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From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Expressibility (was "Penrose's new book)
Message-ID: <1994Oct27.184439.12619@news.media.mit.edu>
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Cc: minsky
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References: <1994Oct26.172830.3987@oracorp.com> <1994Oct27.020638.28742@news.media.mit.edu> <RV.94Oct26231109@tahoe.cs.brown.edu>
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 18:44:39 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.logic:8730 comp.ai.philosophy:21424

In article <RV.94Oct26231109@tahoe.cs.brown.edu> rv@tahoe.cs.brown.edu (rodrigo vanegas) writes:
>In article <1994Oct27.020638.28742@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>>
>   (2)	"To solve a problem, use heuristics appropriate to that kind
>   of problem -- but don't use ones that have led in the past to poor
>   results."
>
>I don't understand.  How does (2) make use of self-reference?  

I should have been more precise.  (2) is advice referring to advice.
In general commonsense reasoning depends on a lot of statements about
when to apply other statements, and these often include self-referent
loops.  

There's some discussion of this in "The Society of Mind," for example,
in Chapter 17.   





