PhilGoetz comments on Outward Change Drives Inward Change - Less Wrong

24 Post author: cousin_it 15 May 2009 12:45PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 17 May 2009 01:28:45AM 1 point [-]

Embodied/dynamical is not orthogonal to representationist/computationalist. It's presented that way in the literature, because a good story has to have conflict.

In my experience, behavior-based programming breaks down above about 100 behaviors, which Brooks etc. never get anywhere near in their robots. The number of interactions between n behaviors scales as n-squared. This is bad.

Comment author: scientism 17 May 2009 01:39:02PM 0 points [-]

I find accounts that try to reconcile the two approaches unconvincing. Andy Clark tries to do this and his books and articles suffer greatly for it. There's no reason you couldn't combine the two, of course, but the problem is coming up with a reason why somebody would hang on to representationalism if it's no longer "the only game in town." Representationalism/computationalism is unmotivated by evidence, creates more problems than it explains and is biologically-implausible. If you have alternative explanations without these problems then I fail to see why you wouldn't use them.

Comment author: cousin_it 17 May 2009 12:20:00PM 0 points [-]

Hmm, in what alternative approach do the 100 behaviors not interact?