John,
Thanks very much for your summary and recommendation of my thesis.
I agree that spatial reasoning and visualization / imagery are very important to human-level intelligence. In writing the thesis it helped greatly to defer these as topics for future extensions of the thesis approach.
Phil
> Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 09:47:33 -0400
> From: sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx
> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> CC: philipcjacksonjr@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Toward Human-Level Artificial Intelligence
>
> Phil Jackson's thesis defense was successful, and he is now Dr. Phil.
> Following is a 27-slide intro:
>
> http://www.philjackson.prohosting.com/TowardHumanLevelAI20140422.pdf
>
> The last slide has a pointer to the full dissertation:
>
> http://www.philjackson.prohosting.com/PCJacksonPhDThesis20140422.pdf
>
> I recommend both. The intro summarizes the arguments for the
> controversial claim that human-level AI is possible with a knowledge
> representation based on natural language.
>
> That hypothesis sounds like heresy to anybody who has been using
> logic-based notations. But it's not implausible -- especially since
> we do have at least one example of a successful implementation: people.
>
> It's also consistent with a claim I frequently make: every version
> of logic or other artificial language is a generalization from the
> syntactic and semantic features of NLs. I analyze that point in
> http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/rolelog.pdf
>
> I also show how various logics (EGs, CGs, Kamp's DRS and others) are
> related to NLs and to each other: http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/eg2cg.pdf
>
> Phil's notation, Tala, is similar to DRS, EGs, and CGs in that it has
> a fairly direct mapping to NLs and it uses symbols that have a closer
> mapping to NL words and phrases than to URIs.
>
> In fact, this is a point I have often made: URIs are useful for many
> purposes, but they do *not* facilitate natural language understanding.
> It is *impossible* for anyone -- human or computer -- to relate a term
> from an NL text to a URI that adequately represents that term until
> *after* they have analyzed and understood the NL text.
>
> I admit that a document that contains annotations (with URIs or other
> identifiers) may be helpful for NL processing. But annotations based
> on a well-designed terminology for humans would be as good or better --
> especially since any humans who do the annotating depend on the humanly
> readable terminology, not on the formalism. No identifier of any kind
> can be more reliable than the system that generates it.
>
> However, I do have some criticisms or at least caveats. Phil does not
> devote enough attention to the importance of mental models or imagery.
> Many animals without language have an impressive level of intelligence.
> Scientists are just beginning to appreciate their intelligence.
>
> I believe that a system without imagery can achieve a much greater level
> of intelligence than current AI systems. But humans cannot -- just by
> reading -- fully understand other humans who have gone somewhere and
> done something that is very different from anything they have ever
> experienced. Neither can a computer.
>
> I also recommend the dissertation as a good reference. It has a 26-page
> bibliography with URLs for many of the documents. It also has useful
> one or two-page summaries with citations for further reading.
>
> John