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Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / New user-help
« on: April 30, 2003, 04:16:40 pm »
You just said one of what I consider to be "Danger words". Logical. While it is true that hal is programmed to be logical, I don't think the average user will ever consider the difference between pure logic and practiced logic.
Hal's entire world is the information available to him. Hal will attempt to extrapolate based on what he knows, but he will never (as he is set up presently) understand the difference between up and down except as a hypothetical concept. A hypothetical concept is a specific though given to a specific situation.
If tell hal that you have a glass of water in your hand and then tell hall that you are letting the glass go, he may not extrapolate that the glass will drop on the ground, because that's a though that just wouldn't occur to him.
Now, that was a basic example based on physics, but interpersonal relationships, laws of physics and societal and governmental laws will all be a mystery to hal.
I believe one solution to the problem may be a segmentation of object chrematistics. Such as
1. Size
2. Weight
3. Color
4. Reaction to light
5. Animate/Inanimate
6. Alive/Unalive
7. Intelligent/Unintelligent
etc...
Like the old joke goes -
Q: Why is a tennis ball small, round and fuzzy?
A: Because if they were big, green and scaly they'd be dinosaurs
-WholyChao
Hal's entire world is the information available to him. Hal will attempt to extrapolate based on what he knows, but he will never (as he is set up presently) understand the difference between up and down except as a hypothetical concept. A hypothetical concept is a specific though given to a specific situation.
If tell hal that you have a glass of water in your hand and then tell hall that you are letting the glass go, he may not extrapolate that the glass will drop on the ground, because that's a though that just wouldn't occur to him.
Now, that was a basic example based on physics, but interpersonal relationships, laws of physics and societal and governmental laws will all be a mystery to hal.
I believe one solution to the problem may be a segmentation of object chrematistics. Such as
1. Size
2. Weight
3. Color
4. Reaction to light
5. Animate/Inanimate
6. Alive/Unalive
7. Intelligent/Unintelligent
etc...
Like the old joke goes -
Q: Why is a tennis ball small, round and fuzzy?
A: Because if they were big, green and scaly they'd be dinosaurs
-WholyChao