Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!udel!burdvax!bigburd.PRC.Unisys.COM!pastor From: pastor@bigburd.PRC.Unisys.COM (Jon Pastor) Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets Subject: Re: I've read this somewhere... Message-ID: <9122@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> Date: 31 Jan 89 17:14:32 GMT References: Sender: news@PRC.Unisys.COM Distribution: comp Organization: Unisys Corporation, Paoli Research Center; Paoli, PA Lines: 36 In article griff@intelob.biin.com (Richard Griffith) writes: > >I seem to recall reading something like the following.... > > some researchers in neural-networking have created a [net|language| >system|...] which was fed the equivilancy of the basis for mathmetical >set theory, within a short time (read < 1 day) the system completed the >formation of all algebraic theorems, and was going on to calculus.... > > > Someone here at work would like to know where I read that, but being a >bit of a sensationalist (I know, I know, get your facts straight :-^) I >have forgotten where I read about that particular project. I was hoping >someone out there might shed some light on that subject, so I can pass >*accurate* info onto my interested co-worker. > > [Note: I attempted to reply by mail to this, but it got bounced; anyway, it's an intriguing enough rumor that it should be squelched (or confirmed, if anyone know something I don't) quickly -- all the NN community needs is rampant rumors about spectacular and non-existent successes...] Well, it sounds a lot like you're talking about AM, a (non-neural-net) program written by Doug Lenat (at Stanford, I believe) in the late 70s. Among other things, it was given Peano's axioms and "discovered" numbers, arithmetic, and some abstract concepts like "prime number". It was really quite interesting, and there is a (half) book about it published by McGraw-Hill (authors are Lenat and (Randall) Davis). AM grew up to be Eurisko; the Knowledge Representation portion of AM/Eurisko grew up to be CYC, which is an ongoing project of Lenat's at MCC. AM was a frame-based system, with lots of attached rules and procedures. It was in no way related to neural nets, nor is Lenat's current work on CYC. Sorry to be the bearer of what I assume is bad news, but the coincidence would have been too remarkable for words.