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From: cottrell%ics@SDCSVAX.UCSD.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: thinking about thinking not being science
Message-ID: <8707070019.AA28091@sdics.ICS>
Date: Mon, 6-Jul-87 20:19:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdics.8707070019.AA28091
Posted: Mon Jul  6 20:19:38 1987
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In article <8707030236.AA29872@flash.bellcore.com>
amsler@FLASH.BELLCORE.COM (Robert Amsler) writes:
>I think Don Norman's argument is true for cognitive psychologists,
>but may not be true for AI researchers. The reason is that the two
>groups seek different answers. [....] Speculating about flight might
>lead to building other types of aircraft (as certainly those now
>humorous old films of early aviation experiments show), but it would
>certainly be a bad procedure to follow to understand birds and how
>they fly.

In fact, the Wright Brothers spent quite a bit of time studying how
birds fly, and as a recent Scientific American notes, we may still have
a lot to learn from natural systems. A piece of Dennis Conner's boat was
based on a whale's tailfin.

I think Don's point was that many times AI researchers spend a lot of time
theorizing about how humans work, and then use that as justification for
their designs for AI systems, without ever consulting the facts.

It is certainly true that Cognitive Scientists and AI researchers are at
different ends of a spectrum (from NI (Natural Intelligence) to AI), but it
would be foolish for AI researchers not to take hints from the best example
of an intelligient being we have. On the other hand, it is not appropriate
for a medical expert system to make the same mistakes doctors do - sometimes
a criterion for a "good" cognitive model.

gary cottrell				
Institute for Cognitive Science C-015
UCSD, 
La Jolla, Ca. 92093
cottrell@nprdc.arpa (ARPA) (or perhaps cottrell%ics@cs.ucsd.edu)
{ucbvax,decvax,akgua,dcdwest}!sdcsvax!sdics!cottrell (USENET)
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