Re: Today's discussion
Dear Stephen,
thank you for your so far unending patience in that discussion. -->
That's a terrific website!
» I agree, and yet only a subset of animals can use symbols for =ommunication.
» communication and intelligence are not the same thing (think about
» =ees etc)
» Of these, only a small subset can make use of negation, conjunctions =nd disjunctions in symbolic communication (for instance, Irene =epperberg's famous grey parrots). It appears that only humans can learn =ich grammatical language, and I suspect that this is the primary =nabler of our superior problem solving capabilities.
» I disagree. Einstein claimed that his greatest discoveries came from =ental imagery, and he later converted those thoughts to verbal =xpressions only with great difficulty. I think Al has vastly =nderestimated the role of "mental simulation/emulation" in thinking and =easoning.
Nonverbal thinking is primary, and is poorly understood, and it has
=een neglected by what we now often call "classic Al". (But if we look
=t the original ideas, that was probably not intentional. Logic based
=ystems were low hanging fruit. Once you have a paradigm and a
=ommunity, you end up with a methodology that is bound to stay,
=nfortunately.)
Hi J..
Some responses and reflections below...
JJJJJJJJ
Stephen M. Kosslyn
Director, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences Stanford University
75 Alta Road
Stanford, CA 94305
Voice: