DeepMind's AlphaZero plays chess like a tornado in the junkyard

[In situ]

The idea that there exists a random event, I reject out of hand.

You are free to believe whatever you like, even believing in incorrect things. And incorrect you are becasue AlphaZero uses Monte Carlo Tree Search which requires random searches to even work. Your rejection of common accepted knowledge then ends the discussion between you and me.

All I have ever observed are events triggering other events and so on.

I understand what you refer to, however while you are entitled to your own opinions you are not entitled to your own definition of randomness. Clearly, you want to play the semantic games with words and bend the meaning of words as it suits your opinions, but I am not in for semantic games. I am trying to learn things and deepen my understanding.

Computers can never perform a random event.

Yes they can.

People never make random choices.

I agree - and you do understand this implies peole has no free will, do you?

 

[Tom 1]

This is where you are incorrect. Evolution accounts for all of this. The task to complete is to survive in order to reproduce, i.e. this is the goal or purpose of Life.

Thanks for your response. This is what I am most curious about - in the atheistic worldview, where does this drive to survive come from? Is it just built into living organisms somehow? Before inert (or whatever state it was thought to be in) matter transmuted into living matter was that drive to survive potential in the matter? Are there are a few different ideas about this?

Thanks

 

[Speedwell]

Thanks for your response. This is what I am most curious about - in the atheistic worldview, where does this drive to survive come from? Is it just built into living organisms somehow? Before inert (or whatever state it was thought to be in) matter transmuted into living matter was that drive to survive potential in the matter? Are there are a few different ideas about this?

Thanks

I'm not sure I can answer questions about the "atheist world view," but it stems from the thermodynamic properties of matter. It's the same "drive" which causes atoms to form simple molecules and simple molecules to form complex organic molecules. The phenomenon we call "life" is an emergent property of organic chemical complexity, not something imposed on matter.

 

[durangodawood]

You are saying bulldozers extends our bodies capacity while machine, like AphaZero, extetends our minds capacity.

The bulldozer doesnt really do anything new.

But AZ really does expose us to new ideas. So we could say it does its own thinking rather than just being an extension of our minds.

 

[durangodawood]

...Yes they can....

I thought computers could only generate pseudo-random numbers. Am I wrong?

 

[In situ]

this is merely the absolute infancy of intellectual machinery.

Machines capable of design by themselves been around for decades now. For instance the fractal pattern of mobile antennas, coolers, supporting frames etc etc are designed by evolutionary algorithms. Evolutionary algorithm has been used in all kinds of industrial design, such as designing propellers and jet enginees. Anyone who does not believe evolution can design must therefore also claim modern airplane cannot fly.

The special claim made about AlphaZero is not that it can design, since this is old news, what is new is the claim AlphaZero can solve generic tasks. It is an interesting claim, however I am not sure if this claim fully can stand up against a scientific scrutiny.

 

[In situ]

I thought computers could only generate pseudo-random numbers. Am I wrong?

Yes, since there are special hardware euqiped computers with true random generators which can do this. But you are correct in that software can only generate pseudo-random numbers, or near random numbers.

 

[In situ]

But AZ really does expose us to new ideas.

No really, these techniques runs back to Donald Hebb's classical publication of Organization of Behavior in 1949 and Rosenblatt's work on the perceptron .

If it wasn't for Marvin Minsky showed 2-layer percetron network could not solve none linear problems, which much later was shown could be fixed with a 3rd hidden layer, AI research would not had lost ~20-30 years of research time.

Only being able to solve linear problem does not have much application value and thus not many researchers cared to look into it. Research on neural network died over a night due to a single publication.

 

[Tom 1]

I'm not sure I can answer questions about the "atheist world view," but it stems from the thermodynamic properties of matter. It's the same "drive" which causes atoms to form simple molecules and simple molecules to form complex organic molecules. The phenomenon we call "life" is an emergent property of organic chemical complexity, not something imposed on matter.

So basically when certain elements come together in the right conditions life is the inevitable result?

 

[In situ]

So we could say it does its own thinking rather than just being an extension of our minds.

Define "thinking".

 

[In situ]

So basically when certain elements come together in the right conditions life is the inevitable result?

Would you not consider this a leading question, I mean what alternative answer is there?

 

[klutedavid]

You are free to believe whatever you like, even believing in incorrect things. And incorrect you are becasue AlphaZero uses Monte Carlo Tree Search which requires random searches to even work. Your rejection of common accepted knowledge then ends the discussion between you and me.


I understand what you refer to, however while you are entitled to your own opinions you are not entitled to your own definition of randomness. Clearly, you want to play the semantic games with words and bend the meaning of words as it suits your opinions, but I am not in for semantic games. I am trying to learn things and deepen my understanding.


