StedmanResponse6

From Collectivate Course Wikis

(What is a learning machine?) To begin with learning machines: an organized system may be said to be one which transforms a certain incoming message into an outgoing message, according to some principle of transformation. If the principle of transformation is subject to a certain criterion of merit of performance, and if the method of transformation is adjusted so as to tend to improve the performance of the system according to this criterion, the system is said to learn. A very simple type of system with an easily interpreted criterion of performance is a game. (Wiener 14)

Through the process of recreation and representation we learn about the subject we are representing, as well as the medium through which we represent. In creating a learning machine we learn about learning, about how we grow as beings. Because of their hermetic nature, and reduced set of variables games offer a simplified arena in which to study learning through (technological) representation. Yet because of their hermetic nature play (according to the rules) do not bear upon the world beyond the game. There are increasingly examples where the boundary between the game and the world beyond are obfuscated. But here it is my intention to start with something like a game which is integrated in the world. This will be sex.

(The art of the game) "we do not play them by making the best possible move, on the assumption that an opponent will make the best possible move". (Wiener 15) The Von Neumann strategy for playing games posits that games can be won by calculating the outcomes of all possible moves and selecting the best one for any given situation. Wiener suggests that the Von Neumann strategy may be undermined by employing tactics that use the opponents rigidity against them, to cause them to make the best move at the moment, which is the wrong move over all. But this approach only works if the opponent is unable to calculate the entire scope of outcomes, or even a critical mass. Wiener suggests that a game which is wholly calculated loses its interest as a human endeavor. As a game, sex still contains too many variables that make it beyond the scope of calculation, perhaps incalculable. So the point then, is to learn something about sex, considering its beautiful rule set.

(How to build a machine that learns) "The new use of the regulating machine is to examine games already played and, in view of the outcome of these, to give a figure of merit; not to the plays already made, but to the weighting chosen for the evaluation of these plays". (Wiener 21)

(The life-like qualities of a learning machine) "In playing against such a machine, which absorbs part of its playing personality from its opponent, this playing personality will not be absolutely rigid. The opponent may find that strategems which have worked in the past, will fail to work in the future. The machine may develop an uncanny canniness". (Wiener 21)

In general, a game-playing machine may be used to secure the automatic performance of any function if the performance of this function is subject to a clear-cut, objective criterion of merit. (Wiener 25)

In sex, there is not a clear-cut, objective criterion of merit. The criteria is dependant on the players. If there is any objective to the game at all, it is for each player to achieve heightened states of being, or to reproduce. Oddly, in order to acheive these heightened states we must lose our attachment to them. We must relax, be open and adapt. I see most similarity between Go and sex because of Go's fluid nature, it's infinite outcomes, yet it's entirely simple premise.