On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 4:40 PM, Steve Richfield <[email protected]>wrote:
> PM, et al, > > The problem with #7, like #1-#6, is that it it provides no reference to > mechanism, e.g. like defining an automobile as "something that moves you > from one place to another", which would also fit a rickshaw, a rocket ship, > or a camel. > > I am looking for some description approaching the language of a patent > claim, that in loose terms describes the internal operation of a mechanism > that "understands". Once we get past that, then we can start looking at > what sorts of tests it is likely to be able to pass. > > Steve Is predicting the next word in a decompression of a compression string 'understanding'. Of course not, but it is a partial understanding of something. If you can do that very well within some definable frame then you probably have understood some aspect of the operation. (Like, you understand how the decompression step works.) So understanding is knowing a lot of facts about something and being able to answer a lot of questions about it, or being able to interact with it (or some trace of it) in some effective way. There is no one who knows it all. Like, the people in this group can't even define what 'understand' means very well! But, in order to test for understanding, you have to have insights about the subject matter that you weren't specifically trained for and these insights either have to be good insights or else they can be used as a step toward learning new insights about the subject. But this does not provide you with a mechanism of 'understanding', right? Well it does, but it is just not very good and it is not very useful from what you would like to do with it. Understanding definitely includes partial information about a subject. But if a person truly understands something he should be able to provide useful insights about the subject that he was not part of his training. To understand something you have to learn something about the subject yourself. So some of your insights about the subject must include a mechanism by which you might learn new things about the subject. If someone was able to patent all 'understanding' then the patent law would be crap. Jim Bromer ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
