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From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going?
Message-ID: <590@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: Sat, 10-Oct-87 07:24:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: l.590
Posted: Sat Oct 10 07:24:28 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Oct-87 06:14:08 EDT
References: <178@usl> <549@csm9a.UUCP> <270@uwslh.UUCP> <15196@topaz.rutgers.edu> <1368@houdi.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Lines: 33
Summary: Not flawed, not intelligent

In article <1368@houdi.UUCP>, marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT) writes:
> In article <2281@umn-cs.UUCP>, ramarao@umn-cs.UUCP (Bindu Rama Rao) writes:
> > 
> > 	Is the Human mind flawed?
> > 
> > Can we pass such a judgement without knowing anything about the human mind?
> > 
> > Do we really understand how the mind works?
> 
The human mind is definitely flawed, very fortunately.  I do not see how an
intelligent entity can fail to be flawed if it has only the computing power
of the universe available.

I define intelligence as the ability to deal with a _totally unforeseen
situation_.  It is easy to give examples in which the amount of information
needed to effect a logical decision would require more memory than the size
of the universe permits.  Therefore, dealing with such a situation _requires_
that such extralogical procedures as intuition, judgment, somewhat instinctive
reactions, etc., must be involved.  That is not to say that one cannot find out
that certain factors are of lesser importance.  But the decision that these
less important factors can or should be ignored is still a matter of judgment.

Therefore, an intelligent treatment of a problem of even moderate complexity
requires that nonrational procedures must be used.  These cannot be correct;
at most we can determine in _some_ cases that they are not too bad.  In other
cases, we can only hope that we are not too far off.

There is no "rational" intelligent entity for moderately difficult problems!

-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (ARPA or UUCP) or hrubin@purccvm.bitnet