Phil, I see no conceptual problems with using probability theory to
define context-dependent or viewpoint-dependent probabilities...
Regarding YKY's example, "causation" is a subtle concept going beyond
probability (but strongly probabilistically based), and indeed any
mind needs to have fairly general and at least moderately clever
methods for dealing with it.... But I see no problem with the
assignment of numerical truth values to causal statements. Judea
Pearl's math does it; Novamente's math does it...
ben g
On 8/15/06, Philip Goetz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > A further example is:
> > S1 = "The fall of the Roman empire is due to Christianity".
> > S2 = "The fall of the Roman empire is due to lead poisoning".
> > I'm not sure whether S1 or S2 is "more" true. But the question is how can
> > you define the meaning of the NTV associated with S1 or S2? If we can't,
> > why not just leave these statements as non-numerical?
> >
> > YKY
>
> If you cannot tell the difference, of course you can assign them the
> same value. However, very often we state both S1 and S2 as "possible",
> but when are forced to make a choice, can still say that S1 is "more
> likely".
>
> Pei
YKY is advocating the post-modern viewpoint that knowledge is
context-dependent, and true-false assignments and numeric value
judgements are both extremely problematic. Pei is pointing out the
commonsense, classicist position, and also the refutation of the
post-modern tradition, that some ways of building bridges make bridges
that stay standing, and other ways make bridges that fall down.
I think that the task of "completing the Modernist project", and
uniting the many important observations of both enlightment and
post-modernist thinking, has fallen to AI; we MUST resolve these two
viewpoints before we can create an AGI.
- Phil
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