Professors Yitzhak Ben Israel and Elam Gross, Dr. Asher Idan and the journalist Shmulik Shem Tov point to the magazine "Mechuvot" conceived, initiated and edited for many years by the late Zvi Yanai, as a factor that influenced their careers.
Last week, December 16, it was one year since the passing of Zvi Yanai. Perhaps the most important institution he created was the magazine "Mechvot" which he published as a spokesman for IBM, and which became a real status symbol. It was not sold in stores and its subscriptions belonged to a class in itself.
His widow, Dalia Hochberg, says that many in the academy and other important places have told her that they owe their careers to Linai, and in particular to the journal "Thoughts."
First acquaintance on the playground
Major (res.) Prof. Yitzhak Ben Israel, head of the Yuval Na'eman workshop for science, technology and security at Tel Aviv University, chairman of the Israel Space Agency and chairman of the National Research and Development Council (R&D) at the Ministry of Science and Technology remembers in an interview with the science website that he had several intersections with Zvi Yanai. "My first acquaintance with him was when I was 6 years old and he is a 20-year-old parachute instructor. My father served in Tel Nof, I grew up in Tel Nof, and as our playground the omegas and other training facilities for the paratroopers were used (of course, pilots also need to know how to parachute. AB) Most of those responsible We were expelled for the facilities. There was a very nice guide there, who didn't chase us away and even played with the children and explained to them what they were doing in each facility. Later it turned out to be Zvi Yanai.
"At the age of 17, in 1967, I went to a science-seeking youth camp in England (as an outstanding graduate of the science-seeking youth group at the Weizmann Institute). Zvi Yanai interviewed the members of the delegation for "Thoughts" upon their return. This interview hangs on the wall of my room at university, with a picture of me on a 17-year-old DVD.”
"We kept in touch for many years, and of course I knew him when he was the director general of the Ministry of Science. He did wonders in the office. This was the first time that the Ministry of Science was turned into a significant executive body. I participated in several committees at his request. He was a very intelligent, multidisciplinary, self-taught person who was interested in science - quantum innovations and more, a very impressive man, wrote fascinating books."
From "thoughts" to the particle accelerator
Prof. Elam Gross, from the Department of Particle Physics at the Weizmann Institute who also researches the particle accelerator at Sarn No.
"Zvi Yanai is an example of a character who no longer exists today. He was truly a renaissance man. Despite being self-taught, he went deeply into every subject and had an extraordinary capacity for absorption. He was able to go deep into subjects that people have been studying and researching for years.
"Book of Thoughts was an inspiration for me. For all the years I was one of those who wanted to get her by any means. I especially remember a booklet in which he wrote a very long article on quantum theory. I was at the beginning of my physics studies and eagerly devoured the pamphlets, especially those that dealt with physics. He had a very deep insight into physics, although he had no theoretical background. Anyone who would talk to him would have a hard time noticing that he is not a scientist by profession."
"Thoughts" also had a very important influence on the Odyssey magazine, when I joined Shmolik Shem Tov at his request in establishing the project. Shem Tov itself was also influenced by the book of thoughts and situations. We wanted Zvi to organize one of the companies. For his reasons he did not agree, it could have strengthened the connection between Odysseus and thoughts. I'm proud of Odyssey, thoughts had a very big contribution to it. Thoughts was without a doubt the highest level magazine dealing with science communication until Odyssey was established as an attempt to consider it. Much more than any other magazine.”
"Later I met him when I was already a professor, and he introduced logic into the Ministry of Science when he served as CEO. He was a man you could not remain indifferent to: his conversational ability, intellect and knowledge were extraordinary. I don't know another person like that today. "
The networked person
Dr. Asher Idan, a consultant in the field of social networks, a lecturer in this field at Bar Ilan University, and the author of the book "The Fifth Force" (within the framework of the Open University's research fund) was influenced by articles other than those that influenced Prof. Gross:
"I learned important things from the journal Thoughts: First, through it I got to know the phenomenon of scientific revolutions, their structure, following a review of Thomas Kuhn's book Thoughts. The second topic that I first learned from reading thoughts was the concept of fractals and the work of Benoit Mandelbrot. I also learned from the philosophical writings there about man as homo symbolicus - the symbolizing man. The thing that mainly characterizes man is not what he produces but his use of symbols. The next step after homo symbolicus is homo networks, man as a network, the symbols are only part of a larger phenomenon that characterizes man - his network, hence the interest in social networks.
Odyssey as a continuation of thoughts
The journalist Shmulik Shem Tov, who edited many newspapers and was also the founder and first editor of "Odysseh", explains: "I met Zvi when he was an editor of Thoughts and I was a philosophy student. We became friends and became acquaintances.
Then there was a time when I edited this world of Uri Avneri and asked him to write a series of articles about cinema and he wrote an excellent series."
When we founded Odyssey, we took the concept of a magazine that combines science, philosophy, the relationship between culture, society and science, the importance of science to an open society. We built the newspaper around this in the spirit and structure of thoughts. Zvi Yanai liked the final result. He really liked to read Odyssey and was proud that Odyssey follows thoughts. He praised us at every opportunity.
