Re: Hubris (was: Retrenchment)

From: Phil Goetz (philgoetz@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Aug 19 2005 - 05:47:15 MDT


> Ahem... One thing that is fairly obvious from reading
> your list of six
> communities, is that there are a fair number of people on
> this list doing
> serious research who very arguably do not fall under any
> of the categories
> you invented. That you are not aware of the fact that
> there is at least a
> seventh or eighth community strongly represented on this
> list suggests that
> you may be guilty of the very problem you outline in the
> last sentence
> above.

How about describing these 7th and 8th communities?
I thought it was a pretty good list, except that it
left out control theory and signal processing.

Anyway, that list was in the context of discussing AI
in general, more than in the context of criticizing
people on this list. I think.

> One thing that you (and others) may be missing is that
> this list has been
> around a long time, and that the ideas from many of the
> communities you
> mention above have been thoroughly vetted and mostly
> discarded.

I disassociate myself from that remark.

> I daresay that you have at least some gaping holes in
> your understanding of
> the spaces that are considered baseline knowledge on this
> list for the sake
> of constructive argument.

How about filling in those holes?
Or at least pointing them out?
I don't see them.

> Could you consider the possibility that many of us have
> taken everything of
> value from these six paradigms and discarded the lot of
> them? All six of
> those paradigms (such as they are) are b0rken for various
> reasons as far as
> I'm concerned, and not because I am ignorant of them.

You find all those fields of study hopelessly broken,
with no chance of repair, and nothing more to learn
from them? Now THAT'S hubris.

- Phil Goetz

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