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From: jaspert@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Jasper Taylor)
Subject: Longley's system really processes data about opinions
In-Reply-To: David@longley.demon.co.uk's message of Sat, 29 Jul 95 10:37:53 GMT
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Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh
References: <807014273snz@longley.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 22:52:03 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.cognitive:8886 comp.ai.philosophy:31340


In article <807014273snz@longley.demon.co.uk> David@longley.demon.co.uk (David Longley) writes:

> A SYSTEM SPECIFICATION FOR PROFILING BEHAVIOUR

I thought I'd struggle through a bit more of this. I can't see how it
can claim to be anything more than a management information tool, with
no more relevance to science than a word processing package.

Specifically, it doesn't "get rid of intensional predicates"...instead
it is aimed in part at

> providing an infrastructure within which individual inmate targets
> can be identified, negotiated, contracted and subsequently monitored
> by the first-line staff who have the most contact time with inmates.
> It is emphasised that it is those staff who are responsible for
> directly training and supervising inmates within specific domains of
> expertise, and for want of an adequate technology, such staff's
> observations and assessments often go totally unrecorded. The volume
> illustrates how the technology of Sentence Management can be used to
> make effective use of such staff's professional assessment skills in
> the interest of recording and shaping positive behaviour change

So if we see any changes in standards in the prisons in which this
system is being tested, it will as like as anything be due to the
change in communications between the management and the staff who deal
first-hand with prisoners.

I really don't see how David can claim that this system is either
based on, or can be useful to, any scientific theory.
--
Jasper Taylor                        | /www.cogs  /   |  A politically-correct
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