Frank writes:

"A useful distinction?  When I was working in the philosophy Dept at CMU my 
boss was a logician.  I asked him if he had heard the story that Bertrand 
Russell had fallen off his bike on the Cambridge campus when he realized that 
Anselm's proof of the existence of God was valid (argument from authority).  He 
looked puzzled but then said, "Ah, valid but not sound".


To change the subject a bit, the rapid proliferation of machine learning 
creates the potential of society becoming dependent on machine predictions that 
can be validated but cannot be verified.   For example, cars that are better 
drivers than the best humans, or personalized medical protocols that arise out 
from thousands of nested polynomials -- but in neither case is not known 
exactly how or why the control/predictive mechanisms actually work.   Maybe not 
just a thought experiment that we should worry (or not) about opaque oracles?


Marcus

________________________________
From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of Frank Wimberly 
<wimber...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 3, 2017 8:21:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] AI and argument

A useful distinction?  When I was working in the philosophy Dept at CMU my boss 
was a logician.  I asked him if he had heard the story that Bertrand Russell 
had fallen off his bike on the Cambridge campus when he realized that Anselm's 
proof of the existence of God was valid (argument from authority).  He looked 
puzzled but then said, "Ah, valid but not sound".

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Oct 3, 2017 6:30 PM, "gⅼеɳ ☣" 
<geprope...@gmail.com<mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hm.  My example is simply an argument that I do NOT think succumbs to that 
fallacy.  Einstein is a reliable, but not completely unchallengeable, 
authority.  And if he is challenged, we can dig into the theory to find our own 
reasoning.

I'm curious if you believe all argument/reasoning can be *accurately* 
formalized?  Worse yet, do you believe that all argument can be reduced to 
deduction?


On 10/03/2017 05:13 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Aren't you missing a premise, if you are seeking a valid deductive argument?
>
> What connects Albert's thought with your conclusion?

--
☣ gⅼеɳ

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