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Comment by goldenkey | Hacker News Reader

Algebra is pattern matching of a set of operation rules with regard to a space. Your jar example just extends the domain to physicality. And I agree - until these sorts of learning mechanisms have a wide range of quality realisms to pattern match from - they will not be able to form the type of cross visual/physical knowledge that is a much deeper and abstract undestanding of reality. But don't fool yourself. Humans and well..life..are just input output machines with incredible pattern matching capabilities. Algebraic representations are the structural result of that pattern matching.

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> But don't fool yourself. Humans and well..life..are just input output machines with incredible pattern matching capabilities.

See, that seems to me like a statement of faith which I just don't share. I think that building relational models of the world via abstract inductive reasoning is qualitatively different than pattern matching. I don't think there's some magic tonnage of pattern matching at which abstract inductive reasoning will suddenly emerge. I don't think that they're isomorphic. I think the AI toolkit still has a few missing pieces.

The only way to induce a consequence in a scenario is to have pattern matched the scenario. Pattern matching can be very abstract. It can use programs that may not halt. You are conflating patterns with exact details. A pattern can be as general as "[wildcard]." The human psyche promotes survival over *, every scenario.

You talk about representations and reasoning but are not assessing the fact that the human brain is literally a decision maker, acting on stored procedures and memory. Any representations and any reasoning will only apply to a select scenario or select objects, regardless to how you wish to define the pattern, the fact that a subset of abstractness/generality out of the whole of existence is specified, implies a pattern that is coded for implicitly or explicitly.

You claim to have the facts on the human brain?

My God, the level of hubris expressed by members of the cult of AI has reached a fever-pitch.

Stored procedures and memory?

Newton, in the age of clocks, managed to present the universe in the image of a clock. Is it any wonder that computer programmers present the universe in the image of the computer?

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