Thanks John
My curiosity relates to the promise of human-schema processing and how it
can extend our abilities to make expert judgements across a diverse
workforce. At the same time, I observe in the workforce a degree of
pessimism in relation to these matters ... people often talk about these
opportunities not being realised, indeed that their natural intelligence is
constrained by these types of interactions.
Richard
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
Sent: Wednesday, 17 August 2011 10:40 PM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology
On 8/17/2011 6:44 AM, Richard Vines wrote:
> On slide slide 67 of thishttp://www.jfsowa.com/talks/iss.pdf you say:
>
> ● But all true theories must be consistent with observations.
>
> I am not sure if this is a pedantic or a substantial matter I am raising.
>
> I would take the view that there are never any "true theories".
>
> All knowledge is fallible...
I completely agree with the last line, especially since that is what my
favorite philosopher, C. S. Peirce said many times.
But Peirce was quick to point out that much of what we think we know really
is true. Unfortunately, we can never be certain that every detail is
correct. And we can never know how accurately our theories will apply to
circumstances and conditions that have not been tested.
In other words, we can correctly use the words 'true' and 'false' in
ordinary conversation as we normally do. We can even use them correctly
when we testify in a court of law ("the whole truth and nothing but the
truth"). And we can even use those words correctly about the observed data
in a scientific publication.
> some theories better explain something than others because they are
> consistent with observations (principle of induction).
Yes. We can say that a certain theory is true of certain observations or
even certain kinds of easily repeatable observations. But we don't know
whether its predictions will be true for any conditions for which it has not
been tested.
> I prefer the idea of 'evidence informed' decision making...
Peirce used different terminology, but he would agree.
> Translation of the elements of content from one set of categories to
> another cannot, we claim, be accomplished without the application of
> what we will call ‘human interpretive intelligence’.
I certainly agree that our current AI systems cannot compete with humans in
complex reasoning, understanding, and intuition. But even today, there are
many instruments that are far better than humans in detecting and evaluating
certain kinds of observations.
There are also many kinds of illusions, errors, and traps that humans
typically misinterpret and misjudge -- just ask any trained magician.
But the term 'human interpretive intelligence' is too vague to be useful.
It is much better to characterize the kinds of things we know how to analyze
by current technology and other kinds that we don't yet know how to specify
accurately.
Peirce rejected Kant's claim that there is something behind the observable
phenomena that is ultimately unknowable. And he would reject the claim that
there is anything we know for which it's impossible to specify the evidence
and reasoning that led us to that knowledge.
John
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