Re: Think For Yourself... Or Let Machines Do It For You?

From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Mon Sep 03 2001 - 15:20:40 MDT


From: "Dan Clemmensen" <dgc@cox.rr.com>
> If "intelligence" is pure logic, then a perfect intelligence
> would always operate from first principles and observed fact, and never
> from pre-computed stored knowledge, which you think of as "cheating." In
> the real world, intelligence is really the ability to efficiently access
> and manipulate the information you have stored. This ability to
> quickly pick the correct starting points in the knowledge base minimizes
> the amount of reasoning you need to do.

OTOH, the inability to operate from first principles and observed facts, using
instead pre-computed stored knowledge, is not human-competitive cognition of
the highest caliber. It's merely information retrieval, AKA memory. Machines
that can actually solve real problems autonomously do in fact demonstrate
genuine intelligence, which qualifies them as living entities AFAIC.

> What I really want is a "perfect
> search engine" that will deliver relevant information and which is
> highly adaptive to current context. Such a tool would allow me to
> reason from a huge knowledge base.

You're not the only one who really wants such an engine. Many of us have
wanted such a device for decades.

Research issues in context-aware retrieval: needs of the Matcher-library
Peter Brown
http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~pjbrown/car_project/library.html
ABSTRACT
The set of Java classes used by the Context Matcher needs to be made available
to the user (in this case not the end-user but the researcher who wants to
test retrieval strategies) both within the Matcher itself, in order to allow
the user to plug in specially tailored scoring algorithms, and in pre- and
post-processors which the user may want to attach to the Matcher. This paper
looks at some sample tasks that the user might want to perform, in order to
show what facilities should ideally be available in the Java classes.

ADMIRE: An Adaptive Data Model for Meta Search Engines
http://www9.org/w9cdrom/165/165.html
ABSTRACT
Considering the diversity among search engines, efficient integration of them
is an important but difficult job. It is essential to provide a data model
that can provide a detailed description of the query capabilities of
heterogeneous search engines. By means of this model, the meta-searcher can
map users' queries into specific sources more accurately, and it can achieve
good precision and recall. Moreover, it will benefit the selection of target
source and computing priority. Because new search engines emerge frequently
and old ones are updated when their function and content change, the data
model needs good adaptivity and scalability to keep in step with the rapidly
developing WWW. This paper gives a formal description of the query
capabilities of heterogeneous search engines and an algorithm for mapping a
query from a general mediator format into the specific wrapper format of a
specific search engine. Compared with related work, the special features of
our work are that we focus more on the constraint of/between the terms,
attribute order, and the impact of logical operator restraints. The
contribution of our work is that we offer a data model that is both expressive
enough to meticulously describe the query capabilities of current WWW search
engines and flexible enough to integrate them efficiently.

The search for the perfect search engine
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/12200.html

Webmind, GlobalBrain, and Semantic Web projects seek related search and
retrieval power.
Meanwhile, google does better than anything that existed five years ago.

Stay hungry,

--J. R.

Useless hypotheses, etc.:
 consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism, GAC, Cyc, Eliza, cryonics, individual
uniqueness, ego

     Everything that can happen has already happened, not just once,
     but an infinite number of times, and will continue to do so forever.
     (Everything that can happen = more than anyone can imagine.)

We won't move into a better future until we debunk religiosity, the most
regressive force now operating in society.



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