Yes they can.


I agree - and you do understand this implies peole has no free will, do you?

Hello In Situ.

Not trying to provoke you, I just do not accept the idea that a random event can occur.
Science is built on the idea that events are connected, one event triggers the next event, e.t.c. If the universe was a random entity, the subject of science would not exist.

You are entitled to believe whatever you wish.

Can people make freewill choices?

In general, I think people choose what they would always choose, people are predisposed to make the same choices, over and over again. I am not even sure if I have ever witnessed anyone, making a random choice. I know for certain that I cannot randomly make any decision.

 

[Tom 1]

Would you not consider this a leading question, I mean what alternative answer is there?

Yes, just asking for confirmation, or to see if there is an alternative view. Shortcut to doing research I don´t really have time for.

 

[Strathos]

Hello In Situ.

Not trying to provoke you, I just do not accept the idea that a random event can occur.
Science is built on the idea that events are connected, one event triggers the next event, e.t.c. If the universe was a random entity, the subject of science would not exist.

You are entitled to believe whatever you wish.

Can people make freewill choices?

In general, I think people choose what they would always choose, people are predisposed to make the same choices, over and over again. I am not even sure if I have ever witnessed anyone, making a random choice. I know for certain that I cannot randomly make any decision.

Quantum events can be random.

 

[In situ]

Thanks for your response. This is what I am most curious about - in the atheistic worldview

What is an "atheistic worldview"? Is it buddhist cosmology you have in mind, or any of the myriads believes in ghost or magic or other meta-physical phenomena - what exactly is an "atheistic worldview"?

Or did you, perhaps, mean to say "naturalistic worldview"?

 

[Tom 1]

What is an "atheistic worldview"? Is it buddhist cosmology you have in mind, or any of the myriads believes in ghost or magic or other meta-physical phenomena - what exactly is an "atheistic worldview"?

Or did you, perhaps, mean to say "naturalistic worldview"?

Yes, that is a better way of putting it, naturalistic. What I was getting at is what is the cause of life - in the general biblical view, God created and sustains life. How this actually happened is what I´m curious about. In the view that doesn´t account for there being a God (which is what I meant by atheistic), what is the explanation. That seems to be that when certain conditions are reached and certain elements are present then life will arise.

 

[In situ]

Quantum events can be random.

Not in the way it has been defined by the poster. He has postulated casue and effect in physics according to first principles, which makes "randomness" an arbitrary definition. Because he want to play a semantic word games, i.e. the game of minimal knowledge, you cannot beat him if you try to play the game on his terms.

 

[klutedavid]

Quantum events can be random.

Hello Strathos.

They may appear to be random, but I think it may be a case of our ignorance in understanding this deeper quantum world. There is far too much that we do not
know, string theory for example proposes the idea of multiple universes. This immense complexity of our universe(s) does seem to exceed the limits of human understanding.

I do not even accept the fundamental axioms of mathematics.

 

[In situ]

What I was getting at is what is the cause of life - in the general biblical view, God created and sustains life. How this actually happened is what I´m curious about. In the view that doesn´t account for there being a God (which is what I meant by atheistic), what is the explanation.

To my understanding, the cause of life according to the bible was "the spoken word" of God. The beginning was a formless chaos and God spoken order into the chaos. In other words, magic or miracle as far it comes to our human understanding. Much more clues than that the Bible does not give as far as I can tell. Imo the bible is not a book about how the world works, but how humans should act in the the world.

George Coyne, a cosmologist and priest, might tickle you synapsis in his talk about evolution of life in the universe:

I personaly think he presents some interesting ideas when it comes to theistic evolution.

 

[Tom 1]

To my understanding, the cause of life according to the bible was "the spoken word" of God. The begging was a formless chaos and God spoken order into the chaos. In other words, magic or miracle as far it comes to our human understanding. Much more clues than that the Bible does not give as far as I can tell. Imo the bible is not a book about how the world works, but how humans should act in the the world.

George Coyne, a comsomologist and priest, might tickle you synapsis in his talk about evolution of life in the universe:

I personaly think he presents some interesting ideas when it comes to theistic evolution.

Thanks, I’ll check it out. I agree, I haven’t come across anything intentionally scientific in the Bible. For me it is a book about God, and how a person can have a relationship with him and have a full life, presented in a lot of different ways. I think that God’s speaking, the life giving power of his word, was part of an intricately planned process though, rather than a reactive act to form chaotic matter into order. There are various teachings in the bible that indicate strongly that God is both a very methodical planner and a decisive actor.