Henry Sturman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in the FOR list:
I think most people are crazy, at least to some extent, perhaps this is some random evolutionary flaw. Does anyone have a possible explanation for how or why a human mind might evolve where a large percentage of people display incorrect reasoning? There's a lot of bad thinking you see in many areas from economics to morality to MWI. Most people are good in practical application of thinking tasks but bad in fundamental insights.
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And At 14:48 +1100 9/01/2003, Brett Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> commented
Whatever the answer to the central question posed [above], it seems to be a trait of all living organisms to make mistakes and perhaps this says something about the quest for artificial intelligence. Organisms gain knowledge from making mistakes - but only insofar as they remember those mistakes, an are able to accomodate this new knowledge in such a way that it meshes well with what else they know.
Mmmh ... I see you don't remember the first (non trivial) theorem of mathematical psychology: Godel's second incompleteness theorem: (Where I identify "pretending" or "making" with "proving", noted by [], and I interpret the Falsity f by a mistake.). -[]f -> <>[]f In french: Not making mistakes implies the possibility of making mistakes Logically equivalent: (cf -[] = <>- ; -<> = []- ; p->q = -q->-p, etc.) []-[]f -> []f In french: Pretending I don't make mistakes implies making a mistake. Today's "machine" (and animals) are not introspective enough to acknowledge their mistakes. Are humans so good at it? I guess a little bit better. But that's the kind of things which can be infinitely ameliorated. Forever. (in Computerland). Alan Forester wrote also in this context:
Animals *are* guesses - human beings *make* guesses.
I agree. And human beings *are* guesses too. Guesses making guesses. And I guess it would be foolish for humans to take for granted they are God's last word. Perhaps they are. But if they takes that for granted then *certainly* they are not! Bruno More on the modal logic at http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m1417.html Note that I note []p the old Bp, the constant propositional truth T is the same as the negation of the constant propositional -f, etc. I recall Smullyan's "Forever Undecided" introduces both elementary classical propositional calculus and the godel-lob psychology of self-reference. (Note that it works on machine but also on weaker notion of self-referential being, but I limit myself to machines).