Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!purdue!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!markh
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Intelligence (was: IQ), Categorization (was: Racism)
Message-ID: <3557@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Date: 26 Jul 89 20:52:13 GMT
References: <3549@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> <4431@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Sender: news@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
Reply-To: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lines: 30

* From article <3549@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>, by markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins):
*
* ... The fact that we can do it (learn language) "effortlessly" is a
* reflection on the emormous power of our minds that too many people deny in
* themselves. ...

* In article <4431@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes:
* Since no one understands the nature of human languages or how they are
* learned...
(... we can make no such definitive conclusions ...)

This is begging the question ...

* There is probably a fallacy of thought embedded in this line of
* speculation that proceeds from the difficulty of characterizing language
* and how it is acquired...
...
* ...It must be very hard for bodies to learn to behave (gravitationally),
* or they must be wonderfully gifted to be able to learn this
* lesson.
* 			Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu

The fallacy clearly lies in the analogy.  Gravitational bodies cannot "learn"
how to interact by different laws of physics (say electromagnetically).  Their
"knowedge" is static.

Also:
A computer that simulates gravitational motion is not intelligent.  A computer
that simulates human language understanding, generation and accquisition is.
The two-body problem is utterly trivial in comparison.