"All in all, the State of Israel has no more Yanai situations, one of the fascinating, interesting and beloved people who were here. He was a closed man. Not a sociable person, focused on the things he was doing and yet he was very human and that always spoke to me. For me, it is a great loss that he is gone."
Oral thoughts
And now you have some personal words of the Ham (Avi Blizovsky)
One of the events I remember from my time working at the local newspaper "Kelvo" in the eighties was a meeting of "oral thoughts" that dealt with the evolution of man. The meeting took place in what was then the largest hall in Haifa - the auditorium of the Rothschild House, and it was broadcast live on Channel 8. I remember how Yanai would direct the researchers and philosophers (unfortunately, apart from Anna Befler-Cohen, I do not remember the names of other participants) with intelligent questions.
Later, I grabbed a few free hours and went to the main library of the Technion, to read as many as possible from the issues of the magazine "Thoughts" that were there on a shelf. Although I loved writing about science even earlier and of course I devoured every popular science and science fiction book that was available at the time, and I wrote articles here and there on local scientific issues (I remember an interview with Prof. Mario Livio from that time).
Indirectly, this led ten years later to the establishment of the science site, when the editor of Part II, David Landau, contacted me when he learned of my love for science and asked to write a futurism column for the approaching year 2000. I kept thinking about how to combine these articles, and the example of "thoughts" stood before my eyes. But then the technology changed and the Internet arrived, I collected the articles on a private website (there was such a thing then, for those who knew how to program HTML). The people of IOL - Haaretz's sister company saw this and turned the site into their official science channel, and after their merger with Walla I went independent and the rest is history. So that it would still be possible for everyone to read a magazine on any topic they want from among the approximately 17,500 articles accumulated so far, I invested a lot in cataloging and labeling each article.
God forbid, I do not pretend to compete with Zvi Yanai. I don't have access to philosophy, and I don't have the ability to write in-depth articles of thousands of words. I also do not pretend to understand all fields, and I use experts when I need a new topic, but I drew from him the ambition to spread scientific literacy to the Israeli public. Today I'm sorry we met so few times. But there is another point of similarity: I also hear here and there from students who said that they grew up on the site. Dr.Roey Tsezana even wrote about it in the Technion magazine.
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Eyal
I just now see your comment...
1) Again - I think I'm right: the essential difference between us and the chimpanzee is in language. The reasons for this are, according to you, a difference in size and connectivity. Maybe you're right, and maybe not - maybe there's a new component in our brains that chimpanzees don't have? It's like saying that the whole difference between a hedgehog and a bat is the size of the fingers. On a certain level this is true (they belong to the same superseries, for example), but it resulted in a fundamental difference in their development (bats are found almost everywhere in the world, except for the poles).
2) Accepts what you say - our brain is the densest of anything we know.
3) Here I think you are wrong. There are many people with significantly smaller brains than the average person, and no one is aware of it. And let's look at the opposite - between people with a "normal" brain there are differences in intelligence of hundreds of percent.
4) Regarding the planning, you are wrong, in my opinion, big time. In fields such as medicine, agriculture, aviation and software I know for sure that this is the case. I guess that's the case with cooking. I agree that good planning helps in carpentry (measure twice, cut once), and maybe in Lego construction...
It sounds unrelated to the topic, but the meaning is profound: my argument is that if you don't know all the factors in advance then no matter how much you invest in planning, you will always have to deal with unexpected problems. When I think about it... carpentry also has problems: the wood isn't exactly the right thickness, you can't get the hinges you planned on, and one plank has an eye in a critical place.
5) You are confusing, in my opinion, between two things. You are absolutely right about the twins - their intelligence will be different. But, I think you'll agree that the tongueless twin isn't as stupid as a log, and is probably more intelligent than a chimpanzee, right? If so - do you think it is possible to skip all the steps and components and concentrate only on the language? Do you really think that today's software is more intelligent than that brother? Or from a chimpanzee?
6) This is not a matter of opinion - you are simply wrong. The computer has a very precise definition, and the brain does not meet this definition. Perhaps it is possible to build a machine that resembles our brain, with components that are sensitive to noise like neurons, that last like neurons, and that forget like neurons, somehow giving it the state of a certain person at a certain moment - but it won't be a computer...
If you are talking about simulating the human brain then maybe it is possible - but, you know the openworm project, right? In this worm there are 302 neurons and the connections between all the neurons are mapped. In these worms everything is static - there are 959 cells in total, and this number does not change. Take a look at this and tell me if you think we are getting any closer to simulating a human brain….
Zvi Yanai was an interesting and special person because there are not many like him. Many scientists are very "boring" people with very narrow and monotonous interests who are in pursuit of publishing an original article + three copies with wording changes.
Just as our politicians are the product of the system that filters them and leaves only the cynics and hypocrites, so the education system filters out those who crave knowledge and the desire to understand and leaves in the academy only those who specialize in meeting the requirements for promotion and tenure... and of course this is a generalization, even if it is mostly true.
This is why when you come across a person with the rest of the spirit, with a genuine and natural curiosity to understand the essence of things, combined with the ability to articulate and articulate, you get a character like the late Zvi Zel.
In my view the current situation is a bit sad because with a little bit of direction, a slightly more intelligent society, less people with interests to degenerate their thinking and turn them into consumer machines and of course humane education we had tens or hundreds of thousands of children whose natural curiosity fascinates them to explore the wonders of nature, the human spirit and values that lead to sustainability and growth , in my eyes, the aspiration for such a situation is an integral part of Zionism in the year 2015.
My response is pending (Abi, I wrote two responses, please post only the second one, it's just more reading, and I'll delete this message, thank you)
1. I said that the human brain is different from the brain of a monkey, and you explain to me why it is different... "
No, you said that the difference is that humans have language and monkeys do not, I corrected you and said that the difference is physical, our brain is much larger, and has a higher and more branched connectivity between the cells.
2. "Not only do we not have the largest brain among animals, we also do not have the largest brain-body ratio"
See this fascinating lecture (I'm pretty sure you've already seen it) according to what is said there, the minds of monkeys (including humans) are the "denseest" in the entire animal kingdom, and in addition, the minds of humans are the largest in the entire monkey family (meaning our minds are also very dense , and also 3 times larger than a chimpanzee's brain) and the bottom line is that our brain includes the largest number of neurons relative to any other brain of an animal on earth, this is what gives us the power of high thinking and probably also our self-awareness and intelligence.
Here is the lecture, it is highly recommended to watch:
http://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_special_about_the_human_brain?language=he
(Works for me only through the Chrome browser for some reason, on Internet Explorer the video does not start running)
3. "There are people with normal intelligence whose brain weighs half of an average brain"
I know these cases, and according to what I remember it usually comes at the expense of other things, there are mental abilities that are damaged in these people (I don't remember the details at the moment) something along the lines of genius atheists.
4. "Regarding planning/software - I estimate that 10% of the time of creating anything is planning, and the rest is trial and error..."
So my assessment is different, in my opinion, in order to produce a quality product, at least 70%-80% of the time and energy should be devoted to understanding and planning, otherwise you will get a product that works "roughly" and only sometimes.
5. "Your test for intelligence is strange (Turing test) - do you require understanding of natural language as a test for intelligence? A person without language is unintelligent in your opinion?”
Miracles We are repeating a discussion that we have already had in the past and I don't have the energy to repeat things again... yes language is definitely an important part of intelligence, a person without language will not be able to solve problems in the same efficient way as a person with language does (if you take for example two identical twins, one will grow as usual and he will acquire a language, and the other will grow up with all the proper conditions but won't hear anyone talking next to him, let them both at the age of 25 go through a series of thinking tests, assembling models, etc. Self-awareness without language acquisition, without this special ability to "talk to yourself" quietly inside the head, but again we have already talked about this in previous discussions.
6. "The brain is not a computer built from software and hardware"
It is indeed built from hardware and software, just not like a classic computer as you described in one of your messages, but in the form of a neural network, where the physical brain is the "hardware", and the electrical currents and voltages that flow through it are the "software".
"I said that the human brain is different from the brain of a monkey, and you explain to me why it is different... "
No, you said that the difference is that humans have language and monkeys do not, I corrected you and said that the difference is physical, our brain is much larger, and has a higher and more branched connectivity between the cells.
"Not only do we not have the largest brain among animals, we also do not have the largest mind-body ratio"
See this fascinating lecture (I'm pretty sure you've already seen it) according to what is said there, the minds of monkeys (including humans) are the "denseest" in the entire animal kingdom, and in addition, the minds of humans are the largest in the entire monkey family (meaning our minds are also very dense , and also 3 times larger than a chimpanzee's brain) and the bottom line is that our brain includes the largest number of neurons relative to any other animal on earth, and this is what gives us the high power of thinking and probably also our high self-awareness and intelligence.
Here is the lecture, it is highly recommended to watch:
http://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_special_about_the_human_brain?language=he
(Works for me only through the Chrome browser for some reason, on Internet Explorer the video does not start running)
"There are people with normal intelligence whose brain weighs half of an average brain"
I know these cases, and according to what I remember it usually comes at the expense of other things, there are mental abilities that are damaged in these people (I don't remember the details at the moment) something along the lines of genius atheists.
"Regarding planning/software - I estimate that 10% of the time of creating anything is in planning, and the rest is trial and error..."
So my assessment is different, in my opinion, in order to produce a quality product, at least 70%-80% of the time and energy should be devoted to understanding and planning, otherwise you will get a product that works "roughly" and only sometimes.
"Your test for intelligence is strange (Turing test) - do you require understanding of natural language as a test for intelligence? A person without language is unintelligent in your opinion?”
Miracles We are repeating a discussion that we have already had in the past and I don't have the energy to repeat things again... yes language is definitely an important part of intelligence, a person without language will not be able to solve problems in the same efficient way as a person with language does (if you take for example two identical twins, one will grow as usual and he will acquire a language, and the other will grow up with all the proper conditions but won't hear anyone talking next to him, let them both at the age of 25 go through a series of thinking tests, assembling models, etc. Self-awareness without language acquisition, without this special ability to "talk to yourself" quietly inside the head, but again we have already talked about this in previous discussions.
