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Thursday, May 2, 2024
7:55 pm
If you think that you think rationally, define the word "rational" without referring back to a synonym of rational.
After trying, click here to see the definition-- Any statement is rational if and only if it can be restated in terms of the fundamental logical operator NAND.
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Read at your own risk.
16 Paragraphs; 1,281 Words.
Compare your intelligence to the current state of artificial intelligence.
A goat figuring out how to open the gate of his pen and Eratosthenes of Cyrene questioning and then calculating the diameter of the planet are two completely different things. One speaks directly to comfort level. The other derives its value more abstractly from what is called, in the most general terms, time preference. Contemplating such requires mental dexterity far beyond that with which biology alone equips us raw from the womb. This is the difference between hunter-gatherer and civilization. Development of that level of cognitive skill requires deliberate effort.
Thinking is a learned skill. We are not born knowing how to think.
Most just live and learn and hope that they pick up the skill of thinking somewhere along the way. Twenty years ago, a board game called MasterMind was available in any department store's board game section. Today the glitz of computer gaming has all but eliminated interest in board games. Or it might be that people just don't like to think. It makes their head hurt.
Regardless of the inventor's intent, MasterMind caught the attention of mathematicians for the unusually thorough mental challenge it provides. If one masters MasterMind, one can be sure, his or her mind has adapted one of the three most important fundamental skills required to consider complex subjects effectively. That of Logical inference. And touches on one of the other two, Assumption identification. It does not, however, stimulate Task resolution.
Anyone qualified to hold a position of public trust should find this game difficult at first, but easy to master.
Play the game. Link to Online Version. This version also contains an Artificial Intelligence suggestion option.
You will learn effective strategies quickly and gain an appreciation for the complexity of the game. Then watch as A.I. plays the game using the same intellectual methodologies that humans who are skilled at thinking use. It shows you which guesses it is considering. Watch how long it considers one guess before discovering a better guess.
Mathematicians have devised a programatic solution to the game, which always guesses the hidden answer in as few guesses as is mathematically possible. The artificial intelligence suggestion option provided in this online version does not use that mathematical solution. Instead it considers its guess using the very same methods you or I do when we play the game.
The key to general artificial intelligence is finding an AI algorithm which can gain the skills it needs like humans do rather than require a programmer's effort for each new skill. This is coming. Until then enjoy a glimpse into the future.
How to play
The answer consists of four random letters, each A through F. The answer is hidden behind "????" There are 1296 possible combinations of four letters each A-F.
The object of the game is to discover the randomly selected combination. This is done by making better and better informed guesses.
Each guess is compared to the answer. The number of letters which are the same and appear in exactly the same position as in the answer are reported as "Exact," Which letters those are is not revealed.
As well, how many letters in the guess are the same letters as those appearing in the answer, but in different locations are reported as "Same," Which letters are not revealed.
In this example,
My first guess is "aabb" I found that two of the letters were exactly correct, but don't know which two. It may be the a's or the b's or one of each. If a letter is an exact match for a letter in the answer, that letter is not also reported as same for another of that same letter which may appear elsewhere in the answer.
I decided to find what other letters may lie in the answer, so I guessed "ccdd" I found that neither c nor d appear anywhere in the answer.
Knowing that there are no "c," I used "c" to discover if one, both or none of the "a" are the ones which are shown to be exactly correct in guess 1. I found there are also no "a." From this and from guess 1, I can infer that the answer contains at least two "b" and those must be in the third and fourth position. There may be more "b."
I decided to check on "f" and "e" one at a time. Since I knew the two "b" were on the end, I tried "f" in the first two positions. Indeed, one of the "f" is correct. Just don't know which.
I know the answer can not contain "a" "c" or "d" and contains only one "f," but I don't know if the "f" is in the first or second position and if the fourth letter is an "e" or "b." "e" was confirmed by guess 5.
Guess 5 implies the "f" and "e" are in the wrong order. The computer reported that there was only one single possible answer, given the five guesses which had already been made, but gives no indication what it might be. You can cheat and click Show. That number is frustrating, when the computer is telling me that only five possible answers remain, but I have no idea which.
After entering "efbb" and clicking Guess, the computer confirmed that was correct.
You can click A.I. Suggest any time. It will simply do exactly what you would do. Consider all guesses and select that guess which it believes will reveal the most about the hidden answer. It may select a guess which it knows must be incorrect. Sometimes an incorrect guess is the easiest way to eliminate possibilites.
When it selects an answer, it places the answer in the new guess text box. You still have to click guess to process the guess.
Let A.I. play the whole game and examine its novel strategies. Does it play better than we do?
Having A.I. explain its rationale for favoring one guess over another to an observer is a different skill than finding the best guess. I only taught it the skill of using human rationale to determine a guess. I did not teach it how to explain itself.
You can cheat and show all the possible answers given the guesses already made and you can show the answer itself.
You can also select and set an answer or generate an entirely new random answer. This is useful if you want to test the A.I. with a hidden answer you feel might be particularly difficult to guess.
Jerry
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