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From: weltyc@cs.rpi.edu (Christopher A. Welty)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Simulation verus reality
Summary: Understanding vs simulation
Message-ID: <1259@rpi.edu>
Date: 13 Apr 89 16:49:26 GMT
References: <827@htsa.uucp> <5790@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> <5106@cs.Buffalo.EDU>
Sender: usenet@rpi.edu
Organization: RPI Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 29

In article <5106@cs.Buffalo.EDU> lammens@sunybcs.UUCP (Jo Lammens) writes:
>In article <5790@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> ssingh@watdcsu.waterloo.edu ( SINGH S    - INDEPENDENT STUDIES    ) writes:
>>Very thought provoking!!! Since processes in the brain are chemical
>>reactions, I am wondering what models are the best we have to capture
>>the rules of chemical-chemical interaction that allows information 
>>processing of an intelligent sort to take place....
>
>I wonder if there's any point in doing that. If you want to understand
>how a car works, you don't analyze it in terms of chemistry and quantum
>mechanics, although it is probably possible to do so - at least in
>principle. If you want to achieve high-level understanding, you should
>probably use high-level descriptions.

Perhaps I missed something by jumping in the middle of this, but it
seems to me that all the articles posted on this Simulation vs Reality
argument are talking about two fundamentally different concepts as if
they were the same.  Understanding and simulation are not the same
thing.  I don't know very many people, in fact I don't know any, who
could accurately simluate a car, although I do know many who understand
understand how it works.    I would argue that accurate simulation DOES
require a model from as low a level as possible in order to behave
exactly as the real thing being simulated.  Typically `high level'
descriptions of functional groups of low level objects are mere
generalizations of the function of the group, and thus only
incorporate the default knowledge of that function.


Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs | "Porsche:  Fahren in
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu             ...!njin!nyser!weltyc |  seiner schoensten Form"