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From: dpb@philabs.UUCP (Paul Benjamin)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: Re: "self-styled philosophers"
Message-ID: <591@philabs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Feb-86 18:44:45 EST
Article-I.D.: philabs.591
Posted: Sun Feb 16 18:44:45 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Feb-86 03:31:13 EST
References: <3189@umcp-cs.UUCP> <4827@kestrel.ARPA>
Distribution: net
Organization: Philips Labs, Briarcliff Manor, NY
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> In article <3189@umcp-cs.UUCP>, mark@umcp-cs.UUCP (Mark Weiser) writes:
> > A recent posting called the Dreyfus' "self-styled philosophers".  This
> > is unfair, since Hubert Dreyfus is also styled a philosopher by many another
> > philosopher in the area of phenomenology.
> 
> Agreed. He is also a professional philosopher, holding a chair at
> U.C. Berkeley. His criticisms of AI claims are thoroughly thought
> through, with a rigor that a potential critic of his views would
> do well to emulate. He has done AI great service by forcing
> practitioners to be more self-critical. AAAI should award him
> distinguished membership!

Baloney. His views show a total lack of understanding of science,
together with an inability to perform useful work relating to science.

For example, in his recent article, he recounts an "experiment"
he conducted to show that chessplayers do not use reasoning very
much, but just play instinctively. This experiment consisted of
an International Master playing against a weaker player. The IM
was forced to add a sequence of numbers while playing, thus
supposedly occupying his reasoning capability. The IM won anyway,
thus supposedly showing that chess is not primarily a reasoning
venture, or more precisely, that the difference between being a
master and just very good is not due to superior reasoning.

But wait a minute! How does this qualify as an experiment? Where
is the control group? Did he have the IM play a number of players,
sometimes having to add, sometimes not, and compare their results?
NO. Did he vary the distracting task, in case addition was not
demanding enough? NO.

In short, this experiment means nothing, since the IM may well have
played worse than he would have without having to add, but won
anyway. This type of "evidence" is constantly cited by Dreyfus to
support his views, but it's meaningless, due to his inability to
perform good work.

Also, he remarks that he and his brother have both failed to improve
to a master level in chess, and somehow uses this to support his
views, too! His basic argument is that if reasoning is so important,
then he should be able to make master, implying that he is a good
reasoner! It obviously has never occurred to him to ask someone
who is a master if reasoning is important to him. I am a USCF master,
and can guarantee that improving my reasoning capability has raised
my rating (over 300 points in the last few years). It seems arrogant
for him to reach conclusions about fields in which he is not
accomplished. This applies to both chess and AI.

Paul Benjamin