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From: litow@uwm-cs.UUCP (Dr. B. Litow)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going? (Where should we go...)
Message-ID: <689@uwm-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Oct-87 14:23:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwm-cs.689
Posted: Tue Oct  6 14:23:31 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Oct-87 06:34:23 EDT
References: <178@usl> <46400008@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <493@vax1.UUCP> <14874@clyde.ATT.COM>
Organization: U of Wi-Milw, College of Engineering
Lines: 22
Summary: current 'state' of cognitive theories re: newton's physics

> 
> The principal difficulty in cognitive science is that it is in its
> infancy.  I think that psychology is today where physics was in
> Newton's time.  And a LOT of "narrow minded" theories came and went in
> Newton's time.  Including Newton's theories.
> 
> Steve Frysinger

Newton's primary contribution in Principia is a method. The method has NOT
been modified at its core in the elapsed three centuries. It is still at
the basis of all western physical science. Newton understood its importance
as V.Arnold has pointed out in his book Geometric Methods in the Theory of
Ordinary Differential Equations (Springer). The method is very simple to
state: pose and solve differential equations for the phenomena. Prior to
anything else in western physics there is this method. In this respect all
of quantum mechanics is only a conservative (almost in the sense of logic)
extension of rational mechanics. Incidentally rational mechanics was not
developed explicitly by Newton. It is a product of the Enlightenment
researchers,e.g. the Bernoullis and especially Euler. Underlying the method
is something nameless which when it is finally investigated (the time is
approaching) will be a decisive element in actually showing what is really
conveyed by the adjective "western".