On 7/29/08, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Why isn't science done via logic? Why don't physicists, chemists, > biologists, psychologists and sociologists just use logic to find out about > the world? Do you see why?And bear in mind that scientists are only formal > representatives of every human being - IOW we all reason like scientists as > individuals, however crudely, if we want to find out the truth about events > in the world - & what happened with Mary & Bill, or why the car broke down. > > Try suggesting that any scientist just use logic - or follow the reasoning > principles of your AGI. It would be laughable.
Many philosophers do use formal logic. Scientists work at a level beyond common sense, so they don't need to tease out the underlying structure of common sense. But philosophers do. And they use logic. > The reason is: all the symbols you use refer to real world objects, and the > only definitive way to find out their truth is by looking at their real > objects not just the symbols - "the evidence" - as science does. You said "... looking at their real objects not just the symbols..." The knowledge representation *represents* the external world. You can *never* have a KR that corresponds perfectly with the external world. "Symbols", in a broad sense, are necessary to AGI. > There are then various secondhand ways - getting other people's > opinions/reports, looking at scientific data etc etc - but the only way to > assess the reliability of those is by comparing their success with respect > to other real world objects. You can't as you guys seem to - (correct me) - > quite arbitrarily -* "programmer ex machina" * - assign degrees of > confidence/certainty to information - "0.75 sex". This is a bit complicated. I'll explain it in my up-coming paper =) > What is needed here - for any true General Intelligence - is a whole new > branch of metacognition to supplement logic that will set out the main > principles by which we actually reason about the world most of the time. > Logic is a v. limited form of reasoning and metacognition. It alone cannot > and never wll refer to reality. What Russell said of maths applies equally > to logic (and he was even better than you guys at both) : I think you're just taking the concept of "logic" to an extreme. In my usage of "logic", it is just a computational formalism. I don't even mention a correspondence between logic and big-T "Truth". YKY ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=108809214-a0d121 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
