Xref: utzoo comp.ai:3028 talk.philosophy.misc:1796
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!alberta!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!ray
From: ray@bcsaic.UUCP (Ray Allis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Why discuss consciousness and free will? (longish)
Keywords: intelligence definition logic
Message-ID: <9504@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jan 89 05:58:51 GMT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services ATC, Seattle
Lines: 53


>>From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
>
>>From article <9378@bcsaic.UUCP>, by ray@bcsaic.UUCP (Ray Allis):
>>" ...  The discussion in comp.ai demonstrates that definitions are
>" still vague and most questions are open.
>
>With the possible exception of those postings which have attempted a
>taxonomy of intelligent behavior, surely no one thinks that this sort of
>arguing over definitions could ever advance the discipline.`

I, too, suspect that no one (or hardly anyone) "thinks that this sort of
arguing over definitions could ever advance the discipline", but it *is*
important to agree on the objects of discussion and investigation, or there
is no discipline.  You assume that the definitions already exist, but the
"intelligence" I want to understand is (my definition) an inherent capability
of a thing; quantitatively and maybe qualitatively different in dogs,
chimpanzees and man.  Gilbert Cockton, Richard OKeefe and Don Norman have
each asserted that intelligence is a social construct.  It looks to me like
we're talking about different things.  We can't have a discussion without
definitions.  Of course, we should have had that out of the way some
time ago :-).

>" Put bluntly, AI's poor reputation 
>" and embarrassing lack of results are largely due to a mistaken belief in 
>" the supremacy of formal logic 
>
>How can attention to the nature of inference with due respect for 
>precision and rigor be mistaken?  

Of course it's not, and of course I didn't say it was.  What I said was, the
[traditional AI] *belief* that formal logic is sufficient for intelligence is
mistaken.  Take human language.  It's an old wish, older than digital
computers, to construct a "predicate calculus".  The underlying assumption,
which may never have been an explicit hypothesis, is that human language is a
symbol *system*.  True, language uses symbols, but language is not a symbol
*system*.  *Arithmetic* is a symbol system.  Algebra makes it explicit; the
inter-relationships and operations (the *form*) are paramount, the symbols
are placeholders and spacers.  That's *form*-al logic. 

Some of the more interesting "intelligent behaviors", e.g. language use,
induction and analogy, are not formal in the above sense.  In each of these,
the important components are the subjective experiences the symbols
"symbolize".  There are no (interesting) relationships among or operations on
the symbols alone.  There is no reason to suppose that people compare the
*words* "orange" and "red", they compare the subjective experiences the words
symbolize.  

A predicate calculus is a formal logic.  It is therefore *inappropriate* for
human "natural" language, analogy or induction insofar as these phenomena are
based on *experience*.  Intelligent behavior requires (in addition to formal
reasoning) perception, memory and association of *experience*.  That is the
promise of "biologically-inspired" AI.