"The brain is not a computer built from software and hardware"
It is indeed built from hardware and software, just not like a classic computer as you described in one of your messages, but in the form of a neural network, where the physical brain is the "hardware", and the electrical currents and voltages that flow through it are the "software".
Eyal
I said that the human brain is different from the brain of a monkey, and you explain to me why it is different.... And yet you're probably wrong: not only do we not have the biggest brains among animals, we also don't have the biggest brain-body ratio.
In addition - there are people with normal intelligence whose brain weighs half of an average brain. The explanation is probably more complicated...
Regarding planning/software - I estimate that 10% of the time of creating anything is in planning, and the rest is trial and error. I assume that in the field of medicine the planning time (of a new drug) is much less than 1%. I guess an expert carpenter is much better than that, but there aren't many like that today 🙁
Your test for intelligence is strange (Turing test) - do you require natural language comprehension as a test for intelligence? A person without language is not intelligent in your opinion?
Don't get me wrong - obviously the brain is a physical machine and there are no "magics". What I'm saying is that the mind is not a computer made of software and hardware. I suppose that in the near future we will indeed be able to wait for the brain of a simple creature, but we are very far from understanding how the human brain works, and certainly not to build a model with similar power. We may not be far from understanding how a single cell in the brain works, but our brain is little more than a combination of a thousand trillion synapses...
Yossi Simon,
I'm not sure I understood what you meant in section 2, a cognitive chip is the product of design, just as the brain is the product of an evolutionary process, but in the end we have two products that work according to the same principles, and both specialize in the same things (pattern recognition, learning and all the other things that a neural network knows how to do) It is clear that currently the cognitive chip still has a very long way to go until it reaches the level of a human brain... but still the basis of operation is similar, at the principle level.
"I assume that in the definition 'intelligence' in terms of result we mean the same thing (I find it difficult to define the concept unambiguously) I am simply intrigued to know how "particle movement" can be described so that the resulting result is called "intelligence" (true of many concepts).
That's why I didn't go into the matter of definition, as far as I'm concerned, when you can't distinguish in any way between a person and a computer (in terms of their results), then as far as I'm concerned, you can say that the computer has reached the level of human intelligence.
Even in the brain there is a movement of particles (ions which create the electric currents in our mind) which ultimately creates all our thoughts, and our self-awareness.
Eyal
1. I definitely agree with you that software should be planned in advance even with pencil and paper.
2. Also designing a chip that imitates the brain, so the chip is designed in the usual way (two-bit input) and the output of one bit is adapted to the requested function. The app is a simulation of brain activity.
3. I assume that in the definition "intelligence" in terms of result we mean the same thing. (I find it difficult to define the concept unambiguously) I am simply intrigued to know how "particle movement" can be described so that the resulting result is called "intelligence" (correct for many concepts)
Voicemail, which is also a type of conversation management.
Just out of curiosity, has anyone been able to identify what is written on the white brochure under the word THINK?
Yossi Simon, I guess you wanted to write "I don't agree with you about the software".
But you are talking about standard software and a classic computer consisting of a memory unit, a processing unit, etc... I, on the other hand, am talking about a chip or software based on the principles of the brain's operation, about neural networks, I am talking about projects like the European "Human Brain Project", or Regarding the cognitive chip that IBM presented the first versions of, I am talking about software and hardware that know how to learn and change themselves, similar to the operation of the brain (and these are not theoretical talks in the air, these things already exist and are developing).
"How do you define 'intelligence'?
intelligence ? When a computer will be able to hold a regular conversation with you, and perform tasks that require thought and intelligence (such as reading a story and then answering questions indicating understanding, or solving logical/mathematical problems) in such a way that you will not be able to differentiate between it and an average person (a type of "Turing test" ) So as far as I'm concerned he has reached the level of human intelligence.
Eyal
Eyal agrees with you about the software
1. The computer is really a stupid creature and does exactly what is set for it.
2. The computer bears no responsibility if the hardware is faulty, memory components are faulty/slow/reduced/the border space does not meet the requirements, processing time exceeds a given time, etc.
2.1 The computer is also not responsible for the limitations of humans.
3. It happens that there is also a bug in the computer design. Ten years ago, a scientist at the Weizmann Institute encountered a bug in the Golem computer (a computer developed by the institute's scientists) 10 years after its development was completed. (In a rare situation of the input the calculation outputted an opposite result of 0/1.
4 By the way, how do you define "intelligence"
5. The beauty of the software is that you can plan the tasks in different ways and a programmer/planner/engineer can use it to express his skills.
6. In the Iraq war, the Patriot missile (if I'm not mistaken) came close to the Scud sent towards Saudi Arabia and exploded too soon
In the test it turned out that one of the float variables was 1 smaller than the required length in bits.
7. Software testing requires a testing document and an environment that supports testing. The document should be edited by an expert well versed in the material, and the problematic corners.
Miracles, it took you a long time to respond, luckily I sometimes check old articles.
