> Also, this would involve creating a close-knit community through > conferences, journals, common terminologies/ontologies, email lists, > articles, books, fellowships, collaborations, correspondence, research > institutes, doctoral programs, and other such devices. (Popularization is > not on the list of community-builders, although it may have its own value.) > Ben has been involved in many efforts in these directions -- I wonder if he > was thinking of Kuhn.
Indeed, working toward the formation of such a community is one of the motivations underlying the AGI-08 conference. And also underlying the OpenCog AGI project I'm initiating together with the SIAI, see opencog.org My prior efforts in this direction, such as -- AGI email list -- 2006 AGI workshop -- two AGI edited volumes have been successful but smaller-scale. My feeling is that the time is ripe for the self-organization of a really viable AGI research community. In connection with AGI-08, we have put up a wiki page intended to gather proposals and suggestions regarding the formation of a more robust AGI community http://www.agi-08.org/proposals.php If any of y'all have relevant ideas, feel free to post them there. I don't actually have a lot of time for community-building activities, as my main focus is on Novamente LLC (and Novamente's work on AGI plus its narrow-AI consulting work that pays my bills). But, I try to make time for community-building, because I think it's very important and will benefit all of us working in the field. I did read Kuhn back in college, and was impressed with his insight, along with (even more so) that of Imre Lakatos, with his theory of scientific research programmes. In Lakatos's terms, what needs to be done is to build a community that can turn AGI into an overall "progressive" research program. I discuss these philosophy of science ideas a bit in the Hidden Pattern, and earlier in an essay http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2004/PhilosophyOfScience_v2.htm Further back, I remember when I was 5 years old, reading a draft of a book my dad was writing (a textbook of Marxist sociology), and encountering the word "paradigm" and not knowing what it meant. As I recall, I asked him and he tried to explain and I did not understand the explanation very well ;-p ... and truth be told, I still find it a fuzzy term, preferring Lakatos's characterization of research programmes. However, Kuhn had more insight than Lakatos into the sociological dynamics surrounding scientific research programmes... -- 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/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=85617634-24fb9e
