Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!dendrite.cis.ohio-state.edu!pollack From: pollack@dendrite.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jordan B Pollack) Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets Subject: Re: Penrose Penrose Penrose Penrose Penrose... Message-ID: Date: 31 Jul 90 16:18:28 GMT References: Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu Distribution: comp.sys.neural-nets Organization: Ohio State Computer Science Lines: 39 In-reply-to: froncio@caip.rutgers.edu's message of 25 Jul 90 19:08:27 GMT Andy Froncio writes: >Again, I think you should read the book. The idea of self-similar >systems possibly having an associated "generalised uncertainty >principle" is not a totally new idea. In fact, this has been >documented in literature concerning turbulence. The point is that >there is always a portion of the phase space which is unknown to us, >and in a sense, uncertain. I read it and found a warm and fuzzy (but unsellable) "Dancing Wu Li Masters/Tao of Physics" wrapped in a (sellable) Searle-like attack on the new "missing piece" of AI. (My capsule review: the Dancing Woolly in Surly Lion's Clothing - very transparent.) In Searle's case it is biological hardware dependency, and in Penrose's, it is quantum effects. Both miss the idea that identical functions can emerge from multiple forms. In AI, this is called the "software separability hypothesis", in Philosophy it is called "multiple realizability", and in evolutionary theory, it is called "convergence". For example, both flight and hierarchal social systems have arisen multiple times without any common ancestry. Why is consciousness always thought to be a "quantum leap" beyond other biological complex systems? Also, deterministic aperiodic systems are "uncertain" not because of a need for a quantum-level explanation, but because the amount of information about a system's historical state required to predict the next is too large for minds, mathematics, or computers. Finally, Nobel Prizes ARE the best PR, but only a few "communities" get them. If physics and chemistry don't require such PR, let them offer to relinquish their prize categories! One gets the feeling that this century's physics could come crumbling down when a lower level deterministic model is discovered for the uncertain phenomena in question. -- Jordan Pollack Assistant Professor CIS Dept/OSU Laboratory for AI Research 2036 Neil Ave Email: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu Columbus, OH 43210 Fax/Phone: (614) 292-4890