I also sometimes deal with software and I also have some basic understanding of engineering and I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you. There are always elements of 'fine tuning' and elements of trial and error, but still the basis is intelligent and thoughtful planning. When I go to write an application or an algorithm, first of all I sit down and plan the basis, the principles, only then I sit down to write. It is clear that in the future there will always be slight changes and there will also be some games of trial and error, but again - the basis is first of all planning, and I appreciate that this is also how Intel plans their digital chips, with the help of advance planning.
"How can it be claimed that we are approaching the creation of intelligence?"
Again you come back to this, and I already told you before that the question in this discussion is not whether we are getting closer, but is it even possible? (to create an intelligent computer) and I think the answer is a resounding yes, this is because there is no magic in our brain and if we fully understand how it works there is no reason why we cannot reproduce it artificially.
"The variation is enormous between human minds"
What is a huge variance? On what scale do you check it? Only on the scale of human minds or on a larger scale that includes all the minds in the natural world from the brain of an ant to the brain of a human being? There is always variation, even when a machine produces a certain part in a production line there will always be a certain difference between the parts, but still anyone who looks at them will immediately recognize that it is the same object (screw for example).
It is clear that the brain that is built will not be the same as all other brains in the world, just as the brain of a newborn baby is different from all other brains in the world, and will continue to change during its lifetime. It is enough that the brain that is built is "average" and contains all the basic elements that exist in a human brain (in terms of the number of elements, the connections between them, the rules for creating new connections or changing existing connections, etc.).
"Think - what is the difference between a chimpanzee brain and a human brain? The answer is simple, man has language, and monkey does not"
No, language is only a product of a developed brain, the real difference (which for some reason you ignore, maybe because of lack of knowledge in the field or maybe for another reason) is that our brain is 3 times bigger!! More than a chimpanzee's brain, and the connectivity between the neurons is also more extensive and branched in a human brain, this is a distinct biological physical difference!
The journal Thoughts, under the leadership and direction of the late Zvi Yanai, is a vital and important journal like no other, both for students and for young people looking for science, technology, and more. It's a shame that the magazine stopped being published for some reason, and it's a shame that Zvi Yanai left From us prematurely, he was a person of interest and once again unparalleled in the flat and hollow Israeli public that sanctifies superficial ignorance and stupidity for the sake of our superficial politicians, may he give and be able to enable every person wherever he is to be educated and to know a broad general education in any scientific and other field and maybe even that thoughts in his current form will come back in time And in a different and different format.
Eyal
Natural selection is "superior" to any design process. Even in the example you gave of the camera, you are wrong. If you think that you go from sketching on paper to a working camera, then I understand that you are not in engineering... right? Every component in the camera is the result of decades of trial and error. I am a software engineer, and I have not yet managed to design a software system on paper, write it, run it, and get the results I wanted....
The computational power of an evolutionary process is an outgrowth of well-known theorems in mathematics, and is a useful tool in engineering in several places.
I will mention only one point that emphasizes the matter - a classic planning process is based on the fact that the conditions are known in advance. Not so in evolution, a continuous change of the conditions actually improves the result in this case.
Eyal
You see, even in the small number of commenters on this site, the vast variation between human minds. So how can anyone expect a "human brain" to be built into a machine that we all agree is a human brain? Think - what is the difference between a chimpanzee brain and a human brain? The answer is "simple", man has language, and monkey does not. Are we close to knowing the source of this difference? And let's look at it the other way around - do you agree with me that a person without language is still a person? If so, then what would "artificial intelligence" look like without language?
We are far from the answers to these questions, and many more. So, how can we claim that we are getting closer to creating intelligence?
The site of science is a hotbed of sanity.
The site is not perfect due to limited resources. But it enables smart, less dark and more enlightened talkbacks with people who have a common denominator. The article is about Zvi Yanai I remember.
Maya, thank you for sharing with us, very interesting and I agree with every word you said, and think exactly like you.
Miracles, natural selection is not superior to any other process, on the contrary, when you create things out of true understanding and not just blindly by trial and error, you can create things of much higher quality, see for example the cameras we created that surpass the biological eye (in resolution, frequencies visible, in focus and more).
If you haven't noticed, you're attacking a straw man, first you tell me that I'm "completely wrong" and then you explain to me how the brain *really works*... Say, did I say somewhere that that's not how the brain works? Did I say something that contradicts your explanation? Not that I remember.
"And add to that that the physical structure is constantly changing..."
Tell me, in the "human brain project", and in the cognitive chip that IBM introduced a year or so ago, did they not take into account all the things you mentioned? Doesn't the strength of the connections (synapses) there change as part of the learning process like any computerized neural network does?
I really don't understand what is wrong with you and why you insist on insisting.
walking death, I think you are petty and insist on getting caught up in bullshit. There was a misunderstanding, it's over, I see no point in continuing to discuss this nonsense.
And one more thing.
Those were not the sentences I wrote down. These were the sentences you tried and you wrote down.
someone
These subtleties of the Hebrew language made you argue about nothing with miracles for X amount of time.
