-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Marcus G. Daniels on 01/08/2008 08:49 AM: > As far as detecting (supposedly) ill-posed questions goes, if you are > willing to put aside the complex matter of natural language processing, > it seems to me it's a matter of similarity search against a set > propositions, and then engaging in a dialog of generalization and > precisification with the user to identify an unambiguous and agreeable > form for the question that has appropriate answers.
But the issue isn't about handling ill-posed questions on a case-by-case basis. In fact, the hypothesis is that ill- versus well- posed questions is an unrealistic dichotomy. It's just another form of the "excluded middle". A primary point made by RR is that living systems can handle ambiguity where "machines" cannot. Of course, it's true that if a programmer pre-scribed a method for detecting and handling some particular ambiguity, then the machine will _seem_ like it handles that ambiguity. But, programmers haven't yet found a way to handle all ambiguity a computer program may or may not come across in the far-flung future. That's in contrast to a living system, which we _presume_ can handle any ambiguity presented to it (or, in a softer sense, many many more ambiguities than a computer program can handle). - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane. -- H. P. Lovecraft -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHg7G4ZeB+vOTnLkoRAjTtAKCu0nimkhWcQdIYDn8Uy05N6jwaUACfUzUc g6rWx3ZPlmAaayG7qqJHJ1g= =kWTj -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
