SUO: Re: automating abduction?
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
Tom,
I remember the times -- let's not talk about the mores --
and these remarks were relieved against the backdrop of
discussions about "discovery procedures", in particular,
algorithms for "grammar induction" that were envisioned
to be capable of "systematically searching the space of
all possible hypotheses" to arrive at a fitting theory.
Chomsky simply recognized this as Peirce's problem about
"giving a rule to abduction", instead of induction per se.
As experiments on computer and human subjects mounted up,
and rode off in all directions at once, most people, well,
all but the most diehard behaviorists, began to appreciate
just how poverty-stricken the available stimuli actually
were in comparsion to the combinatorial vastness of the
hypothesis spaces in all but the most trivial settings.
I remember being puzzled, along with many others, about
all this, and it was some time before I realized, simply
by taking seriously what I had been reading in Peirce all
along, that Peirce did "give a rule to abduction", and
its name was none other than the "pragmatic maxim".
There's some links to relevant papers on
abduction in computational settings here:
http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/abduction.html
http://www.dipf.de/projekte/Paed_Sem_HCI/Online_Artikel_Peirce.htm
Jon Awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
Tom Johnston wrote:
>
> Who else but Chomsky could have gotten away with an "accounts for"
> that has exactly the explanatory force of Moliere's "dormative power"?
>
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> John, Rich, Tom, et al.
>
> More old notes that bear on this topic --
>
> | The human mind is a biologically given system with certain powers and limits.
> | As Charles Sanders Peirce argued, "Man's mind has a natural adaptation to
> | imagining correct theories of some kinds .... If man had not the gift of a
> | mind adapted to his requirements, he could not have acquired any knowledge"
> | (ed. Tomas, 1957). The fact that "admissible hypotheses" are available to
> | this specific biological system accounts for its ability to construct rich
> | and complex explanatory theories. But the same properties of mind that
> | provide admissible hypotheses may well exclude other successful theories
> | as unintelligible to humans. Some theories might simply not be among the
> | admissible hypotheses determined by the specific properties of mind that
> | adapt us "to imagining correct theories of some kinds", though these
> | theories might be accessible to a differently organized intelligence.
> | Or these theories might be so remote in an accessibility ordering of
> | admissible hypotheses that they cannot be constructed under actual
> | empirical conditions, though for a differently structured mind
> | they might be easily accessible. (Chomsky, ROL, 155-156).
> |
> | Noam Chomsky, 'Reflections on Language',
> | Pantheon Books, New York, NY, 1975.
>
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o