Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!mit-eddie!apollo!nelson_p@apollo.uucp From: nelson_p@apollo.uucp Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Free will and self-awareness Message-ID: <3c671fbe.44e6@apollo.uucp> Date: 1 Jun 88 14:39:00 GMT Sender: jlb@apollo.uucp Lines: 28 To: comp.ai@news Gilbert Cockton posts: >The test is easy, look at the references. Do the same for AAAI and >IJCAI papers. The subject area seems pretty introspective to me. >If you looked at an Education conference proceedings, attended by people who >deal with human intelligence day in day out (rather than hack LISP), you >would find a wide range of references, not just specialist Education references. >You will find a broad understanding of humanity, whereas in AI one can >often find none, just logical and mathematical references. I still >fail to see how this sort of intellectual background can ever be >regarded as adequate for the study of human reasoning. On what >grounds does AI ignore so many intellectual traditions? Because AI would like to make some progress (for a change!). I originally majored in psychology. With the exception of some areas in physiological pyschology, the field is not a science. Its models and definitions are simply not rigorous enough to be useful. This is understandable since the phenomena it attempts to address are far too complex for the currently available intellectual and technical tools. The result is that psychologists and sociologists waste much time and money over essentially unresolvable philosophical debates, sort of like this newsgroup! When you talk about an 'understanding of humanity' you clearly have a different use of the term 'understanding' in mind than I do. Let's move this topic to talk.philosophy!! --Peter Nelson