bwk@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Barry W. Kort) (11/30/88)
In article <448@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU Daniel Mocsny writes: >I think any attempt to define intelligence is futile >as long as we do not know how to define complexity. I recently saw an interesting definition of complexity in Scientific American: The complexity of a system may be measured in terms of the amount of information discarded in the process of creating the system. (For all you Zen enthusiasts, this means that the Null System may be the most complex system ever created.) By the way, my own working definition of intelligence is the ability to think and solve problems. (I define thinking as a rational form of information processing which conceives solutions to outstanding problems, generates goal-achieving courses of action, and reduces the entropy or uncertainty of a knowledge base. The antonym of thinking is worrying, an emotional form of information processing which fails to generate solutions to outstanding problems, fails to generate goal-achieving courses of action, and fail to reduce the entropy or uncertainty of a knowldege base.) --Barry Kort
smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (12/06/88)
In article <42327@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Kort) writes: > >By the way, my own working definition of intelligence is the >ability to think and solve problems. (I define thinking as >a rational form of information processing which conceives >solutions to outstanding problems, generates goal-achieving >courses of action, and reduces the entropy or uncertainty of >a knowledge base. The antonym of thinking is worrying, an >emotional form of information processing which fails to >generate solutions to outstanding problems, fails to generate >goal-achieving courses of action, and fail to reduce the >entropy or uncertainty of a knowldege base.) > In THE SOCIETY OF MIND, Marvin Minsky makes a plausible case for the possibility that worrying, as well as other emotions, may actually play a productive role in our ability to solve problems. I'm not yet sure I buy into his argument, but it gives me reason to think twice about Barry's antonymic stand.
bwk@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Barry W. Kort) (12/08/88)
In article <6973@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar) writes: > In THE SOCIETY OF MIND, Marvin Minsky makes a plausible case for > the possibility that worrying, as well as other emotions, may actually > play a productive role in our ability to solve problems. Stephen, I couldn't locate the above passage. There doesn't seem to be an entry in the Index or Table of Contents on "worrying." Would you mind posting a pointer to the chapter in question? Thanks. --Barry Kort
smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (12/13/88)
In article <42575@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Kort) writes: >In article <6973@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP >(Stephen Smoliar) writes: > > > In THE SOCIETY OF MIND, Marvin Minsky makes a plausible case for > > the possibility that worrying, as well as other emotions, may actually > > play a productive role in our ability to solve problems. > >Stephen, I couldn't locate the above passage. There doesn't seem >to be an entry in the Index or Table of Contents on "worrying." > >Would you mind posting a pointer to the chapter in question? Thanks. > >--Barry Kort Barry is quite right that there is no direct pointer to "worrying" in THE SOCIETY OF MIND. It may be that I am performing an unreasonable inference by analogy, but I realize that what I had in mind was much of the discussion about an Anger agent which arises thoughout the book. When Minsky first introduces his "Professor Challenger" scenario in Chapter 4, Anger is introduced as an agent which keeps him working despite the influence of a Sleep agent to get him to stop. It does not strike me as unreasonable to assume that worrying could play a similar role. Indeed, Minsky seems to indicate that a principal purpose of emotions is the indirect control of agents like "Work," which it would be impractical to control directly. ("If WORK could simply turn off SLEEP, we'd quickly wear our bodies out.") Running the risk of introspecting to much, I would argue that worry has been as much an asset to my productivity as anger. I hope this makes my case clearer.
bwk@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Barry W. Kort) (12/15/88)
In article <7032@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar) resumes the discussion about the role of emotions in problem solving: > ... what I had in mind was much of the discussion about an Anger > agent which arises thoughout the book [Minsky's _Society of Mind_]. > It does not strike me as unreasonable to assume that worrying > could play a similar role [as anger in motivating work]. > I hope this makes my case clearer. I get your point. But I do think there is a meaningful distinction between anger as a motivator and worry as a stage of problem solving. One of the causes of anger is feelings of injustice. The anger drives us to restore the balance. It is clear that much political activity arises out of the need to assuage anger arising from social injustice. But worrying seems to be a bit different. I worry when I cannot reliably predict the outcome of a tentative course of action. I define worrying as "an emotional form of information processing which fails to reduce the entropy or uncertainty of a knowledge base, fails to generate solutions to outstanding problems, or fails to conceice goal-achieving courses of action". What anger and worry have in common is the presence of a problem (an undesirable state of affairs) for which I do not have a ready solution that I can apply with confidence. That is, the presence of emotion signals the absence of knowledge. It tells me that I cannot discover the solution within the scope of my present knowledge base. It tells me that I have to go to the outside world and seek additional information, assistance, or skills. --Barry Kort