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Article 1634 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Philosophical Foibles of John McCarthy
Message-ID: <5705@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 26 Nov 91 18:28:04 GMT
References: <1991Nov15.003438.11323@grebyn.com> <1991Nov15.160741.5495@husc3.harvard.edu> <JMC.91Nov24203029@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <1991Nov25.180643.5898@husc3.harvard.edu>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 25

In article <1991Nov25.180643.5898@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>Consider the following: your stated goal in the theory's development is
>to formalize a certain ontological assumption, i.e. that "the objects
>that can be shown to follow to have a certain property P by reasoning
>from certain facts A are all the objects that satisfy P" (cited from
>your 1980 article in "Artificial Intelligence"); 

I'm lost already.  "the objects that can be shown to follow to have a
certain property P" -- can anyone parse that for me?

>On the contrary, I believe that AI has a radiant future ahead of it,
>especially after it gets itself a proper name, like `technonoetics'.
>Briefly, I see the situation as similar to that of alchemy and astrology:
>given a few centuries of pompous pronouncements, and numerous calving of
>successful derivative disciplines which, embarrassed by their shameful
>parentage, will invariably choose alternative, descriptive names 

In the UK, there's already been an attempt to avoid using the term
"Articifial Intelligence".  After the Lighthill Report more or less
demolished British AI, it seemed better to call it something else
when the 5th Generation project led to a revival.  Hence the term
IKBS (Intelligent Knowledge-Based Systems) and, I suppose, to some
extent, the term IT (Information Technology).

-- jeff


