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From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Aah, but not in the fire brigade, jazz ensembles, rowing eights,...
Message-ID: <5644@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 4 Jun 88 16:21:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: venera.5644
References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <1171@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <239@proxftl.UUCP>
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Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar)
Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute
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From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Aah, but not in the fire brigade, jazz ensembles, rowing eights,...
Message-ID: <5644@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 4 Jun 88 16:21:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: venera.5644
References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <1171@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <239@proxftl.UUCP>
Sender: news@venera.isi.edu
Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar)
Lines: 25

In article <239@proxftl.UUCP> tomh@proxftl.UUCP (Tom Holroyd) writes:
>In article <1171@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>, gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert
>Cockton) writes:
>> In article <5499@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar)
>>writes:
>> >The problem comes in deciding
>> >WHAT needs to be explicitly articulated and what can be left in the
>> >"implicit
>> >background."
>> ...
>> For people who haven't spent all their life in academia or
>> intellectual work, there will be countless examples of carrying out
>> work in near 100% implicit background (watch fire and ambulance
>> personelle who've worked together as a team for ages, watch a basketball
>> team, a steeplejack and his mate, a good jazz ensemble, ...)
>
>No.  Fire and ambulance personnel have regulations, basketball has rules
>and teams discuss strategy and tactics during practice, and even jazz
>musicians use sheet music sometimes.  I don't mean to say that implicit
>communication doesn't exist, just that it's not as useful.  I don't know
>how to build steeples, but I'll bet it can be written down.
>
Take a look at Herb Simon's article in ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE about
"ill-structured problems" and then decide whether or not you want to
make that bet.