RE: Fwd:

thank you for hosting me last night I could not pass up the opportunity to see you both, but thought it prudent not to strain Valeria's time.. ( good juice) My thinking is as follows. I suggest that artificial intelligence and common sense are the computational models. but computation does not need language. It appears along the inverse function ie questions ? what if? then you need a language that has infinite possible configurations. . even a dog knows what happens if i throw the ball, only human thought asks what if , no gravity, what if, ball filled with helium etc. I think it is Al to the the power of minus 1. so if chemical feedback loops , began to anticipate their reactions to many previously unsearched configurations.

We were very pleased that you could stop by — on your way to Senegal! That's impressive. Valeria enjoyed it very much as well, and it seemed to have a good effect. She was a lot better today. We even went out for a walk for the first time.

Don't entirely follow what you say below. About Al, the field has two parts. One is basically engineering: let's construct a driverless car, a robot that can clean the house, etc. The other is basically science: let's try to discover how the human mind works, adopting a standard procedure of constructing models, and since we're thinking of the mind as basically a computational system, computational models. Normal science.

I have never seen any difference between the kind of work that I do — and Bob, and quite a few others — and the second kind of AI, which has pretty much withered on the vine as resources are poured into the first kind — which is doubtless of considerable importance, as engineering generally is.

So it's not really clear to me what is at stake.

Noam

the issue of modeling requires mathematics before engineering or at least along side it. i spent the day with gromov yesterday, He s come around on a great many issues and you guys see many things alike. I hope to brign him to cambridge. and you danny hills. berwick , martin he and I can spend some time together. III bring the deli.

Could be a fascinating discussion. Some time between your trips to Africa and elsewhere? When's a possible time. Will check with Bob too.

Noam