[ontolog-forum] test

[FERENC KOVACS <f.kovacs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Pat wrote:

As I said, people are (at least I am) really bad at following long chains of
logical inference that are specified by the axioms, and need to rely for
their understanding on other parts of the documentation.  I find the
inclusion of examples and counterexamples of types or of usage of relations
to be very helpful to resolve ambiguities.

 

If you want some simple examples of how tough it can be to follow a chain
of inference mentally, get hold of some "difficult" "sudoku" puzzles, where
the proper numbers in the boxes cannot be resolved by simple number
exclusion on rows, columns, and boxes.  This is really simple logical
inference, but for the tough puzzles, one may have to make a guess for one
number and follow the consequences for a couple of dozen inferences before
reaching a contradiction (which will happen at least half the time).   I
find that for myself, it is very hard to go beyond a dozen inferences and
recall the locations of all the numbers that were deduced. 

My comments:

The problems of long sequences (chains of inferences) comes  from our limited span of attention (8 sec), limited stack of working (or short-term) memory, and a narrow bandwidth of focus, which have a physiological basis. This is why speech, numbers and writing  were invented. We can count more than up to 4 plus minus 3 (1, 2 thre and many), especially if the time is short to grasd objects in our field of visison. Only by memorizing the numbers as tags in rote learning and not "thinking" about them are we able to perform arithmetic operations.  We do not compute multiplication, we use a wired memory of the Times Table. We document thoughts in 2d, in spatial terms and relations, whereas  thinking is fast moving operations that cannot be traced without introspection, which is too slow for the job.

Also, you cannot focus on two things in space at a time at different depths, especially if they are moving, and changing directions.

 Ferenc

 

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