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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Grounding Representations: ("Grounding" is the wrong word)
Message-ID: <D7yvvv.JLI@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <3nhlk5$i7o@percy.cs.bham.ac.uk> <sjbdLEC00YUvESv1oT@andrew.cmu.edu> <D7pIGq.Knp@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <3nr51r$8ok@news.panix.com>
Date: Tue, 2 May 1995 20:07:06 GMT
Lines: 68
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai.philosophy:27475 comp.ai:29479 comp.robotics:20327 comp.cog-eng:3127 sci.cognitive:7481 sci.psychology:41019

In article <3nr51r$8ok@news.panix.com>,
Clay Thurmond  <claytex@panix.com> wrote:
>Andrzej's remarks strike me as opening up some new
>directions.  I'll just throw out some very brief and
>sketchy impressions and see if anyone wants to push it
>further.
>
>Andrzej Pindor, pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca writes:
>>Aaron Sloman <A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>The structure of our internal information states is so rich, and the
>>>architecture that uses them is so complex that the bulk of human
>>>meaning comes from the interaction of structure and manipulation.
>>>
>>Experiments with very young kittens, who from birth were
>>brought up in an environment with vertical lines only and
>>which were found later to be unable to see horizontal lines
>>seem to suggest very strongly to me that a large part of
>>what you call structure and manipulation has its source in
>>causal links.
>
>This suggests the sort of selection theory type stuff that
>Gazzaniga discusses in "Nature's Mind".  In his view (or at
>least my understanding of it) the structures are all there,
>at least potentially, but will not emerge if the proper
>environmental stimuli are not there to trigger the
>selection mechanism. In the case of the cats, the
>developmental window of opportunity has been lost. This way
>of thinking at least has the interesting effect of
>problematizing the notion of causality.
>
I am not sure what is exactly meant by "...the structures are all there, at
least potentially...". Presumably there is only a finite range of structures
which can develop, no matter what the stimuli. Saying that therefore they
are all (at least potentially) in there is like saying that all possible games
of chess are already in the rules of chess. They are, but is it helpful to
look at the problem this way?
.............. 
>>>Anyhow the important thing is not to speculate about what is
>>>possible, but to get on and do it, or find out exactly why it is
>>>impossible. So let's have a go at designing the mathematicion.
>>>
>>Such 'mathematicians' are being designed. A programm
>>Graffiti by Siemion Fajtlowicz from University of Huston
>>may be a case in point. An interesting thing is that such
>>programms work differently than a human mathematician (for
>>instance they have no 'mental structure' derived from
>>sensimotoric stimuli, suggested above) and hence may work
>>out results (conjectures in case of Graffiti) which would
>>not occur to a human.
>
>Sometimes humans come up with conjectures that would have heretofore
>been
>thought of as being beyond human scope. 
>
We are obviously still far away from fully appreciating "human scope" :-).
Nevertheless machine may perhaps be truly able to think in terms unavailable
to humans. On the other hand, the same features which may give machines these
capabilities may make it difficult for them to follow many human ways of 
thinking.
>
>-Clay Thurmond

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