If you read the subtleties properly, then there is no need to misinterpret what is clearly written, and there is no need to come to people later with demands such as: "Next time you should just write the things in advance in a clear way that will not give an opening to misinterpretations by those who read"
walking death, I brought up the option (which by the way was presented in at least one science fiction movie I saw) of punishment before the crime is committed, just to demonstrate how ridiculous it is to say "punishment is worth nothing if it is carried out after the fact", what other option is there? Punish a person before he is a criminal? (or at least planning to commit a crime)
Regarding the two sentences you wrote down, to me they seem almost exactly the same in terms of their meaning, I see no point in discussing such subtleties of the Hebrew language, next time you should just write the things in advance in a clear way that will not give an opening to misinterpretations by those who read.
someone
Punishment is worth nothing - in the sense that it is carried out after the act
Punishment is worth nothing if it is carried out after the fact
These sentences do not have the same meaning in Hebrew
If it's hard for you to find the difference, ask yourself why you jumped to thoughts about punishment before the crime was committed.
someone
Read my quote again... I wrote exactly what I meant. The intention is that she did not prevent the act. I mention this because we keep saying "he (she) deserves a bigger punishment", and so on. We want to perhaps keep him away from society for a longer time or increase the deterrence. You have to be careful not to involve a vindictiveness in this. The truth is that in my opinion it is impossible to ignore this urge, and this is really one of the functions of punishment - to satisfy the urge for revenge, because otherwise people will "take the law into their own hands". Therefore, in a certain sense, the punishment protects the criminal.
Nissim, I clearly stated in my previous message that I did not conclude that you are against punishment, so why do you insist on attributing something to me that I did not say?
"We both agree that it is necessary to punish, even if there is no "free will". Right?"
True, it is necessary to punish, if only so that society will be protected from that criminal for a certain period of time (or forever, if he is executed or receives several accumulated life sentences).
walking death, do you know how to read?
I will quote Nissim's exact words for you again (later, as I mentioned, he added a disclaimer)
"someone
I half agree. Punishment is worth nothing - in the sense that it is carried out after the act"
So did he say or didn't he say?
someone
you are confused Nissim did not write that punishment is worth nothing if it is carried out after the fact. You are the one who wrote this as a question.
someone
Again - I am not against punishment. And again - punishment does not "eliminate" the crime. You are absolutely right that punishment is a deterrent, that it distances the person from society for a period of time, I have no argument with you about that.
Don't forget where we started - we both agree that it is necessary to punish, even if there is no "free will". Right?
Nissim, I did not conclude that you are against punishment, I simply quoted your words as you wrote them in your previous message, you wrote that punishment is worth nothing if it is carried out after the fact (so what, we put a person in prison *before* he commits a murder?) and then qualified and added that punishment is Equal in that it is daunting.
Even if most people return to prison, you still keep them away from society for a long period of time (and society is protected from them during this period) and you also give them a chance to think once more about their actions and perhaps change their ways for the better, one last thing - if the offense is particularly serious, the person will receive Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, or more than that - he will receive the death penalty, which means he will be removed from society forever, and will not be able to harm anyone again.
someone
Factually - most people who have been in prison will return there, so your claim is wrong. Pay attention to what I said - punishment is worth nothing in the context of the same offense, because it has already been committed. Better, for example, to force a murderer to pay his whole life to the family of the murdered (just an idea I haven't thought about in depth).
Lest you understand that I am against punishment, on the contrary. I don't understand - how did you conclude that I am not in favor of punishment?
Miracles, why is punishment worth nothing if it is carried out after the fact? Is it not clear to you that there is a high chance that a person who cheated, or stole, or robbed, or raped, or beat or murdered, will commit this crime again and harm more people if he is not put in prison? Do you really not understand that there is a clear element here of protecting society against future acts of that criminal?
someone
I half agree. Punishment is worth nothing - in the sense that it is carried out after the act. What does help, and this is the purpose of punishment (not the only one), is the deterrence it creates. A person introduces the fear of punishment into his system of considerations.
In a very interesting radio interview with Idan Segev (a senior neuroscientist at the Hebrew University, who does very interesting things) he claims that studies from recent years show more and more that there really is no such thing as "free will", according to him we don't really have a real choice whether to move our right hand or left hand, and every decision we make is actually the result of a very large collection of brain actions (some of which stem from inputs from the outside world) most of them unconscious, the final result of which is "making a decision" to do something.
Does this mean that people should not be put in prison because they are not responsible for their actions? According to him of course they should be put in prison, this is in order to protect society, but still at the deterministic level they didn't really have control over their actions and the decisions they made.
walking dead
I think like you. Free will requires someone to have the will as theirs... a soul, or whatever you call it. What I don't understand is atheists who think there is free will.
Miracles
I just asked out of curiosity. The best definition I could find for desire is: a mental expression of a choice made.
What I don't agree with is freedom, which for me requires some kind of pre-awareness for its existence.
So free will does not fit me at all as a concept that can be connected to something logical.
walking dead
First let it be clear - I do not believe in "free will". Second thing - you don't need to break down the concept of "free will" into two words, and then look for the meaning according to the meaning of each word.
