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From: epstein@sunc2.cs.uiuc.edu (Milt Epstein)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: A REPLY TO GORDON'S REPLY
Message-ID: <286B660E.41BC@ibma0.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 91 16:38:38 GMT
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In <nhgl6q_@rpi.edu> jamesm@hornsby.cs.rpi.edu (Michael James) writes:

>[some discussion of whether it's worthwhile to define intelligence deleted]
>
>     It seems that the areas in which the AI research community has
>made the most progress over the past few decades are the ones in which
>we had EXPLICIT definitions of what was being modelled or simulated.
>Definitions can vary in their degree of vagueness.  Surely if you take
>a vague definition of intelligence like the Turing Test and then say
>"Oh, gee, I think I'll go code 'intelligence' in C on my workstation
>now," you're going to fail.  All of the definitions of intelligence I
>have seen share this same "Intelligence, (wink wink) you know what I
>mean" attitude.
>
>     What we need are some very explicit definitions of what we're
>shooting for.  I'm not at all certain that intelligence is explicitly
>definable, but if its not we should define what it is we want to
>create and then not really worry about whether anyone calls it
>intelligent or not.

I think you may be confusing cause and effect here.  What I understand
you to be saying is:

1) the AI areas with the most success use explicit definitions
2) therefore, for a better chance of success, we should use explicit
definitions 
3) therefore, we should come up with an explicit definition of
"intelligence"

The problem with this is that "intelligence" in general may be too
broad of a phenomena to study or model, and an explicit definition of
it may not be possible or worthwhile.  It just may be that the areas
where there has been more success are sufficiently narrowed down that
they can use explicit definitions.  (In other words, if a range of
phenomena is too broad to have an explicit definition, you can't force
an explicit definition on them; however, you can narrow down the range
of phenomena you're studying so thay they do have an explicit
definition.)

I apologize if I misinterpreted your statements.

>mj
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Mike James                 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
>jamesm@turing.cs.rpi.edu
        ^^^^^^
(Whoops, perhaps you have it on higher authority :-).

-- 
Milt Epstein
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois
epstein@cs.uiuc.edu