All content © RJ Robinson 2002-8
Index:
My writings are outlined below, one piece at a time. Click on any item to seen the explanation. If you would like to know still more, please click on the header of the explanation itself.
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This essay is designed to refute the view that a true (‘strong’) artificial intelligence could be based on computation. The argument derives from Piagetian view of natural intelligence, against which the mathematical logic of computation is compared.
It is argued that the essential shortcoming of computation is its inability to deal with certain normal intelligent functions. The reason why computation is incapable of this is that no sys-tem or artefact that is controlled mathematically can obey the rules of mathematics (such as that the identity and meaning of terms cannot be changed in the course of a mathematical structure’s execution) and also be capable of insight or criticism (both of which require that at least some terms change their nature of identity).
It may be true that any stable result of intelligent activity can be described mathematically, but intelligence consists precisely of the production of new and unpredictable outcomes. This, it is argued, forms the basis for all forms of strictly intelligent forms of knowing and acting. |
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Status: Work in progress |
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| A full-length account of the evolutionary and
developmental origins of intelligence. Broadly based on a
post-Piagetian model of intelligence, the origins of
intelligence are sought in radical levels of adaptability and
individuation.
Starting with a general analysis of the core structures and functions of intelligent activity, the originality of intelligence vis à vis life as a whole is confirmed, and an evolutionary route to the sensorimotor structures out of which intelligence proper develops is mapped out. The development of intelligence in the individual is then traced, and the work as a whole concludes with extended analysis the extent to which intelligence transcends - through entirely natural and material means - the limits of biological life as a whole. |
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Status: Published
online 2005 |
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| It does what it says on the tin. Opinions and facts about politics, current events, science, history and anything where a few words might be useful. |
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Status: Permanently in progress |
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Although clearly the product
of evolution, intelligence may well have subverted evolution's
basic mechanisms. Three arguments are offered:
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Status: Complete |
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A full-length analysis of the relationship
between history, reason and human intelligence. Based on a
post-Piagetian concept of intelligence, a series of major stages
is drawn out that illustrate both the extraordinary power and
the critical shortcomings of human intelligence operating on the
scale of millennia, including:
I have also drafted a detailed 'reply to critics'. |
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Status: Published
2004 |
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| Although by no means a necessary
interpretation, the concept of adaptation is widely treated as
synonymous with the pre-adaptedness of a given structure to its
specific functions. Likewise, development is often treated as
implementing a design already created by evolution. By contrast,
although the adaptability of organisms is universally
acknowledged, its wider implications, which in many ways
contradict the very idea of pre-adaptation, are not.
In particular, not only does the facultative ability to apply the same structure to many different functions and to construct the same function out of many different structures have developmental implications that are seldom addressed, but the impact on evolution as a whole remains almost wholly unexplored. As a result, concepts such as ‘Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation’ and ‘fitness landscape’ are applied universally, even though they presuppose the primacy of pre-adapted structures and functions. This paper argues that a full analysis of adaptability invalidates the application of these (and many other) concepts to highly adaptable organisms such as human beings, and that radical adaptability places development on a par with, if not beyond, evolution as an explanation of our most human capabilities. |
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Status: In press |
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| A collection of aphorisms on why intelligence cannot be understood in the usual terms of evolution, adaptiveness and all the rest. |
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Status: Permanently
work in progress |
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| A brief proposal for improving the Parliamentary voting system - and telling our beloved 'representatives' just what we really think of them. |
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Status: Complete |
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This paper urges that a fundamental distinction be drawn between ‘instinctive’ and ‘intelligent’ technologies.
Most organic tool usage can be regarded as relatively straightforward extensions of normal processes of adaptation, broadly similar to other uses of external structures such as nests. Intelligent technology, by contrast, assumes the ability to appreciate the objective potential of things in ways that are not predefined by existing adaptive needs.
To demonstrate this point a three-phase sequence is sketched out, with strictly instinctive and strictly intelligent levels separated by an era of ‘sensorimotor’ tools use. |
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Excerpt from The Birth of Reason.
Status: Complete, plus notes for revised
edition |
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An extended interpretation, not for the faint-hearted, of the basics of natural intelligence, including:
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An excerpt from The History of Human Reason.
Status: Complete |
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A would-be manifesto for research into human nature based on the supposition that our most crucial attribute is our intelligence.
Starting with the most general questions about the nature of explanation, this long paper proposes that the key dimensions of human existence are consciousness, history, our existential situation and the powers of reason. Although we have few resources with which to explain these phenomena, without their explanations, all other would-be explanations of human nature are futile and trivial.
A general model of natural intelligence is presented, and its implications for each of the above issues is set out. |
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Status: Work in progress |
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On-going commentary on the misuse of language, with endless allusions and asides. Trenchant, ironic, political, occasionally angry and never even nearly finished. |
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Status: Permanently
work in progress |
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Science
Etc.
Work in progress