On 2/13/03 7:06 PM, "Cliff Stabbert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Wednesday, February 12, 2003, 2:08:04 PM, James Rogers wrote: > JR> And it works with life as well as anything else. Consciousness does not > JR> affect its intrinsic efficacy if used correctly. > > This is where I disagree, to the extent that an intelligence can act > _deceptively_ or _misleadingly_ -- a practice which depends implicitly > on an observer's intuitive use of Occam's razor. > > From a chameleon's disguise to people having affairs to surprise > birthday parties to political assassination, the deceiver depends > precisely on the observer's use of this heuristic leading them to the > wrong conclusion. That's why I contend the heuristic breaks down (or > *can* break down) in the presence of life.
You are misapplying Occam's Razor, or at least making an incorrect analysis of the system you would like to apply it to. Occam's Razor doesn't promise correct answers whether you are talking about human interaction or mechanical engineering. It is more a tool for sifting possibilities than solving problems. If people are assuming the correctness of the selected hypothesis, then that is their folly (and a common fallacy). One is also sometimes left with the case where there are multiple hypotheses of essentially equivalent weight. The predictive accuracy of any system becomes extremely poor in the absence of sufficient information. In these cases, whatever scant information is available serves as the prior; expecting quality results in this scenario is unwarranted and not supported mathematically. Also, the possibility of a low probability hypothesis being correct is something that we must always consider, whether dealing with human deception or engineering. The same rules apply. Cheers, -James Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED]
