Harris Georgiou wrote:
>
> > > Fuzzy theory could be called the macroscopic version
> > > of quantum theory. Quantum theory could be called
> > > the microscopic version of fuzzy theory.
> > >
> > > The microcosm is very discrete and objective while
> > > the macrocosm is very analog and subjective.
>
> Maybe this is why R.Penrose is so convinced that human
> intelligence and conscience comes from tiny quantum
> properties inside (spiking) neurons and signal propagation,
> rather than a too-complex neural network model for our
> brain yet to be discovered.
> And that's why we are far from close to human-like AI in
> the near future.
Penrose has many interesting perspectives but I don't look
for too much closure when reading his works.
Neural nets don't seem that far removed from the paradigm
shared by quantum 'theory' (as opposed to the more pragmatic
'mechanics'), Jaynesian/Bayesian probabilities,
fuzzy theory, stochastic resonance, memetic algorithms,
computational linguistics,... they're all what I'd lump
together and call "diplomatic" algorithms, but I guess one
could call them "AI", or "semi-deterministic" algorithms
or something like that.
For instance, in a state of war, militarization performs
more like a mechanical juggernaut of boolean logic.
Such logic is of an extreme practical nature, exacerbated by
the immediacy and finiteness of spatial and temporal
constraints. Decisions need to be made immediately
based on finite and often incomplete information about
certain spatial/geographical and physical resources.
Under such a situation, many possible choices are
excluded well in advance of any decisions, and ultimately
decisions get made based on only a small set of choices.
This feeds the requirement for making quick decisions
in 'classical western' warfare. Boolean logic applied in
this sense, acts like a multistage filter or sieve.
A non-classical case of fuzzy warfare is more like
diplomacy. As many possible choices or options are
maintained right up to the point of decision, but
along the way these many choices are refined and
constrained. This gives the decision makers more
diversity in the range of choices they can make
without giving them completely useless or ill-defined
choices.
Instead of discrete filtering or sieving, fuzzy
logic performs analog parametric amplifications and
attentuations on the distribution of choices.
This could be thought of as "filtering" since the lower
amplitude choices are less likely to be picked, but
unlike classical boolean filtering, it does not
eliminate choices completely.
By sorting the resulting distribution the decision
maker can look only at the highest amplitude choices
and pick from them and in such a case the results
would be very similar to making decisions based on
a Boolean logic.
But since all the options are present, even ones
of low probability, the decision maker has the option
of picking such low probability choices whereas in
a Boolean filter they would not even be present at
the point of decision.
In many mechanical systems it is often efficient to
limit the range of choices since the representation of
many choices requires, space and time and energy
resources. The overhead of maintaining a continuum of
choices may be too expensive to implement for an item as
simple as a binary switch that either turns a light
on or off. Consider SCR light dimmers for instance;
although they are useful, they are expensive and
electrically inefficient in comparison to a simple
binary switch.
Light dimmers provide a more sophisticated level
of options than a binary switch which ideally,
makes their function more ergonomic and appealing
to human aesthestics which favor variety and
continuity more than contrast and closure.
Fuzzy logic cannot compete with certain characteristics
of Boolean logic and vice versa. They are intrinsically
complementary. Every television has both brightness and
contrast controls and in the analogous sense,
fuzzy and Boolean logics respectively, are optimized
to work together; the former providing an analog level
of user sophistication, while the later provides an
economical digital level of mechanical operation.
It is possible to make the distinction between
fuzzy and Boolean logics transparent in this manner
but at a lowest levels of implementation, the duality
that exists between them will become unavoidably
evident when the limits of resources are considered.
In such cases, in cases of shear survival, boolean logic
wins over fuzzy logic simply because in terms of
limited spatial-temporal resources, it is the more
efficient process of accounting.
Every computer has a hardware wordsize limiting its
physical address space; and software, which can
transcend that physical limitation by providing
'virtual' memory, but ultimately all memory is
in hardware.
Another analogue of this is that in applied quantum physics,
the ultimate unit is a "particle" even though it is
acknowledged that in more sophisticated experiments,
these discrete particles can have continuous properties.
Accountings sometimes have to be made, and even fuzzy logic
reduces to a Boolean logic at the last moment. Whenever a
decision is made, it is either "made" xor "not made".
In such 'Cartesian western thinking there are no
"indecisive decisions" where mechanical actions are
required to be taken with periodic determinacy.
In aircraft design, people's lives are stake and although
there are many senses of fuzzy logic being applied to the design,
the ultimate question is whether or not someone will take
the legal and financial responsibility for marketing that
particular plane.
In contrast to this, there are "indecisive decisions" made
by more profound eastern characters such as zen archers,
bushido samurai,.. etc. This is a level of transcendant
sophistication over both fuzzy logic and Boolean logic.
Essentially it "transcends" the ideas of both material
"spontaneity" and of immaterial "periodic determinacy"
through both, an observation of the human+universe as
a situation, and as an idealism as a direction.
A bushido samurai acts and does not act, decides and
does not decide; ultimately becoming 'harmonius' in a
supernatural Shakespearean sense; to be or not to be,
measure for measure,...
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