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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 066
AIList Digest Tuesday, 29 May 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 66
Today's Topics:
AI Courses - Expert Systems,
Expert Systems - KS300 Response,
Linguistics - Use of "and",
Perception - Identification & Misperception,
Philosophy - Identity over Time & Essence,
Seminar - Using PROLOG to Access Databases
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue 29 May 84 08:59:00-CDT
From: Charles Petrie <CS.PETRIE@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: Expert Systems Course
Gordon Novak at UT (UTEXAS-20) teaches Expert Systems based on
"Building Expert Systems". The class project is building a system
with Emycin. For details on the sylabus, please contact Dr. Novak.
I took the course and found the "hands-on" experience very helpful
as well as Dr. Novak's comments and anedotes about the other system
building tools.
Charles Petrie
------------------------------
Date: Mon 28 May 84 22:42:41-PDT
From: Tom Dietterich <DIETTERICH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: KS300 Inquiry
KS300 is a product of Teknowledge, Inc. Palo Alto, CA
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 84 17:31:36-PDT (Wed)
From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!philabs!sbcs!debray @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: Use of "and"
Article-I.D.: sbcs.640
> No person would have any trouble at all understanding "people
> in Indiana and Ohio", so why should a natural language parser
> have trouble with it???
The problem is that the English word "and" is used in many different ways,
e.g.:
1) "The people in Indiana and Ohio" -- refers to the union of the set of
people in Indiana, and the set of people in Ohio. Could conceivably be
rewritten as "the people in Indiana and the people in Ohio". The arguments
to "and" can be reordered, i.e. it refers to the same set as "the people in
Ohio and Indiana".
2) "The house on 55th Street and 7th Avenue" -- refers to the *intersection*
of the set of houses on 55th street and the set of houses on 7th Avenue
(hopefully, a singleton set!). NOT the same as "the house on 55th street
and the house on 7th Avenue". The arguments to "and" *CAN* be reordered,
however, i.e. one could as well say, "the house on 7th Ave. and 55th
Street".
3) "You can log on to the computer and post an article to the net" -- refers
to a temporal order of events: login, THEN post to the net. Again, not the
same as "you can log on to the computer and you can post an article to the
net". Unlike (2) above, the meaning changes if the arguments to "and" are
reordered.
4) "John aced Physics and Math" -- refers to logical conjunction. Differs
from (2) in that it can also be rewritten as "John aced Physics and John
aced Math".
&c.
People know how to parse these different uses of "and" correctly due to a
wealth of semantic knowledge. For example, knowledge about computers (that
articles cannot be posted to the net without logging onto a computer)
enables us to determine that the "and" in (3) above refers to a temporal
ordering of events. Without such semantic information, your English
parser'll probably get into trouble.
Saumya Debray, SUNY at Stony Brook
uucp:
{cbosgd, decvax, ihnp4, mcvax, cmcl2}!philabs \
{amd70, akgua, decwrl, utzoo}!allegra > !sbcs!debray
{teklabs, hp-pcd, metheus}!ogcvax /
CSNet: debray@suny-sbcs@CSNet-Relay
------------------------------
Date: Fri 25 May 84 12:10:32-CDT
From: Charles Petrie <CS.PETRIE@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: Object identification
The AI approach certainly does not seem to be hopeless. As someone else
mentioned, the boat and ax problems are philosophical ones. They fall
a bit out of our normal (non-philisophical) area of object recognition:
these are recognition problems for ordinary people. The point we should
get from them is that there may not be an objective single algorithm that
completely matches our intuition about pattern recognition in all cases.
In fact, these problems may show such to be impossible since there is
no intuitive consensus in these cases.
The AI approach aspires to something more humble - finding techniques
that work on particular objects enough of the time so as to be useful.
Representing objects as feature, or attribute, sets does not seem hopeless
just because object's features change over time. Presumably, we can
get a program to handle that problem the same way that people do. We
seem to conclude that an object is the same if it has not changed too
much in some sense. Given that the values of the attributes of an object
change, we recognize it as the same object if, since the last observation,
either the values have not changed very much, or most values have not
changed, or if certain high priority values haven't changed, or some
combination of the first three. To some extent, object recognition
is subjective in that it depends on the changes since the last
observation. When we come home after 20 years, we are likely to remark
that the town is completely different. But what makes it the same town
so that we can talk about its differences, are certain high importance
attributes that have not changed, such as its location and the major
street layout. If we can discover sufficient heuristics of how to
handle this kind of change, then we succeed. Since people already do
it, even if it involves additional large amounts of contextual
information, feature recognition is obviously possible.
