On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 11:17 PM, Steve Richfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Steve: If you're saying that your system builds a model of its world of > > discourse as a set of non-linear ODEs (which is what Systems Dynamics is > > bout) then I (and presumably Richard) are much more likely to be > > interested... > > > No it doesn't. Instead, my program is designed to work on systems that are > not nearly enough known to model. THAT is the state of the interesting (at > least to me) part of the real world. > > In short, I am apparently going where no one has gone before - applying new > methods to solving difficult problems in poorly understood systems. I'll > gladly leave the easy stuff (modeling well-understood systems) to others. >
It's what AGI is arguably about: simulating complex processes that are not directly and completely specified. > BTW, there is a generally unrecognized principle (except to some experienced > System Dynamics types), that the cause and effect chains are LONG and > usually involve some lack of understanding among those who designed the > systems that we must now deal with. Only the most arrogant would presume > their own perfection in comparison with those who designed the world in > which we live. Correcting that arrogance is THE primary benefit of System > Dynamics, which forces people to code how the systems REALLY work (to make > the simulations play like reality) and not just how they THINK that those > systems work. > > Hence, simulational System Dynamics must be confined to systems whose > operation can be observed or instrumented. Unfortunately, this lets out most > of the REALLY important real-world problems, especially medicine, from > simulated solution. That reasoning new cures for medical conditions that are > unknown to the computer at once appears to be SO difficult, yet is > relatively easy given the right approach, is why I/we chose chronic illness, > the hardest part of medicine, as our demo. > Why does it follow? There is only a difference of degree. If you've got a messy real-world problem, you know little, if you have an algorithm giving the solution, you know all. The trick is to be able to benefit from many intermediate grades of specification. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=98558129-0bdb63 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
