Threeness

In an interview on TV some time ago, Marvin Minsky, talking about (artificial) intelligence, gave an example of what complex intelligence, what we think of as 'understanding', feels like. He said that when we know one fact about a number, that 3 is one less than 4 for example, that number exists only as a data item, but when we accumulate lots of facts about that number it takes on a different quality; it becomes part of the machinery of thought rather than the content. To me this seems also like the alchemical transformation of experience into intuition; the development of a felt sense from a set of objective facts.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Marvin
• Minsky
• number
• intuition
• alchemy
• objectivity
• felt
• sense
• knowledge

[2bsirius]

If we were extraterrestrial and had only three digits on each hand, we would arrive at a completely different heuristics of what the number three actually IS because it would be a part of our bodies and the base of our numbering system, as the numbers five and ten are. Three would become a part of our extension into the world. It is this natural extension of numbers into the world that AI seems to find so difficult.

[conferencereport]

That's true. When I count past ten I get a felt sense of 'passing' or 'return' when I move on to eleven, as if I have collected these numbers into a singularity that I can hold in my mind before moving on, which I guess is derived from counting on fingers and the habit of using the decimal system. I would think you were right that a three-fingered extraterrestial (or a regular waltzer) would get a similar embodied sense with the number three.

[2bsirius]

No wonder you are out walking so often. You seem to have a border collie. They think they are always herding animals, don't they? I have a springer spaniel, and they think they are always on a hunt, so I'm always out walking too.

[conferencereport]

I have two dogs, Guy and Phoebe, both rescue mutts, but I do think they both have some collie in them, judging by their behaviours. It's great having dogs; it validates walking and talking to yourself (in the guise of talking to the dog) at the same time. Springers can be pretty scatty I've heard, how's yours?

[spicyvOHMitsnack]

a piece of minsky information that's always stuck with me was something i readin an old issue of discover magazine... "Marvin's house was like F.A.O. Schwarz after the bomb went off. There was a trapeze hanging in the living room. You'd open the refrigerator and find seal meat stored on a shelf for the dogs of a visiting Iditarod champion."

[polymath7]

Well, one thing you might not know that he was a child prodigy in music. And I seem to remember that he once said somewhere in an interview, "music, really, is mostly an excuse for not thinking".

It's my (anecdotal) understanding that he's an extremely eccentric and irreverent personality, and takes a kind of impish satisfaction in saying things that are invidiously iconoclastic.

[carter1370]

Does anyone know any sort of personal information on Marvin Minsky? All that I could find was information on his college career. If you know any info, would you please tell me.

[kimrathbone]

Could the number three be a meme.

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