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AIList Digest Volume 7 Issue 031
AIList Digest Tuesday, 14 Jun 1988 Volume 7 : Issue 31
Today's Topics:
Philosophy:
The Social Construction of Reality
Human-human communication
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 10 Jun 88 18:22 PDT
From: hayes.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Consensus and Reality, Consensus and Reality
OK, my last communication on this topic, I swear. I absolutely agree that the
internal representation ( LofT ) is different from the languages of
communication ( I suspect profoundly different, in fact ). I had a remark to
that effect in the first draft of my last note, but removed it as it seemed to
be aside from the point. Oddly enough, I am more impressed by the way in which
speakers of different languages can communiate so easily, ie by the apparent
unity of LofT in the face of an external babel; whereas you seem to be more
impressed with the opposite:
BN> Different paradigms do exist in science, different
BN> predilections in philosophy, though the same
BN> natural language be spoken
so perhaps we are still disagreeing: but let that pass.
Of course its not obvious that all the terms we use are learned: I tend to think
that many cant be ( eg enough about spatial relationships to recognise a visual
cliff, and see T. Bowers work ). I was trying to lean over as far as I could in
the `social' direction, and pass you an olive branch.
But let me pass again to the central point of difficulty:
BN> No, I only want to establish agreement that we are
BN> NOT talking about some 'absolute Reality' (Ding an
BN> Sich), whatever the hell that is. That we are constrained
BN> to talking about something much less absolute. That
BN> is the point.
My point was that there is no NEED to establish agreement: that in saying that
the world is real, and that ( for example ) the CRT in front of ( the same one,
by the way ) really is a CRT, I am not claiming that the DinganSich is
CRT-shaped: I dont find the concept of an ultimate Reality ( your term ) useful
or perhaps even coherent: Im just talking about the ordinary world we all
inhabit. This `absolute', `ultimate' talk is yours, not mine. I feel a little
as though you had come up with an accusing air and told me forcefully that we
CANT refer to Froodle; and when I assured you that I had no intention of talking
about Froodle, you replied rather sternly that that was all right then, just so
long as we agreed that Froodle was unmentionable. I am in a double bind: if I
disagree you will keep on arguing with me; but if I agree, then it seems that I
agree with your strange 19th-century views about the Ultimate:
BN> ...you and I agree that we do not and cannot know
BN> what is "really Real"
No: I dont think this talk is useful. In agreeing that all our beliefs are
expressed in a framework and that it doesnt make sense to imagine that we could
somehow avoid this, I am not agreeing that we can never get to what is really
real: Im saying that this idea of a reality which is somehow more absolute than
ordinary reality is just smoke. I DO think that we can know what is really
real, that some of our beliefs can be true: REALLY true, that is, true so that
no reality could make them truer, as absolutely and ultimately true as it is
possible to be. They are true when the world is in fact the way they claim it
to be, thats all.
AS for ad hominem, well, Im afraid Im getting tired. As far as I can discover,
there isnt anything in Winograd and Flores ( I refer to the book ), McCulloch (
on this sort of topic, not his technical work ) or Bateson which is sharp enough
to be worth arguing about. I confess to not having read recent Pask, or any
Prigogine or Manturana & Varela: but there are only so many hours in a day, and
so many days in a life, and the odds that I will find anything interesting there
seem to me to be low.
OK, no more from Pat on this topic.
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 88 05:45:42 GMT
From: uflorida!novavax!maddoxt@gatech.edu (Thomas Maddox)
Subject: Re: The Social Construction of Reality
In article <514@dcl-csvax.comp.lancs.ac.uk> Simon Brooke writes [. . .]:
>Wells, like fanatical adherents of other ideologies before him, first
>hurls abuse at his opponents, and finally, defeated, closes his ears. I
>note that he is in industry and not an academic; nevertheless he is
>posting into the ai news group, and must therefore be considered part of
>the American AI community. I haven't visited the States; I wonder if
>someone could tell me whether this extraordinary combination of ignorance
>and arrogance is frequently encountered in American intellectual life?
