one of the things that really convinced me of how useless it was when I asked the teacher about proofs, and he told me it would take longer to prove a program than to actually write it. At that point it became obvious to me, that it was a pointless pursuit, since if it works then that's all that really necessary. If someone can manipulate some obsolete math language to do something similar is irrelevant.
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 11:04 AM, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: > I finally figured out how the professor is defining the systems he is > talking about. Or maybe he has started defining them in a more obvious > way. Or I might have been misinterpreting what he was saying, not realizing > that he was making a definition of the domain that he was going to use when > I thought he was just talking about possibilities that can be considered. > > I did get something out of learning about state-transitions diagrams even > though I will never actually use one outside a course or a textbook > problem. It made me realize that there were other ways of defining > problems, a little like possible variations of the way we define > pseudo-code when trying to figure some programming problem out. > > On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 10:43 AM, Logan Streondj <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Ya, I never liked that abstract stuff that has nothing to do with real >> computers. >> It's why whenever I took one of those courses I dropped it shortly >> thereafter. >> >> >> >> On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 5:58 AM, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Abram, >>> You idea that the situation could represent non-determinism is >>> interesting - especially since it fits in so nicely with the history of >>> computation. Turing developed his hypothesis of a non-deterministic >>> (Turing) machine in the 1930's. So your interpretation makes some >>> historical sense (although it is not what the professor of the course >>> intended of course). If we were to "diagram" the logic of a Turing Machine >>> that was able to find a solution you could use some kind of parallelism but >>> you could also design a loop that tried every possible action until it got >>> a solution or which could find more than one solution by examining every >>> possible case. >>> >>> The other thing that bothered me was that since this is a AI Planning >>> course you can think of possible states as variables as well. I really >>> wonder if confusing common terminology with ways of thinking about a >>> problem drags students down or not. There are good reasons to present >>> students with historical issues, but why not just explain that is what you >>> are doing? >>> Jim Bromer >>> >>> On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 8:34 PM, Abram Demski <[email protected]>wrote: >>> >>>> Sounds annoying, sure. Perhaps it gets better? >>>> >>>> For what it's worth, I believe the idea with multiple copies of an >>>> action label is non-determinism. If there are several outgoing links with >>>> the same label, then the choice of next state is not fully determined by >>>> the action: it could be any of those. >>>> >>>> This can be used to represent randomness, but the idea of >>>> non-determinism in computer science is more general than that. It might be >>>> chosen according to some outside criteria. The most common case is >>>> nondeterminism in NP: NP indicates that there is a polynomial-time solution >>>> algorithm on nondeterministic turing machines, meaning Turing machines >>>> whose heads have multiple transition possibilities in their state >>>> transition diagrams, but "magically" make the correct transition to get the >>>> end result we need. >>>> >>>> >>>> On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 4:29 PM, Jim Bromer <[email protected]>wrote: >>>> >>>>> I am taking two Introduction to AI online courses and I am making >>>>> quite a few mistakes. Some of the mistakes are just plain mistakes. But >>>>> some are due to annoying cutsieness. Here is an example: >>>>> >>>>> True or False >>>>> State transition systems can represent actions that occur in parallel. >>>>> >>>>> Well of course they can, but since this is an introductory course the >>>>> answer has to be False. >>>>> Ok, got that one right. >>>>> >>>>> A state transition graph may have multiple outgoing/incoming directed >>>>> edges that are labelled with the same action. >>>>> >>>>> Well I had a feeling that was a trick question given the answer to the >>>>> first question, and the answer is...True. True? My best guess is that the >>>>> term label was not being applied to *some particular* labelled actions but >>>>> to the choice of actions at a particular state, whereas each state is the >>>>> resultant of the action so they are thought of as particulars (like >>>>> values)? Maybe there is some other reasoning behind this but if there is >>>>> I >>>>> can't figure it out. >>>>> >>>>> This was from an introductory course in AI planning. AI Planning! I >>>>> find this stuff intensely annoying. We cannot use a state transition >>>>> diagram to diagram parallel actions? (That would be impossible for anyone >>>>> to even consider. Your mind can't handle it.) But it can be used to >>>>> represent multiple outgoing/incoming directed edges labelled with the same >>>>> action? Is the teacher kidding? Maybe you guys who have already been >>>>> through this see some error that I don't see, but I just don't see why the >>>>> teacher cannot just come out and explain the conventions that are applied >>>>> to terminology (like "state transition diagram") and save the quizzes for >>>>> the good stuff. Why challenge the students with the professor's mastery of >>>>> ambiguity? >>>>> >>>>> I make a lot of really dense mistakes in these courses. I don't want >>>>> to waste my time trying to outwit the teacher's challenges about >>>>> computational phlogiston. >>>>> >>>>> Jim Bromer >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> >>>>> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/7190161-766c6f07> | >>>>> Modify <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> Your Subscription >>>>> <http://www.listbox.com> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Abram Demski >>>> http://lo-tho.blogspot.com/ >>>> *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> >>>> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/10561250-470149cf> | >>>> Modify <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> Your Subscription >>>> <http://www.listbox.com> >>>> >>> >>> *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> >>> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/5037279-a88c7a6d> | >>> Modify <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> Your Subscription >>> <http://www.listbox.com> >>> >> >> *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> >> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/10561250-470149cf> | >> Modify <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> Your Subscription >> <http://www.listbox.com> >> > > *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/5037279-a88c7a6d> | > Modify<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>Your Subscription > <http://www.listbox.com> > ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
