Thursday, August 30, 2018


I have downloaded Julia v1.0.0 and am playing with it a bit, trying to get a feel for it.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

An argument for the existence of supreme beings

N is the number of agents, a discrete quantity.
N1 is a measure of the number of agents in our universe.
N2 is a measure of the number of agents in the multiverse.
C is the competence of an agent, presumed to be a continuous quantity.
W1 measures the distribution of competence of agents in our universe.
W2 measures the distribution of competence of agents in the multiverse.
We assume that the sample seen in our universe is representative of the multiverse. So W1 about=W2.
C1 is the most competent agent in our universe. (Hopefully not us humans.)
C2 is the most competent agent in the whole multiverse, the supreme being.

But competence is probably a vector, having components like intelligence, power, etc.  It may be that the most intelligent being is not the most powerful. There would then be multiple supreme beings. Conflict might result, on a vast scale.

We believe that N1<<N2 and so C1<<C2. C2 is superhuman but we expect that there will be things that C2 can not do.

Monday, August 27, 2018

A more plausible creationism*

I am reading Zeeya Merali’s book A Big Bang in a Little Room (Basic Books, 2017). These are some relevant thoughts.

 The purpose/goal of life is to expand and fill as much space and time as possible. It would be desirable then for intelligences to trigger new big bangs creating new universes suitable for life. If it’s possible to control the sorts of universe you create then this process would tend to increase that fraction of the multiverse that is inhabitable. Each creator would have an interest in the wellbeing of the lives found in its new universes just like human conservationists show concern for global wildlife.

Many creators would be finite entities. If any infinite entities exist in the multiverse even for them there will be things they can not do. There are, after all, different levels of infinity.

* I think that there is good evidence to believe that the various human religions are all built upon lies.
See, for example, Kurtz, The Transcendental Temptation, Prometheus, 1986, part 2.

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Meaning in an environment

The meaning of a word or concept may be determined by its place in a semantic network which links it to other concepts.* The concepts that are formed in the first place depend upon the environment and experiences that the agent has been exposed to. So detailed meanings depend upon the particular environment you grew up in. Words** will mean somewhat different things to different people (agents).

Conceptual change and change in meaning then involves adding or deleting concepts (nodes/vertices) and/or adjustment of the strengths of association (edges/links) between concepts. It has both a discrete and continuous part.

* A.s.a. H. generates semantic networks like those of M. Hyman in Ubersetzung und Transformation, Bohme et al eds, 2007, pg 355-367.

** Not all concepts need have a name/word associated with them, of course.

Monday, August 20, 2018

Robotic life after death

If all the servos in the robot(s) with which A.s.a. H. is embodied die or become disconnected A.s.a. can no longer act in the world. If the robots' sensors are lost A.s.a. can no longer sense the world either. The A.s.a. H. software can continue to extrapolate, organize, etc., however. A.s.a. would have a kind of life after death so long as the computer network is not shut down.

Friday, August 17, 2018


I'm starting a new semester so I can't help but think about grading. I believe that grades serve the useful purpose of forcing students to work harder than they otherwise might. I think, however, that they are of limited usefulness in actually measuring anything. If a question shows us that some item of knowledge has been acquired by the student what is the likelihood that that knowledge will be retained a year from now? or two years from now? And no two items of knowledge will be of equal usefulness. How can we estimate that? And some items of knowledge will prove useful for one student but not for others. And these things will all change as time passes.

It would be interesting to search out roughly equivalent cases in the casebases from various Asa H agents and compare their vector utilities.

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Machine learning

I just got a new pair of Widex EVOKE hearing aids from Denmark. I was anxious to try out the machine learning feature. I found it hard to make the “A” versus “B” choices. Should I prefer louder (more signal) but with noise or should I prefer softer (less signal) but with little background noise? I also found that one of the two aids stayed connected to my iPhone but the other one lost connection.

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Learning what to ignore (attention again)

Humans learn to ignore stimuli that are not "important" to them. The ringing in my ears for example. In A.s.a. H. value/utility is typically a vector quantity. One component of this vector utility is a measure of how frequently A.s.a. sees that particular case reoccur. Another component of the vector utility measures how strongly that particular case is associated with "food," "reproduction," "pain," "health," or the like. Once A.s.a. H. has recorded a good number of similar cases it is possible to do a sensitivity analysis for each of the inputs to the cases in this cluster. One can identify any input that does not have a significant influence on the output (or next portion) of that case (or pattern sequence). One can then suppress the output from that case/cluster to the next level in the A.s.a. hierarchical memory as being common but unimportant. A given case ("stimuli") may turn out to be common but may not be important and once so identified can be ignored.

Sunday, August 12, 2018

More reliability issues

Admittedly I use mostly commodity computers in order to save money. I frequently use USB flash drives to store A.s.a. H.’s casebases and to store and transfer activation* from one level in the hierarchical memory to another and from one computer in the network to another. Sometimes one of the drives is not recognized. This is a random event and I’ve typically managed to fix it but it is a nuisance.

* I want to be able to examine the concepts being created and used.

Friday, August 3, 2018

A.s.a. H.’s early model of the world

Depending upon the environment its used in and the tasks it’s given an A.s.a. Agent typically begins learning a model of the world composed of concepts/sequences like:

near=>far, far=>near  (motion)
motion=>collision  (obstacle)
light=>dark, dark=>light  (day and night)
change in illumination angle
hot=>cold, cold=>hot

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Student evaluations

I have been critical of the use of student evaluations of instruction. (See, for example, R. Jones, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc., vol. 40, page 968, 1995) The July 2018 issue of American Journal of Physics has an article by Lee, et al, which states: "...Student Evaluations of Instruction do not correlate with conceptual learning gains..." and "...grading leniency by an instructor (i.e., giving easy A grades) does not correlate with increased student evaluations of instruction." (Am.J.Phys., vol. 86, no. 7, page 531, 2018) About 30 years ago I tried to tell our administrators and regents this but they would not listen. Some years back (~20?) I had a student admit to me that her fellow students would lie on student evaluations in order to "get rid" of or at least "make trouble for" professors they didn't like.