Sunday, February 17, 2019

Qualia, subjectivity, and ambiguity

When A.s.a. H. Hears a word it associates that word with its current active case/concept (or cases/concepts), possibly on more than one level in the concept abstraction hierarchy. If the environment and sequence of events is simple the word acquires a fairly unambiguous meaning. A simple robot moving forward in an empty space may learn to “stop”, “speed up”, or “slow down.” (See chapter one of my book Twelve Papers. Available at www.robert-w-jones.com) In a richer environment words acquire more ambiguous meanings.* Meanings will also be subjective since different agents will have learned different concepts prior to associating these with words/names. The physical sensations perceived by different agents will also vary. If yellow light falls onto the eyes of two different humans the exact activations of their “red”, “green”, and “blue” cones will not be identical. The same is true for robotic senses.

* Hand coding and adjustments can help to reduce ambiguities somewhat.

No comments:

Post a Comment