Music tastes link to personality

Hey Nuno :D

Great reply, thankx!

You build robots for a living?
That's COOL!

So, they aren't really trying to make them humanoid (with human qualities/systems) then....
Better.

I'd still be interested in the balance issue though.
I can see that they would have radar/sonar/infrared/ultraviolet/computer vision instead of 'Human vision'....
Though 'balance' seems a rather complex thing still....?

Ken

Okay - About Psychologist/psychiatrists....
Maybe I didn't make myself clear.

I'm aware of the difference between them, thankx.

As some of you (who 'know' me a bit better) would probably not be surprised to find, Freud was an interest of mine
when I was a bit younger.

Freudian Psychoanalisis was what got me into the whole 'psychology' thing.

Now, Freud is generally associated with Psychiatrists.... although as KP pointed out;
Psychology is a pretty broad subject.
And (believe it or not), Freudian Psychoanalisis is under the umbrella term of 'Psychology'.

So, after managing to come out of my psychoanalisis studies somewhat sane, with the conclusion that
psychoanalisis is indeed for the dangerously mad, and being somewhat disillusioned about 'psychology',
my friends and family tried to persuade me to go the 'psychologist' route, as they all wanted me find an interest
in 'something' that would prompt me to attend college.

So, I tried.
As I said, I not only found 'psychology' to chase it's own tail, I also found it to be Godless and full of itself.
Not to mention that there is no basis for it.
I mean, nailing down the essence of 'psychology' is harder than finding the end in Quantum Physics!

There really is no such thing as psychology.... it's a soup of OTHER sciences put together in various combinations
to try to 'explain' Human Psychology.
(Unless were talking animal psychology).

So, I personally found it to be a 'science' based on BS.
And that's MY OPINION.
I'm not trying to slam anybody here.

And yes, I've had to deal with people in the psychology field....
And there is just nothing worse than dealing with somebody who thinks that they are SO COOL because they went to college
for psychology!

And, not surprising, I found them to be Godless and full of themselves.
So, I'm guessing that I wasn't too far off in my assessment of the science in general.

Those are my experiences.
I'm sure there are some who do wonderful things in the field.

As for not wanting to 'go there' concerning philosophy and astrology....
I'm sure you've heard of 'Humanistic Psychology'....?
(The merging of Existentialist Philosophy and Psychology).
This is where the famed 'Gestalt' therapy comes from.

And while I give Humanism kudos for asserting that the patient is RESPONSIBLE
(Which is why I have a problem with most paradigms.... they tend to strip away an individual's power),
I again ran into the same problem with it:
While I'm a HUGE fan of Existential philosophy, Sarte & Kierkegaard (whose philosophies Humanism is based),
are athiests.
(Did I mention that I found 'Psychology' to be Godless and full of itself?)

Well, I suppose we could go round in circles on this forever.... I'll spare you all my dissertation on Astrology :wink:

Just wanted to make myself clear.

Ken

My first experience with Psychology was in high school taking a course on Psychology/Sociology. The Sociology aspect was boring but the Psychology part was fascinating because of all the different perspectives and theories on human behavior.
So as a college freshman, required to take a number of credits in the liberal arts, Psychology 101 fulfilled that requirement so I signed up and attended the lecture hall classes. The instructor gave his notes aided by slide projector pictures. As a side note he talked about HIS own research and he was stumped. The research involved a monkey in a cage deprived of stimulation. The cage was wired so that when the monkey hit a button it would receive an electric shock. Now the professor's contention was that when the monkey learned that pressing the button resulted in being shocked, the monkey would avoid pressing the button. Here's what stumped him. The monkey would purposely press the button. He had no idea why the monkey would do this. I remember just walking out of the lecture hall shaking my head. I lost my respect for the professor and the field of psychology. These people had no clue as to their own behavior or that of an animal.
Since then any more I've learned about psychology, especially Freudian psychology, has convinced me that there are a lot of sick puppies out there . . . and a lot of them wind up in the field of psychology hoping to discover what is the matter with themselves. I try to avoid these people . . . but they walk among us.

KR2
("If it wasn't for bad stimulus, I'd have no stimulus at all" - caged monkey)

Though 'balance' seems a rather complex thing still....?
The balance in those robots it is a problem to be studied but it is not complex. Let's see. Basically, the problem comes when the 'center of masses projection' of a body is out of the 'support polygon'. :shock:

To maintain this discussion guitar related, imagine to Layla (everybody knows that my Strat was named by Ken, isn't?) is over its back side. The 'polygon support' is, more or less, the whole guitar, so it is stable. Now, if we try to put it over the 'strap pin' (please, insert the correct English word here!), the polygon support it is very small and it is difficult to maintain the equilibrium. The 'projection', ie. the center of masses coordinates in the ground, could easily go out of the polygon.

