ghn@mind.UUCP (Gregory Nelson) (07/13/87)
In article <993@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes: >[] >I will abide by the decision [to move]. Perhaps I may be allowed a few >parting reflections: > >(1) It is not entirely clear what the motivation of the nays was: >ecological/economic considerations about overuse of the airways or >reluctance to perform the dozen or so keystrokes per week (or to >put in the software filter) that would flush unwanted topic headers. >[] >(3) Along with several thoughtful replies, there was unfortunately also some >ad hominem abusiveness, both in the poll and in the discussion. This is the >ugly side of electronic networks: unmoderated noise from the tail end of the >gaussian distribution. Is it possible, that with all of the artificial intelligence researchers this board has brought together, we might come up with a way to filter bulletins before they were posted: for example, to cut out sarcasm and abusive language (of course, informing the writer of this fact). This would certainly help to ... >[make the] Net the reliable and respectable medium of scholarly communication >that I and (I trust) others are hoping it will evolve into. >(4) I continue to be extremely enthusiastic about and committed to >developing the remarkable potential of electronic networks for scholarly >communication and the evolution of ideas. I take the present votes to >indicate that the current Usenet Newsgroups may not be the place to attempt >to start this. That sounds like something a good program would have to filter. >(5) Starting a special-interest Newsgroup every time a topic catches >on does not seem like the optimal solution. This is true. However, there is a great difference between a topic "catching on" and a few people posting hundreds upon hundreds of lines of text every week. Not everyone who said "nay" was attacking you. Many of them said that they would like the discussion to continue, but that it was just TOO verbose. I for one am very interested in the problem, and have been trying to follow along (for several months of "catching on"...), but it's hard to keep up! >(6) The current majority status of engineers, computer scientists and >programmers on the Net also seems to be a constraint on the development of >its broader scholarly potential. You've clearly had a lot to do lately, keeping up with the symbol grounding discussion and summarizing polls. Perhaps you should take some time off to look at some of the other newsgroups. The comp.xxxx discussions are naturally oriented to computer people, but things like rec.xxx and sci.xxx are much more "broadminded" (if you will.) If you want a real surprise, try tuning in to the Deja Vu discussion on misc.psi or something like that. Greg Nelson (609) 924-6923 Princeton University Cognitive Science Lab princeton!mind!ghn
dwp@cci632.UUCP (Dana Paxson) (07/14/87)
In article <1010@mind.UUCP> ghn@mind.UUCP (Gregory Nelson) writes: >In article <993@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes: >>[] >>[make the] Net the reliable and respectable medium of scholarly communication >>that I and (I trust) others are hoping it will evolve into. >> ... >>(4) I continue to be extremely enthusiastic about and committed to >>developing the remarkable potential of electronic networks for scholarly >>communication and the evolution of ideas. I take the present votes to >>indicate that the current Usenet Newsgroups may not be the place to attempt >>to start this. > > ... Perhaps you should take some time off to >look at some of the other newsgroups. The comp.xxxx discussions are naturally >oriented to computer people, but things like rec.xxx and sci.xxx are much >more "broadminded" (if you will.) If you want a real surprise, try tuning >in to the Deja Vu discussion on misc.psi or something like that. > I realize that this is belated input. As one who followed along with an occasional understanding of the discussion on symbol grounding, I have been attracted both to the discussion and to the way in which Stevan Harnad conducted it. I admire the discipline and rigor evident in his postings, and see his work as an example of how a newsgroup functioning often as a bulletin board with limited scope can be enriched by some really difficult exploration. Some of the other contributors to the discussion appeared to work well at a level near Mr. Harnad's. It has been an exciting series of exchanges. I regret the loss of the discussion from the newsgroup. Any reader of the most potent material on computer science will find that the authors reach out to many fields to gain inspiration, illustration, and, yes, even forms of grounding(!) for their work. Especially grounding. Like any other science area with meaning, computer science does not begin in words (or bytes) and end in bytes (or words). It ends in application, or at least applicability, to our lives. In the AI realm, that applicability is becoming an intimate metamorphism, a mapping/transformation, of how we work rather than a translation of what we do. If I can characterize an aspect of the symbol grounding discussion, it is a knife-sharp exploration of the type of problem dismissed by so many as having a self-evident solution. This class of problem is precisely the type which is most