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From: ISSSSM@NUSVM.BITNET (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: RE: MORE THOUGHTS ON THE TURING TEST AND NATURAL LANGUAGE
Message-ID: <9105300027.AA15172@lilac.berkeley.edu>
Date: 30 May 91 00:24:22 GMT
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In article <1991May29.130917.26459@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
cpshelley@violet.waterloo.edu (cameron shelley) writes:
>
>The other thing that comes to mind is a recent remark I heard from
>Richard Smolensky at a conference: that he is pursuing the view that
>the relationship between competence and performance is one of
>reconciling and optimizing the interaction among several, possibly
>conflicting preferences.  In other words (and I hope he would find my
>paraphrase apt), individual competence contains quite a number of
>directives which may either act in concert or conflict (or not
>interact at all) depending on circumstances.  Reconciling these
>directives produces performance.  It sounds like he has some
>interesting work ahead of him.
>
I find this approach potentially interesting.  For one thing, these
"directives" may be viewed as playing a role similar to the agents
in a Minsky-like society of mind.  If this project can be pulled off,
it may stand as a first concrete attempt to implement such a society,
in which case we may learn some things about putting Minsky's approach
into action for some other applications.  (By the way, at the risk of
sounding ignorant, did you, by any chance mean WILENSKY?  The only Smolensky
I know of is Paul, who is primarily involved with connectionism.)

===============================================================================

Stephen W. Smoliar
Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore
Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Kent Ridge
SINGAPORE 0511

BITNET:  ISSSSM@NUSVSM

"The funny thing about being smug about health and purity all the time is that
it can turn you into a fascist."--Paul Theroux