In general - definitions have a very limited use. The first use is in mathematics. The second use is when academics discuss a topic and want to explain to each other what is meant.
I don't know, and don't want to define free will. I can say that I believe that our every action and every decision is determined in one of two ways - deterministic or random. If you want, you can say that free will is an emerging phenomenon of a very complex system. My car turns off the engine in all kinds of conditions, such as temperature, the angle of the ground, the angle of the steering wheel, the seat belt, the selected gear and the speed changes - for me, it seems to me that it turns off whenever it wants 🙂 I'm willing to call this "free will"...
Miracles
Two questions, if possible.
What is the definition of desire?
What is the definition of freedom?
Guys, if I have a few more words.
First, Nissim, I agree with you that evolution is a very powerful tool, not to say the most powerful tool we know for design, but to say that it is more powerful than any planning is a bit too harsh a statement. It is more powerful than any design that man has been able to come up with to date. There is no doubt that the great advantage of the evolutionary process is the dynamism and the ability to adapt to the environment (you are the most adapted to your environment simply because you have no other choice) but there may be ways to overcome this that we have not thought of.
Yes, I wanted to share with you an anecdote from my work. I understand very little in the brain. We are working on ways to create devices that will effectively pass gases (for capturing carbon dioxide from factories). In nature there is such an excellent device and it is called a lung, so of course the instinct is to imitate the lung. This project takes two approaches. First, we physically look at the structure of the lung and try to imitate it with our synthetic materials. In Brea there is a "first hierarchy" of relatively large pipes, so we worked on that first. In the lung they are arranged in the form of hexagons. In another alternate system, in the fish, they are arranged in the form of squares. We built these forms and other forms that do not exist in nature (because we can) and here we found that precisely one of the other forms was the best gas exchanger. How? Did nature miss something? Certainly not, but nature worked with other materials (biological membranes, blood, oxygen as the transfer gas) and we worked with completely different materials. Probably a different structure is better for our materials. And that's the thing about the brain. We will not build our synthetic brain from completely biological tissues. The structure that works for the human brain, will not necessarily work for a synthetic brain (and that's without getting into forms of calculation which are things I really don't understand). The second approach to this project of ours is, by the way, to take this system and let it "improve itself" in response to external pressure. It's really not trivial to do this because you need to know what feedback to give and you also need to plan the system to respond to feedback in a way that improves itself, but how it makes the improvement is already "up to it". The system "knows" best what is good for it. I, personally, am much more optimistic about this direction of research.
Eyal
You are completely wrong about the structure of the brain. The classic model of a computer is a processor, or a small number of processors, and a memory space, the access to which is linear. The brain is made up of many units, each unit has a processor and memory, and the connection between the units is multidimensional. The result is a completely different computational model. In particular, in my personal opinion, it allows the brain to solve problems that a computer cannot solve.
And add to that that the physical structure is constantly changing... then you will understand that consciousness is not software that runs on hardware.
And regarding the dogs - the planning, until a short time ago, was at the level of the phenotype, not the genotype, but by definition we planned how the dog would look (you're right that you didn't plan the DNA).
But - that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that natural selection is superior to any other process, whether I call it design or you call it artificial selection (we're both right, it's just a matter of terminology).
What you read about the worm is only the tip of the iceberg of what I talked about - it is an extensive and fascinating academic project, which I am trying to integrate on a certain level (analyzing the idea of "free will"). The problem is that they are not there yet...
This planning was if you were to take a wolf and change it at the DNA level, and make it grow horns for example, this is already considered a type of planning.
Funny that you mentioned the worm, just yesterday I read an interesting news item on the subject:
http://www.slashgear.com/scientists-upload-a-roundworm-brain-to-a-lego-robot-15359456
The example of the dogs and the wolves is really not excellent, because you did not program and build the dog from scratch, you took something ready (a wolf) and directed it to develop in a certain direction, this is very far from planning.
The brain is indeed hardware (material) and the "software" that runs on it is the electrical voltages and currents that pass between the neurons and produce our thought patterns, there is no logical reason why we would not be able to create something similar artificially.
You keep repeating that our mind developed through the process of evolution, I claim that this is not relevant at all, at the moment we already have a ready and working brain (and it doesn't matter at all how it was created) there is no reason why we cannot copy and reproduce it one for one artificially/technologically and get an identical product .
How exactly will we know that we have created something similar to a human? In my opinion, when in a test (any test you choose, understanding a story, building a puzzle, solving a logical mathematical puzzle) we will not be able to distinguish between the cocoon we created and a biological human, then we will know that they are completely identical.
Eyal
The example of the dog is excellent 🙂 I'm not talking about the domestication of the wolf - I'm talking about the modern dogs. Surely they planned them. Each breed was developed for a certain purpose, and this caused damage to other traits of the breed. The one who will survive in nature is the one who developed according to "nature's design". It is very rare that we succeed in competing with natural selection, although there are such cases (unfortunately).
Regarding a person - yes, we might be able to build a machine that resembles a certain person. The brain is not hardware that has software installed on it. And this is Zvi Yanai's point. The AI dream was to build intelligent software. Dream that this software can actually think.
