J. Storrs Hall, PhD. wrote:
On Sunday 11 March 2007 15:07, YKY (Yan King Yin) wrote:
My main point is: a unified KR allows people to *work together*.
That would certainly be nice, but I have yet to be convinced that it's
possible :-)
Let's look at the alternative, which is even more dismal: you have many
representations and each is governed by its own logic and has its own
inference algorithms. There'd be a huge problem of interoperability and
communication.
Certainly. Yet I am convinced that that's how it actually works. Someone who
came from a theoretical pure communist economy where there was only one
organization that everybody worked for, would be aghast at the random
madhouse of a market economy. But the market not only works, it's enormously
more adaptable (in AI terms: less brittle).
Are you suggesting to have separate modules for vision, speech,
naive physics, arithmetic, social reasoning, etc? In common-sense
reasoning, steps from all these areas need to be chained together.
I'm suggesting we have separate modules for turning the pages of hardcover
versus paperback books, separate modules for walking on sand versus gravel,
separate modules for reading Roman versus Helvetica type.
I think commonsense "reasoning" is an illusion (if it's even that -- nobody
really has the sensation of reasoning out something that's "common sense." We
just seem to know it effortlessly). I think it's mostly memory -- a customary
supply chain gets built up in the market of mind. I think that *after the
fact* something like EBL happens.
Josh,
I hear what you are saying, but something does not quite ring true.
The word "module" has implications, some of which I don't think you
really want to buy. If the helvetica-reading module is completely
different from the roman-reading module, why do I find it so easy to
accommodate to a new typeface ... is it because I can build a new
"module" really quickly, using the same basic building blocks that I
used to build the helevetica and roman ones? You would probably say,
yes (I hope).
But if you agree that the answer is yes, then it doesn't quite make
sense to stress the "module" aspect of these modules, does it, surely?
If we are *so* very quick to build new modules out of building blocks,
is it not the process of assembling the building blocks that matters
more? Then, the "module" aspect of the modules would mean ... what exactly?
What I am saying is: yes, abilities like "helvetica-reading" can become
automatized (compiled down) to such an extent that it might seem we are
building modules to do these things, but given the enormously flexible
process by which they get constructed, I am not sure what is left that
really deserves to be called "module" any more.
My feeling is that there is a continuum, rather than a "module" versus
"non-module" way of looking at things.
Richard Loosemore
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