From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!gatech!utkcs2!memstvx1!langston Mon Mar  9 18:36:06 EST 1992
Article 4345 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: langston@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Mar7.124019.1529@memstvx1.memst.edu>
Date: 7 Mar 92 18:40:19 GMT
References: <31046@samsung.samsung.com>
Organization: Memphis State University
Lines: 94

In article <31046@samsung.samsung.com>, smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:
> In article <1992Mar6.001859.1518@memstvx1.memst.edu>
> langston@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>>
>>  Perhaps it is not the case that 'understanding' is inherent in memory
>>structure.  I would argue that for an agent (read agent however you like...
>>whatever makes this most interenting...) to 'understand' a concept (or what-
>>have-you) the agent must be able to MAKE USE of that item in some meaningful
>>way.  One could say "I understand golf" without ever actually playing golf.
>>Does this person really understand golf?  I could learn the procedure for
>>baking a cake, but without ever actually baking said cake, I would be at a
>>loss
>>as far as true, useful understanding of the complexities of the process.
>>  This has implications for AI.  Does this mean that computers and such
>>'understand' their internal data representations?  Not any more than the rock
>>'understands' heat or molecular physics as it expands in the sun.  To
>>understand, the agent must act on the information in some meaningful way that
>>would integrate both semantic and episodic knowledge of the information at a
>>deep level.
> 
> There is a lot of Wittgenstein in this point of view, and I am generally
> sympathetic with it.  However, phrases like "in some meaningful way" are
> sufficiently slippery that they really do not allow us to make very much
> progress.  Also, even the aspect of use is not quite as simple as it would
> first appear (or may have appeared to Wittgenstein).  This is because use,
> itself, may vary radically as the context varies.  There is a nice example
> of this in music.
> 
> There is now an extensive body of scholarship in an area known as "music
> theory."  The largest amount of this scholarship tends to be concerned with
> the study of artifacts of music notation (musical scores) and various syntactic
> relationships which may be inferred from the surface structures of the
> notational patterns.  Over the last twenty years, this scholarship has
> drawn heavily on tools provided by mathematics, such as group theory and
> number theory.  As a result, a fair amount of the mechanics of such analysis
> may now be performed by computer programs.
> 
> What is particularly interesting about this approach is the behavior of some of
> the scholars who practice it.  Some of the most distinguished members of the
> community have openly boasted that they not longer listen to music or bother
> with such obsolete practices as going to performances!  For them the music
> exists only as symbols on a printed page mediated by a mind which tries to
> find patters in those symbols.  (Did I hear someone mutter something about
> glass bead games?)  From my point of view, this raises a significant question
> about whether or not such individuals "understand" (to use the word we have
> been picking on) music.
> 
> Within their own community (that of music theorists), the "understanding" of
> such individuals is unquestioned.  Indeed, other scholars will flock from
> far-off sites to attend conferences and receive the fruits of such
> "understanding."  However, what happens when you drop one of these
> scholars into a community of music PERFORMERS?  More often than not,
> a performer may see no connection between all this theory and the music
> knowledge which he actually uses.  He may even listen patiently to a
> theoretical explanation of a work he has been playing for ten years
> and conclude that the theorists does not understand the work at all!
> 
> I think Marvin's original article was trying to get at some of the critical
> issues in this matter of variation of context.  Use is definitely important;
> but it is also highly context-dependent.  Neither the Imitation Game nor the
> Chinese Room really take such context-dependency into account.  The first was
> not really intended to, since Turing made it quite clear that he was not
> interested in defining intelligence in the first place.  Do we need to make
> up another game?

  I think I missed Minsky's full idea of context-dependent understanding, but
upon re-reading the msg, I see that now...
  But, withing any one domain, there are many types of knowledge (causal,
sensory,
procedural, taxonomic-definitional, etc.), and these types of knowledge
correspond to different levels of 'understanding' a concept within any
domain.  My argument is that someone who posesses only one of these types of
kknowledge (or only the shallow e.g, taxonomic-definitional or procedural)
does not have very much 'understanding' of the domain.  
  Further, the information must be not only semantic, but also episodic -
the agent must be able to integrate deep-level causal episodic knowledge with
the shallow-level semantic knowledge, and be able to generalize from this
prior knowledge to new situations within (or possibly outside) the domain.
  Just as the practicing musician 'understands' the music from his/her P.O.V.,
and the theorist 'understands' the same piece of music differently, I would
argue that the theorist is the one who 'understands' more in the domain OF
THAT PIECE OF MUSIC.  What the theorist may not (and probably does not) 
understand is the deep causal relationship existing between the musician, the
instrument, and the piece of music.  Yet, here these two domains are 
INDEPENDENT, and not interdependent, within the more general domain of music.

-- 

Mark C. Langston                                  "What concerns me is not the
Psychology Department                              way things are, but rather
Memphis State University                           the way people think things
LANGSTON@MEMSTVX1.MEMST.EDU                        are."     -Epictetus

     "...a brighter tomorrow?!?  How about a better TODAY?"  -me