There is a big problem in the definition of the concept of intelligence. How exactly will we know that we have created something that resembles a human? By the way - today there is an amazing project of building a computer model of a simple worm. This worm has a small and defined number of cells, among which the brain is 959 cells. The project is possible, because the number of cells, and the connections between them does not change.
Nissim, leave for the moment the "moral right to disconnect him from the electricity" it is not relevant to the discussion, although in my opinion it would be quite the same as the question "Is there a moral right to murder someone?"
The example of the wolves and the dogs is not a good one, because we did not design the dogs, but developed them through artificial evolution, but if we were to create a wolf from scratch by connecting molecule to molecule exactly as the molecules are connected at a certain moment in the body of an adult wolf, then the product would look and behave exactly like a wolf
It is clear that as soon as we manage to create a replica of a brain (and I am very sure that we will succeed, although it will probably be an electronic brain, which will work on the principles of a biological brain) we will have to connect a body to it with inputs and outputs like a human body, otherwise it will not be able to function. But again, this is not relevant to the actual question - which is whether we will be able to create a replica of a brain.
I argue that the answer is yes.
Eyal
Evolution is "stronger" than any design process...let's take the example of the dog versus the wolf. Man took the wolf and designed it and what did we get? Dogs with highlighted features but with low survivability. The same goes for wheat - the crops are huge, but the domesticated wheat is sensitive to diseases and the weather. Who survives better in the garden - the varicose veins or the warts?
And I already said - even if we build a human brain, one by one, we will receive a certain person, at a certain moment in his life. We will have to provide him with all the inputs that the real person would receive. We will have to make sure that he is warm sometimes, that he is hungry sometimes, tired, that he enjoys a good movie, that he is sick from time to time and that he sticks his toe on the edge of the bed.
And as I said - would we have a moral right to disconnect him from the electricity?
We will try something on your first sentence because after that it is probably endless again, you can say that computers that are completely physical have a spiritual presence and you will be surprised to hear that the person can be the "spirit" in the computer, and you can continue to give examples like Wise who has intelligence and humor and a broader view in the field Narrow map and we can give an example of Vicki whose knowledge is greater than a first degree in history and let's not talk about Gogol.
But the important part is the sharing between a computer and a "soul" which is the person and it is spiritual for him. Good Day
Miracles, the fact that our brain developed in a process of evolution, does not mean that now in retrospect when we already understand and know how it works (when we understand... in 1000 years) we will not be able to create the exact same structure under laboratory conditions, with the help of the equipment and with the help of our technology and creativity.
Eyal
Let's start with the fact that the brain is something completely physical, without any spiritual scales.
Interesting that you hit the spot! The brain is the result of evolution and not the result of a design process. There is a huge difference between them. If we build a system that undergoes evolution and let it develop then it, I believe, can be smart. She would have to be "living" in a certain sense, so that a choice would be natural, only such a choice would create intelligence.
But, she will be very different from us and it seems to me that it will be difficult to compare "intelligence levels".
If you try to build a machine identical to a person, then you will get a certain person, because people are very different.
And if we succeed in the end - will morality ever allow us to turn it off?
Miracles The question is not whether we are close to it or not (I think we are getting close to it quickly) but whether it is even practically possible (say in a million years from now), in my opinion the answer is an absolute yes. If a blind process like evolution was able to create biological embroidery that is capable of thinking and being self-aware, then there is no logical reason why we, with the help of our intelligence and technology and creativity, would not be able to create something similar artificially (unless you think there is magic in our brains, or something "spiritual" that is not can be copied).
Eyal
In the context of artificial intelligence, Zvi Yanai is right in my opinion. I do not believe that we are close to the "intelligence" level of a smart person. On the contrary, we are very, very far from it.
You have to pay attention to what is meant by intelligence. It's a broad topic that can be addressed, but in two words: Yanai is right.
I'm sure Blowing Water can work something out for you with time reversals, he's an expert at that.
A good future you are looking forward to
As far as thoughts go, in Israel most of the electricity will be produced in sealed thorium-based reactors. And Israel will sell thorium-based nuclear reactors to the whole world, including factories for the nuclear fuel.
The parallel worlds were erased for people in time reversals, I'm glad I still remember part of the class
Leave your nonsense of the rehearsals in time, were there people who filmed the conversation with cameras or not?
Where are the photos now?
The document involved a bit of parallel universes and time reversals, it seems to me that they arranged the best above
Got it, interesting.
Is there any record of this conversation? You can see ? (on YouTube maybe or somewhere else?)
I was photographed, he was photographed, a conference call
How exactly did you get to talk to him? In telepathy?
I liked his attitude, he was an impressive person, and I got a little bit of a word to talk to him through the television about time reversals, and I also read his versions of some book he wrote, versions after time reversals, bowing my head blowing water
A smart man, although in my opinion he was a bit mentally fixed on certain issues (I remember an article in which he claimed quite strongly that computers will never reach the level of thinking/intelligence of a human being, a claim that I think is completely unfounded).
A wonderful column. Thanks.
There was a great man, Yanai. A source of great inspiration.