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From: josh@topaz.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The Success of AI
Message-ID: <16240@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 4-Nov-87 17:01:03 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.16240
Posted: Wed Nov  4 17:01:03 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Nov-87 17:06:52 EST
References: <1922@gryphon.CTS.COM> <131@glenlivet.hci.hw.ac.uk> <137@glenlivet.hci.hw.ac.uk> <287@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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    Brian Yamauchi:
    ... the more basic
    question is whether or not it is possible for human beings to understand
    human intelligence.  If the answer is no, then not only cognitive
    psychologists, but all psychologists will be doomed to failure.  

Actually, it is probably possible to build a system that is more
complex than any one person can really "understand".  This seems to be
true of a lot of the systems (legal, economic, etc) at large in the
world today.  The system is made up of the people each of whom
understands part of it.  It is conjectured by Minsky that the mind is
a similar system.  Thus it may be that AI is possible where psychology
is not (in the same sense that economics is impossible).
--JoSH