Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!sun!amdcad!ames!sdcsvax!ucbvax!hplabs!sdcrdcf!burdvax!bigburd!pastor From: pastor@bigburd.PRC.Unisys.COM (Jon Pastor) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: What the hell does flawed mean, anyway? Message-ID: <3350@bigburd.PRC.Unisys.COM> Date: Mon, 19-Oct-87 17:26:57 EDT Article-I.D.: bigburd.3350 Posted: Mon Oct 19 17:26:57 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 21-Oct-87 06:47:58 EDT References: <160@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <1373@houdi.UUCP> Sender: news@bigburd.PRC.Unisys.COM Organization: Unisys Corporation, Paoli Research Center; Paoli, PA Lines: 49 > >In article <549@csm9a.UUCP> bware@csm9a.UUCP (Bob Ware) writes: >>We all admit that the human mind is not flawless. Bias decisions >>can be made due to emotional problems, for instance. ... >> >>The above has been true for all of recorded history and remains true >>for almost everyone today. While almost everyone's mind is flawed due >>to emotional problems, new data is emerging that indicates the mind can >>be "fixed" in that regard. To see what I am referring to, read L Ron >>Hubbard's book on "Dianetics". unfortunately, i got in on this dialog after the original letter from bware became unavailable; too bad. presuming that the above is a reasonable reconstruction of part of it, it was really pretty provocative. it appears to me that bware is quite explicitly stating that it is "emotional problems" that are responsible for the flawed nature of the human mind. i'd like to think that bware meant that (e.g.) psychotics have flawed minds, because that is not quite as chilling a statement as that we ALL have flawed minds. since most people took the latter meaning, i'll continue responding as though that was what bware meant. In article <1373@houdi.UUCP> marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT) writes: >I claim that with respect to any referent the mind is flawed. >If any reader can define any referent with respect to which the >mind is perfect, I will admit my argument is flawed. > since nothing, anywhere, is perfect, let's define perfection in terms of successful performance of function. the job of the human mind is to do anything it's called upon to do. it does this very well: humans are a reasonably successful species, primarily because they are generalists, and very adaptive. some of you may want to trade in your flawed minds for something better; i'm waiting for something better to show up, 'cause i haven't seen it yet... the discussion about the flawed nature of the human mind has been interesting, but pretty misdirected and VERY presumptuous. it is senseless to talk about perfection and flaws without much in the way of an understanding of what the mind IS and DOES -- and if there is anyone out there who truly believes that what we DO know is more than an infinitesimal fraction of what we DON'T know about the mind, please speak up. the questions we should be asking are "what can we learn about problem-solving from the human mind?" and "how can we mitigate some of the factors that cause problems in the performance of specific kinds of tasks?" that, i submit, is what AI's about.