When we are walking over to legs, we are continuously moving our center of masses projection. Some of our movements are made instinctively by considering that we are moving the next leg in the correct way. Do you remember when you push a car because it can not start? You and the car compose a whole system. When the car starts to move, suddenly your polygon change and... (a) you increase your speed in the correct direction and sense to move the center of masses to the polygon or (b) you go to the ground!

Then, for biped and humanoid robots, it is only needed to check where the center of masses is. The Honda robots have a very complex ankle which can determine the forces that are present in the system and they compute in real-time the actions to by applied by the actuators. Basically, they use force sensors but also accelerometers and gyroscopes, so you can determine the linear and angular accelerations in all the axes.

And a comment. Some Computer Vision techniques are based on human vision for that it is a field in which psychologists and neurophysiologists work. You mention to the Gestalt in the other post. Some techniques use the same concepts, for example, for tracking objects in scenes. How a set of dots (usually called 'corners') can form the 'shape' of a 'figure'?

:D

Freud was just plain crazy.

(Well, actually he was a cokehead.)

Freud was just plain crazy.

(Well, actually he was a cokehead.)

Cokehead ?? Must have been a hard can to open. :lol:

Or a tough nut that was cracked.

KR2 (bonus point for double pun - nuts and cracked)

OK Nuno, you have just inspired me to move to Spain and get a job with you. I did not finish Uni but I'm smarter than most of the children on the hockey team that I coach. :lol: Any job openings in Robotic Artificial Intel? Did I mention I play guitar?

Freud was just plain crazy.

(Well, actually he was a cokehead.)

In his day so were a lot of people. It was not illegal. Even Coke (the soft drink) had real coke in it then too.

Any job openings in Robotic Artificial Intel? Did I mention I play guitar?
Let me do some questions to the lab people. I think we need a new guitar play... er... er... a new... Let me do some questions!

:lol:

Freud was just plain crazy.

(Well, actually he was a cokehead.)

In his day so were a lot of people. It was not illegal. Even Coke (the soft drink) had real coke in it then too.

Yep. And lots of people were hooked on cocaine and/or opium. Caused many to behave irresponsibly, and nonaddicts tut-tutted about their shameful ways. The "Temperance" women who busted up saloons and such got the Harrison Narcotics Act passed controlling these drugs in 1914, before they got alcohol prohibition passed. Things have gone downhill ever since. The illegality of drug use didn't stop it, but caused an escalating battle between the crooks making megabucks off of supplying it and the cops fighting it, and a curious deeply entwined interdependence grew between the two even though they're enemies. And the users, who used to be able to buy the stuff cheaply at Mom & Pop stores, had to resort to theft and prostitution to buy their fixes from the crooks. Meanwhile the crooks had a strong motivation for enticing new users, multiplying the problems. Typical unforeseen consequences of well-intended governmental intervention. I'd better stop before I get going on the present economic crisis, which has similar roots in good intentions that paved a path to you know where.

The balance in those robots it is a problem to be studied but it is not complex. Let's see. Basically, the problem comes when the 'center of masses projection' of a body is out of the 'support polygon'. :shock:

Right, but that's all static balance. A walking robot that only moves to positions that are only in static balance is very ungainly and slow. To make it more "natural" you need to consider the current force vectors - if the robot moves to a certain position then it will still be in dynamic balance because the addition of those vectors to the position at the end of the move will leave it in balance. Or at least temporarily in balance but that's ok because the robot won't maintain that position for long and will soon take its next step to a new dynamic balance state.

After those dynamic issues there's also active balance - the consideration of the robot allowing itself to move to an unstable position as part of a move because it's efficient in the larger sense and the force needed to move out of that unstable position is within its capabilities. Humans do both of these all the time.

Some pretty fascinating stuff. Are you working on those sorts of dynamic stability issues? I've done some reading in the area but it was a long time ago and more of a sidelight in my AI coursework in grad school (we were looking more at the planning side of things = i.e. once you are able to go somewhere where do you want to go and why?). There was some fascinating stuff coming out of MIT back then on legged robots- Raibert IIRC - is that still happening?

'Good Intentions'

I've never heard GREED referred to as 'A good intention' before.

Then again; I've never been referred to as a 'Fundamental' before either :roll:

Ken

Sorry, I miss the question! :D
Are you working on those sorts of dynamic stability issues?
Yes, we are working (really we were, now we are working on another kind of systems). I described the static balance and slightly introduced the dynamic balance. The ZMP (Zero Moment Point) is used for dynamic balance. It changes the equations. Very basically... you leave that the COM (center of masses) goes away the polygon in such a way you know where the robot goes to do the movement, let us say, you use the robot inertia. It is more 'natural'.

And, yes, Raibert was one of the pioneers of legged robots. MIT did a great work around 80s and early 90s on Robotics. They always were the reference site. Currently it seems they are focused on another projects.

'Good Intentions'

I've never heard GREED referred to as 'A good intention' before.
I refer primarily to the "good intentions" that produced the "subprime mortgages" that couldn't be paid back.

There's plenty of greed involved as well, but that has nothing to do with good intentions.