Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!uwm.edu!bionet!apple!amdahl!kp
From: kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Simulating thinking is NOT like ...
Summary: Recognizing one's irrational patterns is part of intelligence
Message-ID: <30ZY02L08dUR01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 1 Mar 90 18:05:28 GMT
References: <6671@cps3xx.UUCP>
Reply-To: kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 36

In article <6671@cps3xx.UUCP> sticklen@cpswh.cps.msu.edu (Jon Sticklen) writes:
>
>on ywlee@aisunk.cs.uiuc.edu suggestion to "recognize hard goals"...
>
>
>actually it would seem that "impossible" is the right word.
>ie, this is not the same as the halting problem. eg, suppose
>i have a goal of living to be 10,000 years old. i should recognize
>this as impossible and abandon searching for ways to achieve the goal.
>(note i am not saying that such goals may never be achieved, but in
>a commonsense notion, such a goal is impossible.)

Hans Moravec's open letter to Penrose had an interesting suggestion in
this regard.  One of _Sphex_'s qualities that leads us to deny that it
is conscious is its apparent ingorance that its behavior gets stuck in
infinite loops.  Moravec suggested that the human capacity to break out
of such loops is part of our consciousness.

Loop detection, deadlock detection, and a number of other recursively
unsolvable problems all have practical implications for ordinary data
processing systems.  I think it's coherent to require of a system that
it include some mechanism to limit the expenditure of resources on
failing strategies.  No bank would buy a transaction processor that
didn't at least use timeouts to break deadlocks.  Boredom seems to be
adequate protection for most humans :-).

The general form of a "failing strategy backout" is "Is it rational for
me to continue doing what I've been doing?"  We all ask ourselves this.
When we answer well, we say we've explained or understood our actions.
When we blow it, others may say we have rationalized our actions, but
not explained them.

The importance of this activity cannot be underestimated, IMO.  I have
argued in the past that the capacity for self-description and arguement
about self-description is necessary for intelligence, and I would say
that the current suggestion is consistent with mine.