Charles Petrie
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 84 11:18:54-PDT (Wed)
From: ihnp4!ihuxr!lew @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: misperception
Article-I.D.: ihuxr.1096
Alan Wexelblat gave the following example of misperception:
-------------------
A more "severe" case of misperception is the following. Suppose
that, while touring through the grounds of a Hollywood movie studio, I
approach what, at first, I take to be a tree. As I come near to it, I suddenly
realize that what I have been approaching is, in fact, not a tree at all but a
cleverly constructed stage prop.
-------------------
This reminds me strongly of the Chapter, "Knock on Wood (Part two)",
of TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA. Here is an excerpt:
I left the place and walked down to the different street
corner. How beautiful the field looked and the creek that
came pouring down in a waterfall off the hill.
But as I got closer to the creek I could see that something
was wrong. The creek did not act right. There was a strangeness
to it. There was a thing about its motion that was wrong.
Finally I got close enough to see what the trouble was.
The waterfall was just a flight of white wooden stairs
leading up to a house in the trees.
I stood there for a long time, looking up and looking down,
following the stairs with my eyes, having trouble believing.
Then I knocked on my creek and heard the sound of wood.
TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA abounds with striking metaphors, similes, and
other forms of imagery. I had never considered these from the point
of view of the science of perception, but now that I do so, I think
they provide some interesting examples for contemplation.
The first chapter, "The Cover for Trout Fishing in America", provides
a very simple but interesting perceptual shift. "The Hunchback Trout"
provides an extended metaphor based on a simple perceptual similarity.
Anyway, it's a great book.
Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihuxr!lew
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 84 11:35:55-PDT (Thu)
From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccivax!band @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: the Greek Ship problem
Article-I.D.: ccivax.144
In reference to John Owens resolution of the Greek Ship problem:
> Most of the cells in your body weren't there when
> you were born, and most that you had then aren't there now, but aren't
> you still the same person/entity, though you have far from the same
> characteristics?
Is it such an easy question? It's far from clear
that the answer is yes. The question might be
What is it that we recognize as persisting over time?
And if all the cells in our bodies are different,
then where does this what reside? Could it be that
nothing persists? Or is it that what persists is
not material (in the physical sense)?
Bill Anderson
...!{ {ucbvax | decvax}!allegra!rlgvax }!ccivax!band
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 84 17:46:26-PDT (Fri)
From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!flink @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: pointer -- identity over time
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.7266
I have responded to Norm Andrews, Brad Blumenthal and others on the subject
of identity across time, in net.philosophy, which I think is where it
belongs. Anyone interested should see my recent posting there. --P. Torek
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 84 15:08:52-PDT (Fri)
From: decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-smurf!arndt @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: "I see", said the carpenter as he picked up his hammer and saw.
Article-I.D.: decwrl.621
But perception, don't you see, is in the I of the beholder!
Remember the problem of Alice, "Which dreamed it?"
"Now, Kitty, let's consider who it was that dreamed it all. This is a
serious question, my dear, and you should not go on licking your paw like
that - as if Dina hadn't washed you this morning! You see, Kitty, it MUST
have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, of course -
but then I was part of his dream, too! Was it the Red King, Kitty? You
were his wife, my dear, so you ought to know - oh, Kitty, DO help to settle
it! I'm sure your paw can wait."
The point being, if WE can't decide logically what constitudes a "REAL"
perception for ourselves (and I contend that there is no LOGICAL way out
of the subjectivist trap) how in the WORLD can we decide on a LOGICAL basis
if another human, not to mention a computer, has perception? We can't!!
Therefore we operate on a faith basis a la Turing and move forward on a
practical level and don't ask silly questions like, "Can Computers Think?".
Comments?
Regards,
Ken Arndt
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 84 13:07:47-PDT (Sat)
From: decvax!mcnc!unc!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxt!marcus @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: "I see", said the carpenter as he picked up his hammer and saw.
