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From: ba672@lafn.org (Arthur T. Murray)
Subject: Re: Mentifex and real AI
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Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 16:19:32 GMT
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Like Brecht's Dreigroschenoper anti-hero murmuring "Dilettanten!" we
must re-direct the well-intentioned efforts of I3uddha (Jim Huddle):

> Arthur Murray tapped:
>> It is so important and so unavoidably crucial to win over engineers
>> that we will pour out libations and burnt offerings to the caste of
>> engineers with infinite patience until the engineers save humanity.

> Ahh.  But who will save the engineers?  [... expletives deleted ...]
> -Jim Huddle (aka Bear)

The target was not engineers but the country of "castes" and of genius
mathematicians who in diaspora to Britain and USA upset all applecarts.

It is worth repeating portions of the profound message of Sasikumar M:

> From: Sasikumar M <sasi@saathi.ncst.ernet.in>
> Subject: Re: Mentifex and real AI
> Organization: National Centre for Software Technology, Bombay, India
> Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 14:22:03 GMT

> I have some concerns with Matt Ginsberg's posts. Performance
> cannot be the sole criteria for AI. What will define AI? What will
> distinguish AI from other discplines of computing? Solving
> a problem better is not adequate for this - that is what everyone
> is trying to do. Is it the approach to solving problems that
> distinguishes us or is it the type of problems that we are solving
> that distinguishes us from the others?

Bear/Buddha/Huddle!  Can you imagine! (to quote John Lennon) what
will prevail if we introduce the Mother of all Memes into the hot
feverish minds of those foremost Indian subcontinental intellects?

A brainy nation that may not have the latest technology but which
equals mighty Britain and overweening USA in birth of cogitators,
with a spiritual history stretching back to Sanskrit and the Indo-
european Ursprache -- ach, bitte!  Warum muss man mit Dilettanten
hantieren?  (Vielleicht deshalb, dass man selber so einer bleibt.)

  /^^^^^^^^^^^\ Syntax Strings Together a Thought /^^^^^^^^^^^\
 /visual memory\           ________   semantic   /  auditory   \
|      /--------|-------\ / syntax \  memory    |episodic memory|
|      |  recog-|nition | \________/<-----------|-------------\ |
|   ___|___     |       |     |flush-vector     |    _______  | |
|  /image  \    |     __|__  / \  _______       |   /stored \ | |
| / percept \   |    /     \/   \/ Verbs \------|->/ phonemes\| |
| \ engrams /<--|-->/ Nouns \    \_______/      |  \ of words/  |
|  \_______/    |   \_______/-------------------|-->\_______/   |
--
http://www.newciv.org/Mentifex/ spread the word to East meets West.
