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From: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Modelling reinforcement
Message-ID: <1324@ucl-cs.uucp>
Date: 12 Dec 90 13:24:36 GMT
Sender: news@cs.ucl.ac.uk
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In article  <GREENBA.90Dec10081926@gambia.crd.ge.com> from greenba@gambia.crd.ge.com (ben a green)

>Can't do it, of course, but that's not the zinger you may think it
>is.  After all, physics is a mature science. Yet with it, we cannot
>predict next week's weather with any accuracy. Even if psychology were
>as advanced as physics, we would need a complete record of Tolstoy's
>life and the details of his environment.
>
>Let's wrangle over more reasonable problems, especially problems for
>which there are competing solutions. In other words, does anybody have
>anything better than Skinner's ideas -- anything with comparable
>scope?
>
>--
>Ben A. Green, Jr.
>greenba@crd.ge.com

Sure; as a colleague proposed is a recent seminar :-

            "Academic Psychology is Folk Psychology".

This means ("what it means" Ed ;-) that psychologists, being human, design
their experiments about humans (and sociologists about society) with the
handicap of being "biased" at birth. A good example of this effect is of
the recent "scientific find" that high IQ correlates to myopia.

"It's official" - Ed.

Gordon Joly                                       +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716
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Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT