Hofstadter, AI, and UFOs (peripherally)
Copyright 2013, InterAmerica, Inc.
The November issue of The Atlantic (magazine) has an article
by James Somers entitled “The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think” – Douglas
Hofstadter. [Page 90 ff.]
This is a picture of the brilliant Hofstadter, in his study
and at his desk – a place not unlike my own (and probably not unlike many of
yours):
The article doesn’t have a thing to do with UFOs but there
are some insights that are germane.
Somers notes that the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning Gödel,
Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (which you have in your library, or
should), Douglas Hofstadter is now 68 years old; he was 35 when he received the
Pulitzer for his non-fiction book.
Hofstadter is a professor at Indiana University, and Somers’
article is about how Hofstadter no longer is pertinent to computing’s search
for Artificial Intelligence; the programming genre has passed him by.
This is where the UFO connection comes in.
Kevin Randle, Stanton Friedman, Jerry Clark, and a few
others you can name, are no longer relevant to UFOs (or ufology, if you like),
replaced by time, and younger UFO turks, like Nick Redfern and Paul Kimball.
Hofstadter remains knowledgeable about AI, in ways that
others are not. This is true of Messieurs Randle, Friedman, Clark, et al. also.
They know more about UFOs than others in the field.
But no one is listening to them, just as AI technicians at
Google and other computing venues ignore Hofstadter.
Hofstadter is really interested in cognition, consciousness,
and the process of thinking.
The UFO guys – the geezers named here – are interested in
what UFOs are but they, like Hofstadter, are wedged in the wall of old UFO
tales (as am I). Evidence for that can be found at the current ramblings online
at Mr. Randle’s blog, and the restraint of Mr. Friedman lately (because of age
and a non-responsive audience), and Mr. Clark, whose UFO palpitations are
skewed by his occasional participation in wayward discourse at UFO UpDates.
Somers notes that “The entire effort of artificial
intelligence is essentially a fight against computers’ rigidity.” [Page 96]
And in ufology, that is what youngsters deal with: the
rigidity of the UFO old guard.
The geezers haven’t heeded what writer Somers provides from
Dave Ferrucci, a member of the IBM Watson (computer) team:
‘There’s a limited number of things you can do as an
individual, and I think when you dedicate your life to something, you’ve got to
ask yourself the question: To what end?”
[Page 98]
What was or is the purpose of the ongoing study of UFOs by
Randle, Friedman, Clark and even myself, or you?
Hofstadter said “I don’t need the stimulation of the outside
world,” a mantra I like and Paul Kimball says he adheres to, although his
Facebook page tells us otherwise, but his UFO interest has, indeed, internalized pretty
much.
But Somers cautions that “… if you don’t participate in the
fight, in the rough-and-tumble of academia [insert “ufology” here], your ideas
are going to end up being sidelined by ideas which are perhaps not as good, but
were more ardently defended in the [UFO] arena.” [Page 100]
(This is why skeptics get a foothold now and then. The UFO
faithful give way to the rabid arguments of UFO skeptics because the faithful,
like Hofstadter, step aside:
“I don’t enjoy going to conferences and running into people
who are stubborn and convinced of ideas I don’t think are correct, and who
don’t have any understanding of my ideas.” [op. cit]
Me? I’m pushing back….some skeptics are irrational and
foolish. I’ve banned them from my life, keeping intact those who are moderate
and intelligent: CDA, Lance Moody, and, sometimes Tim Printy or Zoam Choamsky.
Go to The Atlantic online, and seek out the Somers’ piece,
especially if you are into computerings’ artificial intelligence, but also to
see how a great thinker, Hofstadter, has dealt with his academic love and life
in general.
RR
posted by RRRGroup at
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
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