Hi Don,
Thank you for your message. I hope you caught the plane ok.
The discussion and my comments are about human every day abilities to
create and analyse sentences in a 'technical' document arena (PhD theses and
journal articles) in the context of 'things claimed and proven' through use
of syllogisms and evidence.
From this perspective, improvements in simple straightforward writing skills
using sound syllogistic analysis and the human skills based on Aristotelian
logic and now bundled as first order predicate logic seem to be helpful
in the writing and publications in the design research field.
In terms of the easy development of human skills that would improve the
field, the methods and outlooks of Natural Language analysis seem pretty
irrelevant.
I'll respond more about natural language processing and cognitive science in
another post.
Best wishes,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Don
Norman
Sent: Tuesday, 21 June 2011 10:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Predicate first-order logic is NOT a model of human thought and
reasoning.
Terry
you are showing your ignorance. I respect your judgement in the fields
you know about: Cognitive science and natural language processing are not
among these.
You said:
More advanced approaches to reasoning are available. It is not obvious that
they are needed , however, for the above task of analysing sentences.
Most advanced logics and approaches to reasoning depend, at least in their
explanation, on correct application of first order logic in the use of
language describing them
---
Anyone who says that first order logic is a useful tool for analyzing the
meaning of sentences has clearly not kept up with the literature in Natural
Language Understanding.
--
I always find it amusing when outsiders to a field start debating the
technical aspects of that field. The discussions remind me
of freshman debates, late at night, after a lot of beer.
I won't even comment on the debate as writing as thinking and/or research.
Or the argument about whether machines will replace humans in x, y, or
z. Whoosh. Shades of science fiction. The technical people in AI, Cog Sci,
and the apporpriate disciplines of philosophy have gone far beyond the
arguments here.
Yes, each of the debates contain some truths, but a lot of just plain
ignorance about recent scientific research and theory.
--
enough. You are already angry enough at me.
Anyway, they are calling my flight: Seoul to Milan (via Munich). From
airport lounges that serve rice gruel with abalone to one that
serves wieners with sauerkraut.
don
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