virus: Logical Beliefs

Reed Konsler (konsler@ascat.harvard.edu)
Sat, 7 Jun 1997 19:59:18 -0400 (EDT)


>Date: Fri, 06 Jun 1997 17:16:27 -0600
>From: David McFadzean <david@lucifer.com>

>1) Truth values about the system's environment are represented
> within the system.
>2) The results of logical operations on the truth values
> influence the system's behavior.
>
>An important consideration about #1 is there has to be a possibility
>that the system misrepresents the state of the world.
>
>Example: "The rock will fall if it is not supported."
>You may think at first that the rock is using logic by my
>criteria: if (not supported) then fall.
>
>But the rock doesn't represent the truth value of (supported)
>anywhere within the rock because it can't possibly be wrong about
>whether it is supported (otherwise it could make a mistake and float :-).

Hmm.
So, one deduces there is internal representation of "truth" by
looking for errors (ie: floating rocks). What if one discovers no
errors? Either the thing is not using logic, or else is using logic
with perfect (within perception) truth values. Perhaps the rock
always accurately knows if it is supported?

An extreme conclusion is that by this analysis you would be
unable to distinguish a rock from God.

I'm not poking fun. I still think you aren't avoiding intentionallity, you
are just making it implict...which I think is not the direction I was
pushing.

>When you learn a new language with a different grammar you have
>to think carefully about the grammar rules of the new language
>in order to construct a grammatical sentence. As you become fluent
>in the language you no longer have to think about it, you just
>talk naturally.
>
>Yes, there is a difference between speakers who "use" the grammar
>(consciously follow grammatical rules) and speakers that appear
>to talk grammatically. Does that mean there are two different
>grammars here? If the question is whether one is speaking
>grammatically correct sentences, does it really matter if they
>have to think about it first?

It is inaccurate to claim that all entities that speak
sentences you perceive as gramatical use your gramatical
rules. In other words, all entities seeming to behave logically
do not neccesarily use or obey logic.

Reed

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Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
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