From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!mercury.unt.edu!mips.mitek.com!spssig.spss.com!markrose Tue Apr  7 23:24:21 EDT 1992
Article 4941 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!mercury.unt.edu!mips.mitek.com!spssig.spss.com!markrose
>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Dethroning logic
Message-ID: <1992Apr06.173101.38105@spss.com>
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1992 17:31:01 GMT
Nntp-Posting-Host: spssrs7.spss.com
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Lines: 16

I've been reading _The Improbable Machine_, by Jeremy Campbell, which was
recommended by someone on this newsgroup.  Campbell is very excited,
in a journalistic way, about new theories of the mind that emphasize its
non-logical nature-- its dependence on real-world knowledge, its ability
to thrive on poor-quality information, its use of worldly expectations
and stereotypes rather than on logical deductions.

In this light one can find hidden affinities between many of the pro- and
anti-AI viewpoints expressed in this newsgroup-- namely, in an overemphasis
on the rational as the hallmark of human intelligence.  Mikhail Zeleny, for
instance, seems to define the irreproducible core of thought as reference,
mathematical thought, and the conception of infinity.  On the other side, 
the reduction of intelligence to what can be tested through a conversation 
by teletype (excluding visual processing, intonation, nonverbal behavior,
interaction with the environment, qualia) reveals, I think, the same
equation of intelligence with rationality.


