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From: kovsky@netcom.com (Bob Kovsky)
Subject: Re: Minsky's Interacting Causes
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Date: Sat, 22 Jul 1995 15:03:47 GMT
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	In my opinion, Minsky's approach is fundamentally flawed because 
he is extrapolating from experience with "simple" phenomena and "simple" 
models.

	There is a domain of human experience involving inherently complex
phenomena where millions of very smart people have been working for
hundreds of years developing analytic techniques.  In that domain,
practitioners apply very powerful formalisms; and it could serve as a
magnificent arena for study of how to reason about complex phenomena. 
Practitioners of "artificial intelligence," however, appear to disdain it. 
That domain of experience is "law." 

	After an excellent technical education (including a BSEE from your
venerable institution and a master's degreefrom one of like rank), I
"switched"  fields and went to law school.  I make my living practicing
law.  I have, however, been more interested in studying law as a system of
formal reasoning, from the perspective of a scientist. 

	My conclusion is that the complexities of reasoning in the legal 
environment present intellectual problems that can only be resolved in 
terms of a theory of freedom.  I have, in fact, made some progress in 
developing such a theory.  "Freedom" is a heretical concept dismissed 
by scientists and engineers and I have made no progress in 
arousing anybody's interest.

	If you want to explore the kind of reasoning lawyers use from the 
perspective of analytic philosophy (a la Wittgenstein of the 
<Philosophical Investigations -- cf. "games" at sections 66-67), you 
might want to look at <The Concept of Law> by H.L.A. Hart, very classy 
and very respected by "standard" thinkers.

	You might also want to consider how, in the world of commerce, we
attempt to shape and "predict" the future by promises ("contracts") and
how we go about making a promise "enforceable" in a court of law. 
"Shaping" and "predicting" the future are focal problems of artificial
intelligence.  It is here that complexity and "happenstance"  (for which,
correspondingly, read "brittleness") come into play. 

	In order to deal with complexity, you have to start with 
situations where you do not understand everything that is going on.  If 
you approach complexity with the notion that <first> you have to 
understand everything that is going on, you will not get very far and you 
will miss the point.  As does Prof. Minsky.  "There is not the slightest 
reason to doubt that brains are anything other than machines with 
enormous numbers of parts that work in perfect accord with physical 
laws.  As far as anyone can tell, our minds are merely complex 
processes."  <Society of Mind> section 28.6.