I would say that any combination of ignorance and arrogance is
no more frequently encountered in American life than in British.
Consider, for instance, your own posting--ending as it does in a
gratuitous insult to American intellectual life in toto--as well as the
umpteen postings of Cockton's--virtually all charcterized by arrogant
dismissal of AI--that provoked Mr. Wells.
Rude conjecture: "Gilbert Cockton"'s postings are in fact
output from a rather silly AI program (probably out of MIT) called DREYFUS;
it is a logical successor to ELIZA and also its own best critique. It
remains to be seen whether "Simon Brooke" is one of its sub-programs.
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 88 08:57:19 GMT
From: pasteur!agate!garnet!weemba@ames.arpa (thatsDOCTORtoyoubuddy)
Subject: I'm in direct contact with many advanced fun CONCEPTS.
In article <539@novavax.UUCP>, maddoxt@novavax (Thomas Maddox) writes:
>In article <514@dcl-csvax.comp.lancs.ac.uk> Simon Brooke writes [. . .]:
>>Wells, like fanatical adherents of other ideologies before him, first
>>hurls abuse at his opponents, and finally, defeated, closes his ears. I
>>note that he is in industry and not an academic; nevertheless he is
>>posting into the ai news group, and must therefore be considered part of
>>the American AI community. I haven't visited the States; I wonder if
>>someone could tell me whether this extraordinary combination of ignorance
>>and arrogance is frequently encountered in American intellectual life?
Why do you say that?
>
> I would say that any combination of ignorance and arrogance is
>no more frequently encountered in American life than in British.
Is it because any combination of ignorance and arrogance is no more
frequently encountered in american life than in british that you came to
me?
>Consider, for instance, your own posting--ending as it does in a
>gratuitous insult to American intellectual life in toto--as well as the
>umpteen postings of Cockton's--virtually all charcterized by arrogant
>dismissal of AI--that provoked Mr. Wells.
Does it bother you that provoked mr wells?
> Rude conjecture: "Gilbert Cockton"'s postings are in fact
>output from a rather silly AI program (probably out of MIT) called DREYFUS;
>it is a logical successor to ELIZA and also its own best critique.
Eliza? Hah! I would appreciate it if you would continue.
>It
>remains to be seen whether "Simon Brooke" is one of its sub-programs.
Earlier you said any combination of ignorance and arrogance is no more
frequently encountered in american life than in british?
ucbvax!garnet!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 88 11:01 O
From: <YLIKOSKI%FINFUN.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: science, reality, man
Distribution-File:
AILIST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
In AIList Digest V7 #25, Bruce E. Nevin <bnevin@cch.bbn.com>
writes:
>the two aspects of what is real: the absolute Ding an Sich, and those
>agreements that we hold about reality so long as we can get away with
>it. In this relationship, consensual reality is not scientifically
>implausible; it is, at its most refined, science itself.
It would be interesting to hear opinions about the idea that we have
representations of the Ding an Sich very much like a robot which has
a representation of its environment.
Then that which we can perceive, think and feel only reflects that which
there is ... say, inside one's cranium, perhaps to put it in a better way
- what you can know reflects your mind.
Then what a scientist should do is to do things such as learning karate;
good music <Kraftwerk and Yello recommended> - good art - good
literature; study other sciences (I personally love Mathematics).
How well our intracranial representations reflect reality is a difficult
problem.
Andy Ylikoski
------------------------------
Date: Sun 12 Jun 88 22:27:22-PDT
From: Conrad Bock <BOCK@INTELLICORP.ARPA>
Subject: Resource limitation applied to hypostatization and consensus
I would not entirely recommend Winograd and Flores' book, but a way
occurred to me to make it (and consensus reality) more intelligible from
a computer scientific viewpoint.
If we agree that our minds are constructing theoretical entities from
patterns in our input-output data, then we might also agree that there
are so many theoretical entities that only a few of them can be open to
revision at any one time, given resource limitations. This is
hypostatization (ie, taking concepts to be reality) as a computer
scientist might express it.
