> It seems that Baum is arguing that biological minds are amazingly quick > at making sense of the world because, as a result of evolution, the > structure of the brain is set up with inbuilt limitations/assumptions > based on likely possibilities in the real world - thus cutting out vast > areas for speculative but ultimately fruitless computation - but > presumably limiting biological minds' ability to understand phenomena > that go beyond common sense that has been structurally summarised by > evolved shortcuts. > . . . > Maybe all the databases of common sense relationships that Cyc is > developing and the Wordnet database etc. can be considered to be huge > sets of inherited rules of thumb ie. > . . .
Before this discussion gets too far off track, Baum's book talks about inductive biases that are built into human and animal learning by evolution, not the sort of specific knowledge that is coded in Cyc. In fact, Baum discusses Cyc and is pessimistic about its prospects. As examples of inductive biases Baum discusses 3-D structure, causality, language, and cheating detection, with many specific examples from human and animal behavior. He doesn't say we are born knowing about these things, but that our brains are primed for learning about them. He sees reinforcement learning as fundamental to brains, and discusses his Hayek experiments. He also sees evolution, culture and individual brains as three interacting levels of learning. Cheers, Bill ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
