[eu-gene] Generative or not? cubo23

[Lauri Gröhn]

At 06:02 21.2.2006, David Hart wrote:
>I already made a distinction between self-modifying code and
>programming.  When I said programming, I mean writing something new,
>with intent.  There's nothing at all special about self-modifying
>code.  I've written self-modifying code.  It is no closer to
>artificial intelligence than static code.

That is a good distinction. You can't have programming without going
to metalevel. Self-modifying code doesn't do that.

>But no computer has ever
>actually programmed itself, and noone has ever contructed any theory
>that proves this will ever be possible, or provides any mechanism or
>framework for it.  It may in fact be possible, but whether it is
>possible is not yet known.  The fact that it hasn't been proven
>impossible does not mean that it is or will be possible, it could mean
>that the proof of impossibililty will be discovered ten years from
>now, or it could mean that this subject it too complicated, and we'll
>never figure out whether its possible or not.

In fact one of the reason for the problems is this, simplifying a bit:

When creating software your have the chain
requirements (translation) -> specification (ranslation) ->
design (translation) -> coding ...
One can automate this in spesific contexts but in general case
there are perhaps an infinite number of possibilities and no a priori
answers. During every translation some information is lost
and some NEW information is created. You can compare this
with human language translation. It is seldom one-to-one.

>This is analogous to the earlier discussion about interactivity versus
>reactivity.  When Alex's AI guru friend said no computer has ever been
>truly interactive, he's simply saying that true machine consciousness
>has never existed yet, and he's right.  The software that we currently

Right.

By the way. Because pictures have semantics given by the artist and/or
the onlooker (may differ !) and music has no semantics, there is
the transformation near infinite (translation) -> infinite,
when my software (+ parameters given by me) generates music from pictures.

Lauri Gröhn
metacomposer
www.synestesia.fi