Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!olivea!tardis!tymix!uunet!ckgp!thomas
From: thomas@ckgp.UUCP (Michael Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: LOGIC AND RELATED STUFF
Message-ID: <605@ckgp.UUCP>
Date: 19 Jun 91 23:48:16 GMT
Article-I.D.: ckgp.605
References: <9106190527.AA17403@lilac.berkeley.edu>
Organization: CKGP Assoc. Inc. Birmingham, MI
Lines: 49

In article <9106190527.AA17403@lilac.berkeley.edu>, ISSSSM@NUSVM.BITNET (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
> In article <20018@csli.Stanford.EDU> levesque@csli.stanford.edu (Hector
> Levesque) writes:
> > I think it is a simple mistake (of logic!) to conclude that
> >because we can never be *certain* about what we mean when we say something,
> >or what we are agreeing about, or what is true, that somehow the truth of
> >the matter is thereby open to negotiation or interpretation, or that we can
> >decide to act in a way that does not take it into account.  If I tell you
> >"there's a truck coming towards you from behind", I may have no way of
> >knowing for sure that my statement is correct, and you may have no way of

    Despite what we learned in school, the TRUTH or what the REALITY is
is something that you create (or the AI must create) for itself. You must
deturmine what is true and what is not. If you said a truck is coming at
me then tha brain/mind would instantly become aware or look for the sound
sight or other stimulus that would lead to personal truth.

> The issue is far simpler:  What do you do when someone
> says "there's a truck coming towards you from behind?"  At the risk of
> attaching too much importance to Skinner (who has no more claim to having
> all the answers than the logicians do) the answer to this question, in its
> simplest terms, is that you BEHAVE.  In a situation as urgent as this one,

   The person would also deturmine the reliable state of the speaker...
(you know the story the boy who cried wolf?) Yes teh first two times
it works but then died out. this was a story, in REAL life what would
happen if the stimulus wasn't there (actually I have never heared of
anyone getting hit by a truck or car? Just parents saying that kids
will if they go NEAR the street.) try it just say to someone: "LOOK
OUT THERE IS A TRUCK COMING!" see what they do? first if your not in
the middle of the street it wont work... if you are I bet they will
turn around first! 

> >This, I assume, is what logic is for, at least for AI purposes.  Focussing
> >on Truth in some abstract, all-or-nothing, eternal, godlike sense, is a bit
> >of a red herring.  What matters I think in AI is being able to explore the
> >consequences of things being one way and not another, even while admitting

   I'm sure you can see that the AI must use some clues from the
world/environment to aid its own views on the TRUTH in the world
around us. Isn't this what we do, trust our senses?
 
   "Some things have to be believed to be seen." --Ralph Hodgen

Thanks for listening...
-- 
Thank you,
Michael Thomas
(..uunet!ckgp!thomas)