Article-I.D.: pyuxt.119
Eye agree! While it is valuable to challenge the working premises that
underlie research, for most of the time we have to accept these on faith
(working hypotheses) if we are to be at all productive. Most arguments
connected with Descartes or to perceptions of perceptions ultimately have
lead to blind alleys and dead ends.
marcus hand (pyuxt!marcus)
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1984 2124-PDT
From: WENGER%UCI-20B@UCI-750a
Subject: Response to Marvin Minsky
Although I concede that Marvin Minsky's statements about the essence of
consciousness are a somewhat understandable reaction to a common form of
spiritual immaturity, they are also an expression of an equal form of
immaturity that I find to be very common in the scientific community.
We should beware of reactions because they are rarely significantly different
from the very things they are reacting to.
Therefore, I would like to respond to his statements with a less restrictive --
maybe even refreshing -- point of view. I think it deserves some pondering.
The question 'Does a machine have a soul ?' may well be a question that only
the machine itself can validly ask when it gets to that point. My experience
suggests that the question whether one has a soul can only be asked in the
first person singular meaningfully. Asking questions presupposes some
knowledge of the subject; total ignorance requires a quest. What do we know
about the subject except for our own ideas ?
Now, regardless of how the issue should or can be approached, the fact is that
answering the question of the soul on the grounds that the existence of an
essential reality would interfere with our achievements is really an
irrelevant statement. Investigation cannot be a matter of personal preference.
Discarding an issue on the basis of its ramifications on our image of
ourselves is contrary to the scientific approach. Should we stop studying AI
because it might trivialize our notion of intelligence ?
The statement is not only irrelevant, but I do not see that it is even correct.
I do not find any contradiction between perceiving one's source of
consciousness as having some essential quality and thriving for achievements.
The contradiction is based on a view of the soul as inherently static which
need not be true. My personal experience so far has actually been to the exact
contrary.
One can dance to try to feel good, or because one is feeling good. The
difference may only be in the quality of the experience, and the movements look
very much the same. One can strive for achievements to find an identity or to
fulfill one's identity.
As a student in AI, I share the opinion that discarding non-mechanistic
factors is a necessary working assumption for the study of intelligence. I
even hold the personal belief that what we commonly call intelligence will
eventually turn out to be fully amenable to mechanistic reduction.
However, we cannot extrapolate from our assumptions to statements about
the essence of one's being, first because assumptions are not facts yet,
secondly because intelligence and consciousness may not be the same thing.
Therefore claiming that essential aspects do not exist in the phenomenon of
consciousness is in the present state of scientific knowledge an unreasonable
reaction that unnecessarily narrows the field of our investigation. I even
consider it a regrettable impoverishment because of the meaningful personal
experiences one may be able to find in the course of an essential quest.
Intellectual honesty should deter us from making such unfounded statements
even if they seem to fit well in a common form of scientific paradigm.
Rather it should inspire us to objectively assess the frontiers of our
knowledge and understanding, and to strive to expand them without
preconceptions to the best of our abilities and the extent of our individual
concerns.
Etienne Wenger
------------------------------
Date: 3 May 84 10:13:04 EDT
From: BORGIDA@RUTGERS.ARPA
Subject: Seminar - Using PROLOG to Access Databases
[Forwarded from the Rutgers bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
May 3 AT 2:50 in HILL 705:
USING PROLOG TO PLAN ACCESS TO CODASYL DATABASES
P.M.D. Gray
Department of Computing Science,
Aberdeen University
A program generator which plans a program structure to access records stored
in a Codasyl database, in answer to queries formulated against a relational
view, has been written in Prolog. The program uses two stages:
1. Rewriting the query; Generation and selection of alternative
programs.
The generated programs are in Fortran or Cobol, using Codasyl DML. The talk
will discuss the pros and cons of this approach and compare it with Warren's
approach of generating and re-ordering a Prolog form of the query.
(Note added by Malcolm Atkinson)
The Astrid system previously developed by Peter had a relational algebra
query language, and an interactive (by example) method of debugging
queries and of specifying report formats, which provided an effective
interface to Codasyl databases. Peter's current work is on the
construction of a system to explain to people what the schema implies
and what a database contains - he is using PS-algol and Prolog for this.
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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