Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!ames!amdahl!kp
From: kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Simulating thinking is NOT like ...
Summary: Impossible dreams
Keywords: intelligence, rationality
Message-ID: <9dJq02XH8dZY01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 2 Mar 90 18:04:42 GMT
References: <6671@cps3xx.UUCP> <897@unix386.Convergent.COM>
Reply-To: kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 35

In article <897@unix386.Convergent.COM> mark@unix386.Convergent.COM (Mark Nudelman) writes:
>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.
>
>Back to the relation of this to AI; I would say that the requirement
>that an entity abandon certain goals which appear to be impossible
>is at best an arguable requirement for intelligent behavior.  Would
>you say that humans who tried to build flying machines in the 18th
>century were not intelligent?

Philip Kitcher has an interesting article on this topic in the Feb. '90
issue of _The Journal of Philosophy_.  His thesis is that while it may
be irrational for an individual to pursue a certain line of research,
it may well be rational for the scientific community as a whole to
support the occasional Sphexish devotee of an idee' fixe.  Who knows,
maybe a research program that looks hopeless is actually on the right
track.  This has occurred in the history of science, notably with Wegener
and continental drift.  (Let's hear it for tenure!)

I'd like to point out how the concept of rationality helps to clarify the
issue for Kitcher.  Two distinct concerns are brought together by
rationality:  the evidential status of a hypothesis, and the practical
(or the intellectual) value to be obtained by showing the hypothesis true.

The indiviudal vs. "group" rationality issue is also interesting.  A
population of agents can significantly improve its long term performance
by allowing a few "fools" to ramble on incessantly, beating dead horses,
flogging old ideas, chasing rainbows, cherishing pipe dreams ...

(apparently it's an important concept in our language :-)