Don't get me wrong I am glad this book exists and I am not disappointed on reading it. Compared to 1000's of other manuals and softwares I've gone through this is incredibly unique, like a work of art. The passion, sincerity and imagination in the book is admirable. OK I wouldn't take this as an AI bible. But after looking at so much of the same, boring regurgitations, getting something unique it's refreshing that there is some independent thought going on.
John From: Mark Waser [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] :-) The epiphany strikes . . . . :-) One of the hard lessons I've learned in life is that it is very possible for people to understand the highest levels of a given concept/field and the lowest/grittiest details and have absolutely no clue about the middle or how to join them (or often, reality in general). In my professional life, I have been suckered by job-seekers who could talk the high-level talk, provide code (which it was quite clear later that they weren't capable of having produced), and handle reasonably short problems but were absolutely worthless once employed. Actually, suckered is probably the wrong word since my experience is also that these individuals truly believe that they are at least as competent as most people in the field (if not better). I'd classify Mike Tintner as a similar individual. ----- Original Message ----- From: John G. Rose <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Here's Murray's book AI4U - http://books.iuniverse.com/viewbooks.asp?isbn=0595654371 <http://books.iuniverse.com/viewbooks.asp?isbn=0595654371&page=fm3> &page=fm3 I just speed read this book this afternoon and I'm floored because it defies classification. The chapters are devoted to JavaScript functions within the "Mind for MSIE" (MSIE = Internet Explorer browser). Think about it, a mind in JavaScript. And then superfluous and exaggerated wordiness about concepts which may be represented by just a few lines of JavaScript, and the whole JS code is like 50 pages, but the grandiose terminology with deep philosophical and sci-fi references mixed in with weak Chomskyisms, robotics, cog-sci and Psychic Area Networks...wow. It's like a 1950's theoretical AI software manual written by Franz Bardon, using 1980's ASCII art, modernized for pseudo AGI design, while Frankensteining together diverse philosophical, psychological, linguistic and introspective thought analysis... phew.. unbelievable. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, pray or call the psychic hotline. It deserves to be in a museum. John From: John G. Rose [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] He definitely has a great vocabulary you have to admit and he is a good showman. Also his critiques of others writings is interesting and humorous as well. As far as the technical validity of his AI project I don't know because I'm still struggling with the ASCII diagrams J John From: Mark Waser [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Some people are thrown by unusual ways of communicating, some are not. Murray is drawing pretty consistent ratings/opinions (in terms of the validity of his content) so I don't think that it is his communications style that is the problem. Personally, I judge content value on some vague formula involving communication size, correct and new content, incorrect content, and how easily I can tell the latter two apart. Murray's posts have *very* little intelligence and wisdom particularly when compared the the amount of just plain incorrect content. Thus, he has negligible content value for me. On the other hand, since I tend not to "freak" -- he certainly does have some humor values (and "there but for the grace . . . ") ----- Original Message ----- From: John G. Rose <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Different people have different ways of communicating. Many Murray posts are sprinkled with annoyances but then they do have some intelligence and wisdom. They remind me of a W. C. Fields like way of speaking with some Snake Oil salesmanship. Actual Snake Oil BTW can be good for certain things but fake Snake Oil is fake, hence the reputation. More generally speaking I have found from my experience that some of the worst communicators have the most to say and some of the best communicators, the least. Not to say Murray is a "bad" communicator, but we have grown accustomed to marginalizing people who break the mold thus minimizing the variances of personalities. Part of this is due to a "franchised-like" educational system that has existed for several decades. Our personality pool is diminishing due to efficiency rewardsmanship. Also things like dialects, language variations, cultural variations, etc. are evening out, we are becoming an optimized, homogenized society. Will AGI's follow the same trend and have minimal personality variations and maximal text-book style efficiency of communication? Sometimes breaking the mold of expressing oneself can have maximal effect of conveying an idea or ideas. I'm reminded of once taking a class where the instructor spoke very fast on purpose like an auctioneer. Some students immediately "freaked" because it was abnormal but the theory was explained and it did work as intended where there was a very high transfer rate of information and rapid two-way communication. Computers, esp. AGI's could experiment intentionally with different twists on language perhaps finding new and better ways of communicating. John Personally, I find many of his posts highly entertaining... If your sense of humor differs, you can always use the DEL key ;-) -- Ben G _____ This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/? <http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&;> & _____ This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/? <http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&;> & _____ This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/? <http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&;> & ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=231415&user_secret=e9e40a7e
