day in a robotics lab should know and respect the gift of life given to us.So be a bit environmental-friendly .It doesn't hurt to see a few more flowers around you!! isn't it????

its just about everything !!

check out the site http://www.linktipidea.com and find ideas for anything and everything.It also includes tips for using your ceiling fan effectively.Life, career et all. Sometimes makes me realise how important even such small things are!!

an yes don't forget to catch the tip on how to look photogenic!!

the most popular myths in science

Go to http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/?url=myths and there you will find a plethora of scientific myths.The fact that human actually use much more than 10% of their brains, adults really grow brain cells with time and that there is no such thing as gravity free space at all!! cool!!

philosophy of religion

For quite some time,i was wondering about the presence of god and what is it in religion that people don't even hesitate to lay down their lives for it?Why people hold their beliefs so strongly that they are prepared to die and to kill for them.And i found some of the answers to these questions in the exceptionally written book which i am reading now.It's called "THE SACRED NEURON" by john bowker and my first book on philosophy and after reading it i plan to continue reading more of them in the coming time.Bowker shows from his reasearch that reason and the emotions work more closely together in forming human opinions and judgements than was once supposed .The compelling insight puts a radically different and new complexion on how aesthetic and moral judgements are made, on how people and societies interact, and on our broader understanding of the human mind.It lists religion as something 'unbelievable being upheld by the unprovable' and gives the paradox of religious urgency, it states that religions are such a bad news (when they are) only because they are such good news: they protect so much that is so important and so well tested through time that people would die rather than lose it. A must read for all philosophy buffs.

neurosciences and AI

Neurosciences and AI are almost an inseperable parts of each other.The better we understand how our grey cells work,the closer we'll be in imitating it.Go to http://www.neurodudes.com
It's a blog site 'at the intersection of neuroscience and AI' and all the blog entries are a must read for all the curious souls. Gives a useful insight on how things work and all the very latest advancements in the field of neuroscience and its relation to AI.

sh...my computer is sleeping

well! according to scientificamerican.com ,memory retention is enhanced by sleep.Although studies as well as records say that humans can live without sleep for around 10 to 12 days.And it says saturation of a particular set of connections not general fatigue,cause the deterioration in mental and physical health. A set of studies done on a 17 year old student who made the world record of not sleeping for 11days continously tells us that he didn't experience serious medical, psychological, neurological or psychiatric problems, although it rendered him cognitively dysfunctional.And if we think it in context to the present problem of learning in artificial systems, what would be the sleep-equivalent in such a system?? Because if sleep improves learning , then how can we make our artificial networks sleep? There is one more doubt..as we all know, information is transferred by the neurons in discrete signals equivalent to electrical signals, then how can the connections in a neuron get saturated?? during one's sleep too, the brain doesn't cease to function, then how does the brain gets rest ?what is that element that gets restored during our sleep?? and do bacterias and viruses sleep?? These are few of the questions troubling me today.if you have any idea..do let me know.

future call centre execs!

hey! go to www.sitepal.com
it has virtual characters containing artificial intelligence for your site.I was wondering whether we could replace humans with such characters in situations like call centres where there is tremendous potential and scope. Unlike humans ,they can work 24-7 and won't demand any graveyard allowance too!! Speech recognition and programming can achieve that.And once it happens, its going to be a revolution as quite a lot is being spent on services like these and quite a lot of users are unhappy with the quality of service being delivered by humans.Marketing can take a whole new dimension and that implies bloated bottomlines too! what say??
still wondering whether AI is in vogue or not??

no limits !!

Cognitive science is going another way altogether.Now neuroscientists are taking huge interest in psychology,economics and psychiatry.And the whole new idea of the human brain being both a gambler as well as a logician is 'mind blowing'.Ofcourse we know that already do'nt we?? But i think we need to study the effect of modern neurosciences on our decision making abilities, emotions and rationality.And i believe their study will go a long way in understanding and decoding the way our brain works.there is a book devoted to it.i'll like to read it definitely.You can read the reviews on http://www.oup.co.uk/academic/medicine/psychology.
the book's title is 'emotion and reason' and sounds like a good read.And its high time we stop seperating our emotional and rational responses and have some out of the box thinking.

AI rocks

The more i read about this field,the more i am fascinated by the plethora of options available.Sometimes strikingly clear and simple and sometimes the most difficult but as i dwell deeper into it,i feel that it has got something or the other to offer to any inquisite mind.Newer methods of problem solving ;neural nets,logic systems,philosophy and psycology too! i don't know about the absolute and ultimate aim of AI but the path deserves to be tread upon.Although the most simple definition willl be that of a program which can do which human mind can do but i believe the journey doesn't end here. A lot of issues like intuition,sixth sense and what not are left untouched and the real victory would be the time when these issues would be completely resolved which are beyond the realms of human understanding.

check-this-out

today i hit upon a site which i feel is just phenomenal.its called COSMIC ANCESTRY and at one place yu can find articles related to origin,evolution,logic and philosophy.And you can check out the debate on whether life violates the second law of thermodynamics!!whew!!
and there's logic and philosophy section too.and again a 100,000$ prize for a program which could simulate evolution in a genetically closed environment.good one.don't miss!
http://panspermia.org/indexb.htm

wanna have $100,000?? well ! brush up your intelligence!!

hmm...$100,000??? sounds lucrative?? not for free!! we all know about the allan turing test which is considered to be the ultimate hurdle so far in AI. still some people do not agree with my last line.
indeed,candidate programs are still entered into an imitation game competition every year.this is known as the "loebner prize" after Dr.Hugh Loebner,the inventor and industrialist who has offered a prize of 100,000 dollars for the first program to pass his version of the turing test.
check it out at http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner-prize.html

Good news is that no one has won the first prize as yet and the bad news is the programs winning the 2000 dollars award are simple computer programs that are designed to give the 'illusion' of holding a conversation .Nowadays such programs are called "chatbots".they have a number of set responses which they print out in response to various inputs by the interrogator.This is a technique first used in a program called ELIZA in 1996 but these refinements really don't contribute to the development of AI.
For example if the program prints highly opinionated text about matters that are highly political or sexual,then the interrogators might be forced into believing that it's a human.BUT IT TELLS NOTHING ABOUT HOW TO BUILD INTELLIGENT MACHINES!! DOES IT???
SO STILL LONG WAY TO GO!!

my journey begins

This is the first entry of my blog site ACCLIVITY .I plan to post all the new and exciting info ragarding artificial intelligence henceforth.the word 'acclivity' literally means 'upward slope' thereby giving a meaning to the ultimate aim of ai.i.e starting at a wide bottom and reaching to a pinnacle of absolute intelligence.Do feel free to comment on anything you don't find correct as i am a premature entrant in this area. and do wish me 'Bon Voyage'!!