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Article 3754 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: smoliar@hilbert.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Robotic Follies
Message-ID: <1992Feb15.011214.24421@nuscc.nus.sg>
Date: 15 Feb 92 01:12:14 GMT
References: <1992Feb5.090941.8498@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Feb6.221125.26525@nuscc.nus.sg> <1992Feb10.123736.8691@husc3.harvard.edu>
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In article <1992Feb10.123736.8691@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu
(Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>
>A caveat is in order: note that, since we have to commit ourselves to the
>objectivity of belief attribution, we can't identify beliefs with
>psychological states of the believer, but must treat them as his
>propositional attitudes.  On the other hand, any analysis of belief must
>give an account of Aristotle's observation of its logical opacity, i.e. the
>fact that the set of a person's beliefs is not closed under the relation of
>logical consequence, whence Church's restriction of synonymy relation from,
>e.g. a criterion of logical equivalence that would be suitable for alethic
>modality.  Furthermore, we must account for denotational opacity of belief,
>i.e. the fact that the set of a person's belief is apparently not closed
>under substitution of extensional identicals.  Church's system succeeds in
>doing that by adopting Frege's principle that terms in belief contexts
>denote the entities that would be their senses in ordinary contexts.

I think this may get to the heart of Zeleny's conflict with Minsky.  It seems
to me that Minsky is questioning whether or not the treatment of beliefs as
propositional attitudes is an adequate model for some of the questions we may
with to ask about the behavior of a reasoning individual.  (Note, by the way,
that I am not using "model" in the terminology of model theory.  Rather, I am
using Minsky's definition.  While I recently posted it, a quick repetition may
be in order since this is a different threat:  We start with an observer O who
is observing some entity E.  E' is said to be a MODEL of E if O can use E' to
answer questions that he has about E.  Note that Minsky does not say anything
specific about WHAT those questions are.  What is important is the ternary
relation which unites the observer's questions, the entity, and its model.)
Thus, Minsky is interested in questions such as, "Why does this child keep
repeating the action of piling blocks in a tower and then knocking them down?"
or "Why does the child walk away from the blocks and look for something else to
do?"  Minsky is questioning the adequacy of propositional attitudes as a
foundation for dealing with such psychological questions of mind (since
presumably the child is making some conscious decisions here);  and I,
personally, do not think that his doubts have yet been satisfactorily
addressed.

One reason for doubting the power of propositional attitudes involves their
own foundation on terms which denote concepts.  In THE MISMEASURE OF MAN (just
to shift the arena over to Harvard, Mikhail), Stephen Jay Gould discusses the
fallacy of REIFICATION--to wit, the misguided assumption that any word (term)
we use can be reified into a concept.  Interestingly enough, the particular
word Gould is picking on in this book is "intelligence."  Now, clearly, we
can do all sorts of interesting things with these terms at a strictly formal
level;  but to assume that those formal results may serve as a model of the
human (or any animal) behavior we observe may lead to an inadvertent commission
of this reification fallacy.  It seems to me that the burden of proof lies with
the builder of the model being able to convince the observer that his questions
can now be answered satisfactorily.
>
>If you want to appreciate great art, you must be prepared to struggle with
>it just as much as you would with the hardest science.  The claims of
>recorded music peddlers notwithstanding, Mozart is not suitable for easy
>listening any more than "Principia Mathematica" is suited for light reading.
>
Well read though you are, I fear you may have missed Charles Rosen's article
about Mozart in the December 19 issue of THE NEW YORK REVIEW.  He cites an
interesting comment by E. T. A. Hoffmann concerned with the "appreciation"
of a critical moment in DON GIOVANNI:

	The professional musician, remarked Hoffmann, recognizes
	and names the technical procedure with no difficulty:
	the flatted sub-mediant holds no mystery for him.  The
	general public, on the other hand, knows nothing of the
	technique, but shivers with terror at the sudden harmonic
	effect.  It is the half-educated amateur who is puzzled
	by the chromatic change and is not sure what to call it.
	The connoisseur and the completely ignorant join hands in
	their understanding and admiration of the drama:  the
	pretentious amateur is left being by the complexity of
	the score.

So it is that I believe that good philosophers are capable of a clarity which
speaks equally well to the "connoisseur and the completely ignorant."  Such
writers are rare.  Russell certainly had the talent and could use it to great
advantage.  This is not to deny that mental effort is required, but before such
effort is exerted the will must be motivated to do so.  The thought which first
arrests one when one is in a state of ignorance may later be cultivated into a
host of mature ideas.
-- 
Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg


