Dear SIO-interested posters,

I found this posting on the ISRE list, which describes how certain emotions are tied to self interest in a conversation. I think this could shed some light on Doug's view of "interest" in a way that fits the SIO:

If there is a topic, it means there is a conversation. The conversation is with another person, with whom one is in some kind of relationship. One or the other party in the conversation will feel anger if the tenor of the conversation implies that there is something defective or unworthy or wrong or culpable or immoral or stupid or the like about that person.

RC:> Note how this addresses the PERSON not the topic of conversation, and it addresses the manner of communication instead of the underlying concepts.

Religion and politics are topics that frequently instigate anger since opposing opinion often implies defect, unworthiness, wrong-headedness, culpability, immorality, stupidity, etc. Such imputations of unworthiness lead to a sense of deprivation of one’s right to attention, respect, consideration and the like from the other party. The basic premise here is that all there is the relationship between the parties and that the relationship between the parties is usefully and importantly understood to be based in large part on the degree of attention, respect, consideration, etc. that the parties provide each other.

Conversation about any topic that leads to a sense of loss of these benefits from the other party can thus engender anger. Anger is an evolutionarily programmed response to this kind of loss. The emotion creates an action-readiness to engage in acts that punish the other party so that he/she does not again act to deprive the angered person of relational benefits (attention, respect, etc.).

For elaboration of these ideas, see:

Theodore D. Kemper, “Power and Status and the Power-Status Theory of Emotions,” in Turner and Stets, Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions (2006).

Theodore D. Kemper, Status, Power and Ritual Interaction. Ashgate (2011).

RC:>These ideas should be reflected somehow in Doug's initial ontology, though so far we have no concept about distinguishing among the selves involved in the conversation.

HTH,

-Rich

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2

-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 1:42 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantics of Natural Languages

Let me propose that it is SUBJECTIVITY i.e. a

proper understanding of self interest, that I

think is missing.

We have been seduced by the 'unreasonable success

of mathematics' in solving problems in a

supposedly objective world, as Somebody said. We

need to overcome our self satisfaction at how well

math has worked and look in a different direction.

-Rich

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2

-----Original Message-----

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On

Behalf Of Rich Cooper

Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 1:30 PM

To: '[ontolog-forum] '

Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantics of Natural

Languages

Hi John,

Thanks for the links, but that isn't what I am

interested in; I'm more focused on WHY Cyc (and

other approaches to developing massive knowledge

bases) is thought by so many to have failed, e.g.,

Genesereth for example.

Before the Cyc project started, the common view

given full imprimaturitan status in the research

community was that it was KNOWLEDGE that was

lacking for full AI, and only THAT was keeping AI

from universal suffrage.

I am looking for opinions by people who might know

as to WHY that assumption was clearly so wrong.

Knowledge is NOT enough, and that has been clearly

demonstrated by Cyc's lack of demonstrated value

in universality of intelligence.

Small, highly focused projects, such as the blocks

world and its successful linguistic manipulation

as per Terry Winograd's (admitted) kluge, and the

surprisingly good results from very simple (also

kludged) chatbots such as Parry, and the

Somebody's Prize demonstrating lack of scalability

of said chatbots, shows SOMETHING. But what KIND

of something?

More study of Cyc seems to belong to the same

viewpoint as theocratic studies of angel densities

and pinheads, the viscosity of ether, and mappings

of magnetic fields in thousands of points.

Instead, the Einsteinian approach of novel - dare

I say subjective -interpretations (in his case, of

the Michelson-Morley results) seems to be what is

most clearly lacking at this point in time.

Why DON'T huge hunks of deduced, induced, abduced

and reduced knowledge suffice? What is still

lacking? Why don't gobs of special purpose

functionality, coupled with gobs of knowledge, do

the trick?

Why DO simple approaches work so well at small

scales?

Why DON't simple approaches scale well?

Why DOESN't a simple chatbot with Cyc on its back

suffice to convince observers in a Turing test?

In the fifties or so, game theory was developing.

Turing came up with a biological explanation of

what would be called the hox genes to form complex

biological strata. Lately, we have learned that

there are only some 20,000 genes which are

adequate for making a human bean, but that leaves

out a LOT of so called JUNK DNA, meaning genetic

structures we still don't have a clue about.

Those are the kinds of new ideas that need to be

reduced to practice. And that is why the patent

form, with one advance teaching AGAINST prior art,

seems interesting to me as a model of how to take

the next steps.

-Rich

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2

-----Original Message-----

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On

Behalf Of John F. Sowa

Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 11:41 AM

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantics of Natural

Languages

Rich,

Some comments:

JFS

>> About a dozen years ago, I was talking with

Mike Genesereth,

>> who said "Lenat is probably the only one who

doesn't know that

>> Cyc has failed."

RC

> That is the kind of thinking that all of us show

in one form or

> another. We seem stuck in our structured ways

after the first four

> decades or six, unable to overthrow the past

beliefs and institute

> new untried ones.

Genesereth has been one of the strongest

proponents of classical

logic-based AI. He has been teaching at Stanford

for years in

close collaboration with the same people

(McCarthy, Feigenbaum,

Fikes, etc.) as Lenat. Any success stories from

Cyc would have

provided more attention (and funding) for all

kinds of projects

that used logic-based AI. But Mike G. was being

realistic. I

would qualify his comment, but I certainly

couldn't refute it.

In my 1984 book, I tried to take a balanced view

of the strengths

and limitations of logic-based systems. My view

then (and with

more input since then) has been that logic-based

systems are

important, especially for applications to comp.

sci., but that

NLP systems must include logic-based approaches as

a proper subset:

1. Large numbers of applications in computer

systems, database

systems, programming systems, and

hardware/software design,

require a foundation in formal logic.

2. Natural languages can be used in very precise

ways (for

example, along the lines of controlled NLs),

but they

can also be used in very scruffy, very

informal ways.

3. The overwhelming volume of NL speech and

documents use

highly informal, often ungrammatical, and

"innovative"

language. (I'm using "innovative" as a

neutral term

for what many people would call "incorrect".)

3. I also agree with the comment by Alan Perlis

that you

can't translate informal language to formal

language by

any formal algorithm.

4. I believe that you can interpret highly

informal language

by computer, but that you need to use huge

amounts of

background knowledge (i.e., extralinguistic

information)

to do so.

5. Point #4 is acknowledged by classical

logic-based AI projects

such as Cyc. But they assume that you need a

long gestation

period that depends on hand-coded logical

representations

(e.g., formal ontologies and knowledge bases).

6. The scruffies, such as Roger Schank, disputed

that claim

from the early days (1960s). But they didn't

have the

facilities for acquiring, storing, and using

such large

volumes of information.

7. The hardware today is more than adequate to

store and

process the huge volumes of information

needed to support

point #6. One example is the IBM Watson

project, but

there are other projects that have achieved

comparable

success with more modest hardware resources.

The

VivoMind applications I summarized are among

them.

> I don't see much of anything discussed about Cyc

past the

> precursors I mentioned anywhere in the public

literature;

> I'm not referring to tutorials about Cyc, but

about analyses.

For the research publications, see

http://cyc.com/cyc/technology/pubs

For free downloads of the ontology and supporting

software:

http://opencyc.org/

I believe that there are many useful applications

of Cyc and OpenCyc,

but I also believe that a different architecture

is necessary to

achieve something that could be called natural

language understanding.

That is what I have been discussing in talks,

publications, and emails.

John

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