Since many of the concepts we use are learned from other people, we
might assume that many of our hypostatized concepts (which are part of
our reality) are due to social interaction (as Hayes suggested). Hence,
reality is partly social. A computer scientist might say the concepts
are in, or have been put into, the hardware or at least a lower level
language. Winograd and Flores might call these concepts (I'm
interpreting now) ``practice'' or ``background''.
That's the proposal. There's already a hole in it as far as Winograd
and Flores go: since we as computer scientists build our machines, we
don't have as much interest in situations where the machine was already
built before we got here; that's natural science. I think Winograd and
Flores are concerned with the situation where we are the machines that
are already built (practice is ``already doing''), so the causality is
from background to concepts, not the other way around.
Conrad Bock
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 88 09:36:47 EDT
From: "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@cch.bbn.com>
Subject: Re: Consensus and Reality, Consensus and Reality
We have some confusion of persons here.
It was in "Simon Brooke's acidic comments on William Wells' rather
brusquely expressed response to Cockton's social-science screaming" that
you perceived "a three-hundred-year old DOUBT about the world, and how
we know it's there." (V7 #24) On the contrary, my opening remark was:
BN> I can't speak for Simon Brooke, but personally I don't think anyone
BN> seriously doubts the existence of the physical world in which we live.
BN> Something is going on here. The question is, what.
I then said that it is the anti-consensus view that lays claim to an
absolute reality (WYSIWYG realism--the "naive realism" I thought was
unhorsed by Russell in 1940, in _An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth_),
and that a consensual realist, like myself, acknowledges that we should
not attribute such absoluteness to what we perceive and know.
PH> . . . I am more impressed by the way in which
HP> speakers of different languages can communiate so easily, ie by the apparent
PH> unity of LofT in the face of an external babel; whereas you seem to be more
PH> impressed with the opposite
Speakers of different languages can communicate when there is mutual
good will and intent to communicate, and when they come to (or come with
a prior) agreement on a domain that constrains the semantics and
pragmatics sufficiently to make the ambiguities manageable. Same
applies to speakers of the same language. Get into rougher waters where
the discourse is no longer constrained by subject-matter (sublanguage
syntax) and social convention, however, and lifelong speakers of the
same neighborhood dialect can and often do find one another
incomprehensible.
PH> Of course its not obvious that all the terms we use are learned: I tend
PH> to think that many cant be ( eg enough about spatial relationships to
PH> recognise a visual cliff, and see T. Bowers work ). I was trying to lean
PH> over as far as I could in the `social' direction, and pass you an olive
PH> branch.
Thanks, an easy olive branch to accept and to reciprocate as follows:
it seems obvious to me that some of this is learned, some biologically
innate. With the caveat that I believe it is sounder science not to
_assume_ a lot is innate (reference here to the sillier biologicist
claims of Generativists).
BN> I only want to establish agreement that we are
BN> NOT talking about some 'absolute Reality'
BN> . . . that we do not and cannot know
BN> what is "really Real"
PH> My point was that there is no NEED to establish agreement
I did not intend that you and I should be the only parties to such
agreement. Some earlier messages seemed to claim that the world of
naive realism was in some sense absolute, e.g. Mr. T. William Wells.
TW> OK, answer me this: how in the world do they reach a consensus
TW> without some underlying reality which they communicate through.
PH> . . . this idea of a reality which is somehow more absolute than ordinary
PH> reality is just smoke. I DO think that we can know what is really real,
PH> that some of our beliefs can be true: REALLY true, that is, true so that
PH> no reality could make them truer, as absolutely and ultimately true as
PH> it is possible to be.
"Some of our beliefs." Certainly. The hard question is, which ones, and
how can we tell the difference.
PH> They [some of our beliefs] are true when the world is in fact the way
PH> they claim it to be, thats all.
