Present day computer systems can be programmed to perform a limited form of metaprogramming activities including so-called introspection implemented in certain programming languages such as Java, SmallTalk, and Tcl. This use of the term introspection is rather an abuse of the meaning of the term as it was originally meant. This so-called introspection has no awareness or consciousness whatsoever. It is an abuse in the same way that the term intelligent is bandied about when talking about missiles or golf clubs. (We will return to the discussion of introspection as it is an important element in metaprogramming systems.)

It would be useful for you to read Alan Turing’s lectures/publications, to read the correspondence of Charles Babbage and of Ada Augusta Lovelace. To know only what you know of the last few years of computing is to be blindered.

In addition to those items it might be of value to read Searle’s The Chinese Room. Basically it is an argument that symbol processing does not implement intelligence. On the other side of the argument if you read Daniel Dennett, such as Consciousness Explained, you see reasonable argument for what kind of processing can/does make intelligence. It is my view that, in the case of The Chinese Room, it is the book of instructions that is/has the intelligence, and it was generated by an intelligent agent. The man in the room who uses the book has some intelligence too or he wouldn’t be able to read/use the
book would he? The book constitutes an understanding of Chinese (symbols) in that it prescribes how to USE them (operationally). This is the notion that the meaning of something equals how that something is used. A boulder is a chair if one decides to sit on it to rest. We will return to where does the generator of the book of instructions in the Chinese Room get his intelligence so that he can put that into the book.

In the posting of the previous day we said : Second Order Metaprogramming, when its capabilities are applied to the system itself is called Self-Metaprogramming. Present day computer system designs are derived from thinking that goes back to Charles Babbage, if not earlier.

Current computer design, largely the Von Neuman design, has a memory section (ram) which stores bits, packaged as strings of bits, called bytes and words. The circuitry which contains these bits is designed so that the bits can be put there or transfered from there according to an address scheme.

This is essentially a pointer scheme which operates (conceptually) sort of like the turnstile of a railroad yard which turns a section of track so as allow the train to pass along a particular line of rail. Im not faulting this approach merely pointing out that address usage is largely sequential access. Arithmetic processing and logic processing are carried out by specialized circuitry which is different from the kind of circuitry which implements memory. The contents of memory has to be transferred into the arithmetic processing circuitry (section) in order that that kind of processing can be performed. The results have to be transferred back into memory. The same goes for logical processing.
The point is that memory and processing are done by specialized circuitry which exists at different physical locations of the computer system. Any operations that are performed on any data means that there are two sets of transfers required, to move data out of and into memory. [continued next posting]

It is in fact instructive and illuminating to read the correspondence of Charles Babbage and of Ada Augusta Lovelace. The daughter of Lord Byron (the poet guy) she was an accomplished mathematician, no small feat in her day because it was socially the role of woman to make babies and serve their husband, not to have a brain and actually think with it. Our society now is faster and has many motors and lights but the people are still just as arrogant and ignorant and closed-minded.

In Babbage’s day the latest technology was steam powered things, like trains, and machines with gears, the more gears the more impressive. (Kind of like the number of transistors in current devices.)

Babbage was able to visualize that gears assembled in particular collections could perform certain functions such as logic and arithmetic which in those days was supposed the purview only of educated technical humans such as accounting clerks and philosophers.

At the time rather few people of the public would find it credible that such a cognitive feat as doing sums could be performed by a mere machine. Babbage designed and drew diagrams of his machine visualizations. He made working subsystem models of parts of his Analytical Engine but alas the metal craft of the day could not produce the gears and such of his designs with enough accuracy to build a complete system. His designs/drawings were later used by an American University to build a full-scale working replica. One can be see at the British Science Museum. (on the web). Ada Augusta’s correspondence shows clearly that she comprehended what the machine needed to do in order to perform arithmetic calculations. She was arguably the first computer programmer / systems analyst.

I mention these two because there is still debate among many people whether or not a mere machine can do anything beyond rote mathematics, and employ a small set of limited logical operations. Alan Turing described what has now become known as The Turing Machine, a said to be universal machine. No one has yet figured out a design of a Turing machine that is practical to use as a computer. They are much too slow to be practical.

Today’s computers seem very fast to many people. But that is only when they are doing things which are easy for them to do. When today’s computers are pressed to do weather forecasting or nuclear simulations we quickly see that computers are fast only for a limited range of things.

While there are artificial neural networks which are simulated in computers these networks are rather tiny compared with those of most any living biological system, including ants, house flies, bees let alone Alex the Gray Parrot. [continued next posting]

There will be material on these topics presented in the blog and also technological discussion of them provided by comments from blog readers.