We can then view recent work in artificial intelligence as a crucial experiment disaffirming the
traditional assumption that human reason can be analyzed into rule governed operations on situation-free discrete elements - the most important disconfirmation of this metaphysical demand that has ever been produced. This technique of turning our philosophical assumptions into technology until they reveal their limits suggests fascinating new areas for basic research. C. E. Shannon, the inventor of information theory, sees, to some extent, how different potentially intelligent machines would have to be. In his discussion of "What Computers Should be Doing," he observes: Efficient machines for such problems as pattern recognition, language translation, and so on, may require a different type ofcomputer than any we have today. It is my feeling that this will be a computer whose natural operation is in terms of patterns, concepts, and vague similarities, rather than sequential operations on ten-digit numbers. 19 We have seen that, as far as we can tell from the only being that can deal with such "vagueness," a "machine" which could use a natural language and recognize complex patterns would have to have a body so that it could be at home in the world. What Computers Can't Do Hubert Dreyfus [n.b. The word that is screwing people up here & elsewhere is "patterns". "Pattern recognition" **in the real world** is actually SCHEMA recognition. Our culture commonly talks of people, say, recognizing common "patterns" in faces, trees or rocks. There are no such patterns in the true logicomathematical sense, only schemas - which are fluid, non-geometrical affairs. ] ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-c97d2393 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-2484a968 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