If one takes the appropriate perspective, has the appropriate purposes
and intentions, is prepared to ignore irrelevancies, and is able to get
away with ignoring what doesn't fit, then, yes, the world is "in fact"
and "really" the way our beliefs claim it to be. From another
perspective, with other purposes and intentions, ignoring other
irrelevancies that the world (in that context) lets us get away with
ignoring, the world is in fact the way our rather different beliefs
claim it to be. For all practical purposes, the earth is flat with lots
of hills, valleys, cliffs, bodies of water, plains, etc. From an
astronomical or astronautical perspective, different beliefs apply.
Neither view can falsify the other (pace my 9th grade science teacher,
many years ago), because they are incommensurate, they do not
communicate with each other. We can "act as if" the world were flat
most of the time, and get away with it. And most of the time the
astronomical "truth" about the shape of the earth is irrelevant and
pointless to talk about. Lucky for us! We might otherwise have to
include a quantum physical statement about the shape of the earth in
everyday discourse--and act on it!
So sure, some of our beliefs are REALLY true--as far as they go. However,
where one set of beliefs contradicts another set of beliefs couched in
another perspective and serving another purpose, they can't both be
REALLY true, can they? Well, yes, they can. You just have to assume
one perspective at a time, and not try to reconcile them. To try to
reconcile them all is tantamount to trying to establish knowledge of
Absolute Reality, and we know that is a fruitless quest.
I am willing to let this dialog between you and me rest here. I hope
that it is plain to those who objected to "consensual reality" that the
consensual aspects of knowledge and belief are neither silly nor
trivial. I have tried to clarify that "consensual reality" refers to
shared beliefs, institutionalized as social convention, that the world
lets us get away with. Our late 20th century American (techie
subculture) consensus reality has no greater and no less claim to being
absolutely real than any other. It works really well in some respects.
It courts disaster in others. Time will tell how much the world will
let us get away with. It is of course an evolving consensus, and the
process of adaptation can allow for better accomodation with other
competing/cooperating perspectives that do exist in the biosphere.
Bruce Nevin
bn@cch.bbn.com
<usual_disclaimer>
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 88 00:03:53 GMT
From: mind!clarity!ghh@princeton.edu (Gilbert Harman)
Subject: Re: Human-human communication
In article <200@kvasir.esosun.UUCP> Cris Kobryn writes:
>
> How does one verbally explain what the color blue is to someone
> who was born blind?
>
>The problem here is to explain a sensory experience (e.g. seeing
>"blue") to someone lacking the corresponding sensory facility
>(e.g., vision).
An even harder problem:
How does one verbally explain what the color blue is to
a stone?
Gilbert Harman
Princeton University Cognitive Science Laboratory
221 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ 08542
ghh@princeton.edu
HARMAN@PUCC.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 88 05:01:21 GMT
From: oodis01!uplherc!sp7040!obie!wsccs!terry@tis.llnl.gov (Every
system needs one)
Subject: Re: Human-human communication
In article <238@proxftl.UUCP> Tom Holroyd writes:
>Name one thing that isn't expressible with language! :-)
In article <839@netxcom.UUCP>, Sylvia Dutcher writes:
> Describe a complex mathematical formula, without writing it down.
"The Schrodinger Wave Equation" (if this is inadequate, I
can tell you how to write it down).
> Describe the unusual mannerisims of a friend, without demonstrating them.
"He sniffs his pencil and groans a lot while scratching the stump of
his left arm. You can't miss him." (this is simply dependant on
the amount of detail one is to put into a verbal description).
> When you get in a heated discussion, do you gesture with your hands and
> body?
This is "body language" (the primary definition of language is an
abstract method of describing information. Body language, although
not as concise [in most cases], qualifies).
> We can express just about anything with language, but is the listener
> receiving exactly what we are sending?
Of course not, but don't take it to the extreme of phenomenology, or we
will simply refuse to believe you exist and ignore any further statements :-).
True phenomenologists are useless, precisely for this reason. You can't talk
to them or exchange information in a meaningful fashion.
> Even the same word, with the
> same definition, can mean different things to different people, or in
> different contexts.
I waited until after this statement to follow the last one up:
> Look out your window and describe the view to someone who's been blind
> since birth.