difficult even to see, let alone solve. Witness the depth and detail of the exchanges we have seen. If others become impatient with the material, they don't have to read it; but this topic area appears to be poorly understood by anybody, and desperately needs close dialogue. Personally, I feel strongly the need to extend my cognitive framework with such powerful and challenging material. Perhaps the outcomes from discussions like this one have too much potential for making a lot of funded thesis work and product development irrelevant... but then some outcomes can unfold whole new realms of exploration and advancement. Unless I am mistaken, these newsgroups can play an active role in this unfoldment. I don't want to see anything this good be relegated to an obscure electronic cranny, or lumped with a lot of diffuse and irrelevant outpourings. Computer scientists have a lot to learn from the symbol-grounding exchanges right here. I sense that there are many quiet readers out there who have powerful ideas relating to this subject, but who have kept silent on seeing contemptuous and abusive complaints of others about the length and content of the postings. For complaints, it seems reasonable to address the complaints to authors privately, or to the moderator if there is one; but open criticism on the net discourages its use by those whose insight and sensitivity exceed their boldness. Making one's views public is an intimidating process in itself, so why should we raise the level of intimidation? For my part, I would like to ask for a citation for Mr. Harnad's original article on the subject of symbol grounding; I want to read it to find out what started the interchange I have seen. I tuned in late in the process. Thanks to all of the participants in this probing discussion. The views expressed here are my own. Dana Paxson Systems Engineering Computer Consoles, Incorporated Rochester, New York 716 482-5000 CIS User ID: 76327,65
cycy@isl1.ri.cmu.edu (Christopher Young) (07/27/87)
In article <1431@cci632.UUCP>, dwp@cci632.UUCP (Dana Paxson) writes: > In article <1010@mind.UUCP> ghn@mind.UUCP (Gregory Nelson) writes: > >In article <993@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes: > >>[] > >>[make the] Net the reliable and respectable medium of scholarly communication > >>that I and (I trust) others are hoping it will evolve into. > >> ... > >>(4) I continue to be extremely enthusiastic about and committed to > >>developing the remarkable potential of electronic networks for scholarly > >>communication and the evolution of ideas. I take the present votes to > >>indicate that the current Usenet Newsgroups may not be the place to attempt > >>to start this. > > I realize that this is belated input. Me too. > As one who followed along with an occasional understanding of > the discussion on symbol grounding, I have been attracted both > to the discussion and to the way in which Stevan Harnad > conducted it. I admire the discipline and rigor evident in his > postings, and see his work as an example of how a newsgroup > functioning often as a bulletin board with limited scope can > be enriched by some really difficult exploration. Some of the > other contributors to the discussion appeared to work well at a > level near Mr. Harnad's. It has been an exciting series of > exchanges. I agree completely. > I regret the loss of the discussion from the newsgroup. > I sense that there are many quiet readers out there who have > powerful ideas relating to this subject, but who have kept > silent on seeing contemptuous and abusive complaints of > others about the length and content of the postings. For > complaints, it seems reasonable to address the complaints to > authors privately, or to the moderator if there is one; but > open criticism on the net discourages its use by those whose > insight and sensitivity exceed their boldness. Making one's > views public is an intimidating process in itself, so why should > we raise the level of intimidation? I followed this discussion off and on, though I have a tendency to pop in and out of the net since I get absorbed in work at my lab. I, like Dana Paxson, tried to keep up with the discussion on symbol grounding. I was quite shocked to plug back into the net (so to speak) and find that it had been voted off the net! I think that's ridiculous. The discussion was completely germain to the subject of this group. Certainly it was more relevant than many of the other discussions I've seen here (such as what "Jabberwocky" looks like after a style and spelling checker is through with it). Now, Steve Harnad's posts were rather lengthy; that's why I sent them to a file so I could read them later. But there is no reason at all that that should be a reason for banning a very relavant discussion. This group does have *that* much traffic, after all. And nobody is forced to read it. But there are those of us who read this group and who are seriously involved with AI, and who really appreciate seeing something substantial on the net. It's really not that hard to skip to the next message. If I had been plugged in at the time of the vote, I would have voted in favour of Harnad and the symbol grounding discussion. -- -- Chris. (cycy@isl1.ri.cmu.edu) "He was a cruel man, but fair." -- M.P.F.C.