Xref: utzoo comp.ai:6540 sci.philosophy.tech:2286 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!voder!nsc!amdahl!kp From: kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.philosophy.tech Subject: Re: Chess, Reductionism, Probablistic Determinism. Summary: Flux in Personality and in Science Keywords: interpretation, analysis, change, frame of reference Message-ID: <0fxs02VO9bCK01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> Date: 9 Apr 90 20:36:24 GMT References: <491fffd5.1a4d7@cicada.engin.umich.edu> <2080@aipna.ed.ac.uk> <7drb02Eo97FS01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <365@ntpdvp1.UUCP> Reply-To: kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA Lines: 90 In article <365@ntpdvp1.UUCP> sandyz@ntpdvp1.UUCP (Sandy Zinn) writes: >(Ken Presting) writes: >> It is very important to pick out the "right" frame of reference, ... >> Every person establishes a frame of reference; > ^^^^^^^ >Be careful of this singular terminology here; we don't want to "entitize" >that which is fluid, multi-dimensional, evolutionary and "self-contradictory" >(how do you contradict a "self" which is constantly in flux?). Very good point, but the flux in any personality is limited, at least in some ways. I would agree that parts of a personality can change practically without limit, especially in the case of beliefs and intellectual behavior (ie making assertions and arguments). I think there is a useful comparison between the Society of Mind and the Scentific Community. At most times in the history of a science (Kuhn's "normal science") there is one dominant abstraction which organizes the interpretation of data, the design and evaluation of research programs, and the results of (most) previous experiments. Paradigm shifts don't seem to be the result of any single experiment, but rather are a response to unchecked growth in the complexity of data interpretation (eg, epicycles). As experimental results accumulate which strain the interpretive framework provided by theory, it is increasingly likely that an alternative theory will have a chance of showing itself to have a real advantage. Data interpretation, and its counterpart, the analysis of natural systems, are more like *skills* than *algorithms*. Physics students learn a lot of specific cases of natural phenomena, and the mathematical techniques that have been applied to those systems. No attempt is made to prove to anybody that the math is justified a priori - you try it, and if it works, go for it! If it fits into some grand formalism, that's great, but as Dan Mocsny observed, a table in a handbook is where most numbers come from, not from theoretical derivations. I think the mind is very similar. Skills are prior to abstractions, and logic is applied to rationalize ("explain" is the polite term) the effectiveness of the skills. The entity is the collection of skills or techniques or conditioned responses, the frame of reference (descriptive abstraction) is a fantasy. > >> the problem for Cog. Sci. is to understand that self-constructed frame. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >One of my professors convinced me how impoverished a representation we have >for this process. Most of our building materials are pre-fab, by our >families, our culture, etc., . . . Mathematics, and abstraction in general, is the solution to this problem. To the extent that we commit ourselves to scientific method, we are commited to abstraction in solutions whenever it is feasible (at least). Strong AI is doubly committed to abstraction - as a method, and as a model. The literate/illiterate distinction might help to understand the situation, although I am not prepared to give a clear account of the psychology of literacy (print vs. speech is too simplistic). An illiterate has only the culturally developed tools, but with symbols you can build any logical structure at all. >> > In the case of the knee-jerk reflex, the premise ... >> >> I would analyze the situation just a little differently, >> ... If the leverage system (and all the other physiology) is called a >> "context", I would take the tap of the hammer to be a "premise". > > . . . your identification of the hammer as premise shifts >the focus of the system -- we do this all the time, and necessarily -- >but I must note that such a re-punctuation will necessitate a different >interpretation of the conclusion than the one I intended. Neither of us >is wrong, but we've lost the isomorphism of our metaphors.... This shows the interplay between analysis, interpretation, and representation (eg expression in words). To understand the relation between perception and cognition, we have to understand all three processes. Sensation by itself does not require so much effort, I would say. Any attempt to build too much logical structure into the concept of sensation can only be confusing. I offer this remark mostly as a suggestion for terminology - we need *some* level of description at which there is nothing more than superposition of squirms, and we might as well call that sensation. Sensation seems to me to be precisely analogous to analysis, which I would define as "redescription in a selected vocabulary". I've begun working out a homomorphism of logical structure between analysis and sensory processes. The basic idea is to compare transduction between phase spaces (ie physical parameters) to syntactical transformations. Ken Presting ("The system will be ready next Sunday" - SK)