Since we do not share contexts, this is not possible. They would
understand my referrents less than I would understand Japaneese; after all,
having watched "Shogun", I do have SOME referents ;-). The entire concept
pre-supposes some referents. I assume that it would be possible to use a
direct-brain-visual-center stimulation of some kind to demonstrate the
concepts of "color" and "light", but more likely you would simply demonstrate
the concepts of "electro-shock therapy" and "cauterization" given current
technological capabilities... but then you would have a referent and could,
therefore, provide a description. Adequacy of the description is a matter
of opinion, after that. Admittedly, a description is probably less adequate
to the describee, but give us 50 years; besides, you (hopefully) do not go into
some kind of a self-induced trance when something is described to you, and
actually believe you "see" what is described. A description is not the same
thing as the item being described; it is a paraphrase. Quality is obviously
dependant on who/what is doing the paraphrasing. You have to admit that the
television (a machine) can better describe a scene than I can (if you don't,
I'll simply do a worse and worse job until you do ;-).
This entire thread is devolving into "why AI is impossible so we can
justify cutting all funding rather than reforming the welfare system or building
fewer useless piles of paper instead".
Everyone seems to be missing the point that the reason AI hasn't
got any shining results for you to touch is that, as soon as something is
useful/marketable/sellable (usually 3 mutually exclusive traits), it gets
renamed so that it isn't AI any more. This happened with databases, it
happened with character recognition (it's now called "optical scanning"),
and seems to be trying to happen with natural language processing and
knowledge-based expert systems. Most modern computer instruction technology
is the result of original work in the 50's and 60's by cognitive psychologists.
This doesn't mean you want one (a psychologist) running, maintaining, or
administering your computer facilities; it simply means that AI has been
proven to be a useful item to throw money at. Hell, most compiler technology
today is a result of techniques learned exploring possibilities in AI.
Whether or not current languages can do what needs to be done is
an open question, and is therefore disputed. I see nothing in any previous
arguments by anyone that suggest that the concept of language as a method of
description is flawed. It is idiotic to make assumptions based on the
likelyhood of possible future events until some form of social engineering can
make 100% accurate predicitions and produce duplicable results with accuracy.
Stating that machines can not produce behavior which is comparable with human
behavior is as idiotic as most religious dogma.
terry@wsccs
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 88 12:41:39 GMT
From: mind!eliot@princeton.edu (Eliot Handelman)
Subject: Re: Human-human communication
In article <2534@mind.UUCP> ghh@clarity.UUCP (Gilbert Harman) writes:
>An even harder problem:
> How does one verbally explain what the color blue is to
> a stone?
> Gilbert Harman
> Princeton University Cognitive Science Laboratory
> 221 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ 08542
We've already done that. We've run into trouble testing the stone's knowledge,
though.
Eliot Handelman
Music & Cognition Group
Department of Music
Princeton University
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 88 14:10:09 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!smoliar@bloom-beacon.mit.edu
(Stephen Smoliar)
Subject: Re: Human-human communication
In article <920@papaya.bbn.com> barr@pineapple.bbn.com (Hunter Barr) writes:
>
>I will now express in language:
>"How to recognize the color red on sight (or any other color)..":
>
>Find a person who knows the meaning of the word "red." Ask her to
>point out objects which are red, and objects which are not,
>distinguishing between them as she goes along. If you are physically
>able to distinguish colors, you will soon get the hang of it.
>
As H. L. Menken once said: "For every complex problem, there is a simple
answer . . . and it's wrong." There is a lot of subtlety lurking beneath
the simplicity of the above scenario, rather like dust swept under a carpet.
Let us begin with the assumption that all that is required to distinguish
colors is some PHYSICAL ability. Does that really mean anything; and, if
so, what does it mean? I think there is sufficient evidence that we are
not talking strictly about receptors which can distinguish different
frequencies of visible radiation. If that were all there were to it,
we would have a lot more success with automata distinguishing colors
under the same circumstances as humans (such as major variations in
ambient lighting). Then there is that casual phrase about getting "the
hang of it." Given how little we really know about phenomena such as
memory, it is very hard to put much substance into this statement. (If
we could, we probably wouldn't be studying AI any longer!)
