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Article 3721 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: daryl@oracorp.com
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Robotic Follies
Message-ID: <1992Feb13.134208.26140@oracorp.com>
Date: 13 Feb 92 13:42:08 GMT
Organization: ORA Corporation
Lines: 28

Mikhail Zeleny writes:

> As I said to Pontus Gagge, this is not meant to attribute the above
> view [about the impossibility of a formal theory of belief] to the
> esteemed author of "The Society of Mind" himself; indeed, Minsky seems
> to be arguing against his own coreligionists like John McCarthy and
> Daryl McCullough, who make claims to the effect that the human mind
> may be taken as functionally equivalent to a formal theory.

Mikhail, I don't have any particular disagreement with Minsky's
statements about belief, and I don't think that they contradict the
claim that the human mind is functionally equivalent to a formal
theory. The claim that the human mind is formalizable does not imply
identifying beliefs with the formal consequences of any theory.
Obviously human beliefs are not like the consequences of a formal
theory; they can be inconsistent without succumbing to triviality,
simply because people do not necessarily believe all the logical
consequences of their beliefs. I don't think that totality of the set
of beliefs of a real human being is in any sense logical. Because of
this, a "logic of belief" cannot capture the way humans think, except
in restricted, well-defined domains. When I was talking with you about
formalizing human beliefs, I was specifically concerned with such a
domain, namely beliefs about arithmetic held by a competent
mathematician.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY


