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From: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: AI - the real problem
Message-ID: <1473@ucl-cs.uucp>
Date: 26 Feb 91 15:24:11 GMT
Sender: news@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Lines: 38

Michael H Bender writes:
 > Marvin Minsky writes:
 > 
 > > There has been considerable discussion under this subject of
 > > differences between human and animal thought.  
 > > [...]
 >
 > I think there is an analogy between what you are suggesting and other
 > reported limitations in human and animal thought. 
 > 
 > 	Example 1: It has been reported (I don't remember the source) that
 > 	crows can reliably count up to 4 (?) but not past this number. 
 > 
 > 	Example 2: The studies associated with "The Magic Number 7". 
 > 
 > In both these examples there may be built in, structural, limitations on
 > the amount of objects that can be perceived, conceptualized at any one time
 > and these limitations appear to vary from species to species.
 > 
 > Mike Bender

Human intelligence is the sum, in part, of some all of previous
thought, transmitted through language.

There was a suggestion in the AI Journal that 2.5 million years of
humanity compared with the rest of life on earth meant that simulating
the IQ of an earwig or a lizard meant that you were almost home and
dry, and that human IQ was within spitting distance.

If the first people walked that Earth 2.5 million years ago, then why
did they have a brain with the same biology of that of Einstein,
Beethoven or us?

Gordon Joly                                       +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716
Internet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk          UUCP: ...!{uunet,ukc}!ucl-cs!G.Joly
Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT

   "I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can't prove anything!"