I think Wittgenstein's PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS would be appropriate
reading for this discussion. Wittgenstein does a much more thorough job
than I could ever do in exploring all the difficulties which plague the
scenario which Hunter Barr has proposed. I found it a great adventure
(albeit frustrating) to delve into such mysteries of understanding.
Since reading it, I have recommended it to anyone concerned with issues
of communication with humans.
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 88 15:01:13 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!smoliar@bloom-beacon.mit.edu
(Stephen Smoliar)
Subject: Re: Human-human communication
In article <905@papaya.bbn.com> Hunter Barr writes:
>
>Now I must "get pedantic," by saying that body movement *is*
>describable. As for part a), you are correct that someone other than
>the author must understand it, otherwise we do not have communication.
>But you ignore the existance of useful dance notations. I don't know
>much about dance notation, and I am sure there is much lacking in it--
>probably standardization for one thing. But the lack of a universally
>intelligable *spoken* language does not make human speech fail the
>"usefulness" test. Mandarin Chinese is an even bigger problem with
>adults than dance notation! If one learned a common dance notation
>from childhood, it would be every bit as useful as the Chinese
>language.
Having just said my piece about colors, Hunter, I do not want you to
get the idea that I'm picking on you; but I have to come to Gilbert
Cockton's defense here. (Surprised, Gilbert?) You see, I spent several
years working with a variety of different dance notations. A summary of
much of my work was published in COMPUTING SURVEYS in an article I wrote
with Norman Badler. Let me try to straighten out a few points here.
First of all, NO dance notation provides sufficient information for the
exact reproduction of a movement. Like all notations, dance notation
involves introducing simplifying abstractions. Some notations are
basically iconographic . . . simplified images of positions are key
points in time drawn with the assumption that the brain can fill in
the "between" stuff. Others attempt to describe trajectories of flexion
at the major joints. However, no notation has been able to communicate
some of the most fundamental information about body comportment which is
vital in reproducing any movement pattern, be it for dance, athletics, or
anything else.
The notation I know best is Labanotation, having worked directly with the
Dance Notation Bureau for a couple of years. Here are a few interesting
things that I learned there:
1. Most dancers do not read Labanotation. If a dance company
wants to reconstruct a work from a notated score, they bring
in a notator to interpret the score for them.
2. When a notator is interpreting a score, it is usually very
valuable to know WHO recorded the score. If you know who wrote
the notation, you can usually make some assumptions about how
most of those abstractions can be fleshed out into "real" movement.
If you don't know who the notator was, you damned well better know
the style of the choreographer whose work is being reconstructed!
In other words, without some general mental image of "what things
are supposed to look like," the notation will not do you very much
good.
In other words, for all its merits, dance notation is basically a sophisticated
form of a memory aid with some attempt at standardization. If you wanted to
compare it to music notation, today's notation of music would be a poor
analogy. For some dance notations, the analogy would best fit the diacritical
marks which indicate the proper incantation of Hebrew religious texts.
Labanotation, on the other hand, would probably find its analogy somewhere
in the 14th century attempts at notating polyphony.
Regarding the learning of dance notation from childhood, there used to be
(and perhaps still are . . . Gilbert?) programs in the United Kingdom which
teach dance from a very early age. Some of these programs have incorporated
the use of dance notation from the beginning. Since these programs have been
around since the fifties, I would have thought that by now we would be seeing
notation-literate dancers, at least in London. I have encountered no evidence
that this is the case, nor does it appear that notation is a major element in
the operation of many large-scale dance companies.
Ultimately, I tend to agree with Gilbert that the problem is not in the
notation but in what is trying to be communicated. Video is as valuable
in reconstructing dances as it is in gymnastics, but there is still no
substitute for "shaping" bodies. What Gilbert calls "memory positions"
I have always called "muscular memory;" and I'm afraid there is no substitute
for physical experience when it comes to acquiring it.
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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