HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: matthew@psych.psy.uq.oz.au (Matthew McDonald)
Subject: How do I solve the 8/15... Puzzle (was (Is it connected))
Organization: Psychology Department, University of Queensland
Followup-To: poster 
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 04:10:03 GMT
X-Posted-From: chrysis.psy.uq.oz.au
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

Marco Valtorta writes:
> ginsberg@t.Stanford.EDU (Matthew L. Ginsberg) writes:
> 
> >In article <babraham.3.715849833@unpcs1.cs.unp.ac.za> babraham@unpcs1.cs.unp.ac.za (Bobby Abraham) writes:
> >>I recently gave the 8 puzzle to an Intro AI class.  I remember reading that 
> >>the 15 puzzle was not solvable from any position.  In other words the graph 
> >>of this problem was not connected.
[...]

	I believe there's a very simple algorithm for these puzzles
that will reach the solution in a reasonable number of moves.

	Could anybody tell me what algorithm is? (Most puzzle books
seem to only use Loyd's 15 puzzle to illustrate parity, saying that
actually solving the puzzle is trivial...)

	I can see plenty of ways of doing it but none of them are 
both simple and efficient for the larger versions of the puzzle.
(I do have a serious reason for wanting to know...)

	I don't think this is of general interest, but I'll gladly
summarise if anyone wants.

=-=-
           Matthew McDonald  matthew@psych.psy.uq.oz.au
        Kill the Lawyers.       Boycott AT&T.
From: vchk@okeeffe.cc.rochester.edu (Vidya Chakaravrthi)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Looking for hints
Keywords: Naltural Language
Date: 10 Sep 92 17:38:52 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York


	Iam interested in Natural Language Processing. I have just begun to
read about parsers ( With the help of ALVEY parser and the GPSG books).

	I have started writing small peices of C codes, for getting the
Features for a phrase etc.,

	I will be glad if you could give me some hints, to go about
with the parser.

	Thanks in advance.

Vidya Chakaravarthi
email address : vchk@gauguin.cc.rochester.edu
From: robrod@csa.bu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: AI Programing Language
Date: 14 Sep 92 17:41:51 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Computer Science Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Originator: robrod@csa


I am just starting to look at AI (I am a senior Undergraduate in CS).  I
read that the new movement in AI programming was to move away from 
Languages like LISP and Prolog and into Object oriented languages like 
C++, Smaltalk, etc.  Is it worth studying LISP and Prolog anymore?
What should someone concentrate on for AI programming?

Thanks.
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: bws@ccs.carleton.ca (Brian Sullivan)
Subject: Re: How do I solve the 8/15... Puzzle (was (Is it connected))
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 13:03:05 GMT

>       This does not indicate that SOLVING a generalized 15-puzzle
>is NP-hard (it's far easier than that).  It indicates that finding the
>OPTIMAL SOLUTION is NP-hard, which is something else again, and not
>suprising.

>       An approach to solving such puzzles is as follows:
>       1) Solve the top row.  Never modify the top row again.
>       2) Solve the left column (less the top element).  Never
>          modify the left column again.
>       3) The puzzle has now been reduced from nxn to (n-1) x (n-1).
>          If n>1, recurse, solving the remaining puzzle.

>Proving that this works is left to the reader.

>                                       John Nagle
	
This works fine when n > 2 (the last recursion). It is very probable
that the last 3 tiles will be out of order. The only way to deal with
this would be to disturb one of the other rows or columns.  

Sorry John, I've had a bad morning and am being picky.
From: ed14+@andrew.cmu.edu (Edward Duh)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: CLIPS Conference Proceedings
Date: 6 Sep 92 09:28:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.keeXygK00WB6M5Qm1L
Organization: Masters student, Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

I am looking for the following conference proceedings:

1) NASA Johnson Space Center First CLIPS Users Conference Proceedings
2) NASA Johnson Space Center Second CLIPS Users Conference Proceedings

I'd appreciate if anyone tell me the publisher and the ordering
information.

Regards,

Edward S. Duh
Graduate School of Industrial Administration
Carnegie Mellon University
Internet: ed14@andrew.cmu.edu
From: hoyle@beaufort.sfu.ca (Michelle Hoyle)
Subject: Re: comments on AI FAQ
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 23:32:50 GMT

Re: Lists of papers and articles.

If people thought that it was useful, I'm willing to place a Filemaker
Pro database file of Computational Intelligence papers/authors and
a searchable ASCII file on the anonymous ftp site here in computing
science at Simon Fraser University.

Using such a file, one could find specific papers that have been published,
all of the authors (Not just the primary one), which issue they appeared in,
and subject material.  I was also looking at placing abstracts of each
article into this database, too, so that it would be possible to search
for a keyword.

If there is a central "AI ftp site", a copy could be placed there and
updated every issue.

-- Michelle A. Hoyle
     Editorial Assistant
     Journal of Computational Intelligence
     

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.cyberpunk
From: rwmurphr@crusader.ecn.uoknor.edu (Robert W Murphree)
Subject: Re: 21st Century Soldier
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 04:16:41 GMT
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

according to an article in the last month or so of new scientist.
The soldier of tomorrow will carry a laser to blind other soldiers.
and wear goggles to save his own eyes.  Expect battlefield opthalmalic
surgery to be a big part of 21rst century MASH units.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.cyberpunk
From: eshghi@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com (Kave Eshghi)
Subject: Re: 21st Century Soldier
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 00:06:41 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Palo Alto,CA

In article <1992Sep14.203012.7941@cas.org> sdr57@cas.org () writes:
>In article <14SEP199213315181@dstl86.gsfc.nasa.gov> olson@dstl86.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul Olson) writes:
.....

Will you please stop cross posting this stuff to comp.ai.philosophy?

Kave Eshghi

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.cyberpunk
From: jmilhoan@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Jason T Milhoan)
Subject: Re: _The Turing Option_
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 16:56:39 GMT

>In article <1992Sep3.204150.21696@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>>In article <185bhuINNj0v@agate.berkeley.edu> cascio@garnet.berkeley.edu (Jamais Cascio) writes:
>>>>
>>>btw-- F451 is on the list for the top 5 banned books in US schools...
>>>wonder why?
>>
>>Where is this marvelous list?  I'g like to see the rest of it!

An example of just how ridiculous this list can be...  The Where's Waldo series of kid's books (wjere you have to find the picture of Waldo on a page with hundreds of other people) is banned because of the Satanic elements.  Yes, some even have a little picture of a witch in them.

I had a girlfriend who worked at a bookstore.  She had access to the list of banned books, and I actually got pretty upset at the reasons for why some of the books were banned.  The store even sponsored a "Banned Book Week", where all titles of the banned books which they had in stock were on sale and special displays were made up.

JT
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: action verbs
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 20:44:51 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <1992Sep9.181132.13175@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>In article <1992Sep9.034138.15488@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>>That reminds me of once noticing that the English lexicon of verbs is
>>asymmetrical with respect to winning contests of bloody force.  You
>>can say in only three words that "Boston clobbered Philadelphia" or
>>"Martina defeated Chris".  But you cannot say "Chris (lost to)
>>Martina" in three words with Chris occupying the subject-case-slot.
>>This seems to show that there is a sinister psychological bias
>>concealed in the very lexicon (not grammar) of the language!  Winning
>>a contest is an "action" (that is, has an actual verb) on the part of
>>the subject of the sentence, whereas losing a contest cannot be
>>expressed as an action.  As though to win is to one's credit, whereas
>>when you lose, it is the act of someone else and not your own.
>
>We have the single word "lightbulb", but a fluorescent light has to be
>referred to with two words: "fluorescent light".  I think this obviously
>means that there is a clear bias against using fluorescent lights in the
>very language, since we must use two words to describe them.  Not.
>
>I'm not a linguist, and don't know what the proper term to use is, but I would
>claim that "lost to" is mostly treated in the human mind as a single unit,
>just like "defeat", even though when written on paper it happens to have a
>space in the middle.

How do you propose to test your claim?

Syntactically they certainly differ.  The guy you defeat is a direct 
object; the guy you lose to is an indirect object.  The behavior under
passivization is different: you can say "Fred was beaten by John", but not
"*John was lost to by Fred."  (Well, maybe you can; I couldn't.)  In some 
languages you'd need to use different cases: accusative for the direct object,
dative for the indirect.

In general it seems like the prototypical Indo-European verb has X doing
something to Y; if you want something to happen to the subject of the  
sentence you have to do something special, like use the passive, or an
intransitive or reflexive verb.
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Don't try to "define" intelligence
Date: 11 Sep 92 01:21:01 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Sep6.195000.3465@Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) writes:
|
|Unfortunately, this misses the point of my suggestion not to try to
|define intelligence but to concentrate instead on generating
|Turing-indistinguishable performance capacity. Of course if
|
|(1) there were nothing special about mental states, or
|(2) performance capacity were identical with mental states, or
|(3) performance capacity picked out an interesting natural category
|    of its own (say, staying "cognitively aloft," which would be
|    analogous to the common property of both biological and artificial
|    flight)
|
|then Wayne's implied objection would be well taken. But none of the
|above is the case. We all know there is something special about having
|mental states, and no definitional constraint on performance will get
|around that  ...

No we *don't* all 'know' this.  Some of us (like you) might *believe*
this.  The most that could be stated without reservation is that the
truth values of the above possibilities are controversial.

I certainly find #1 quite reasonable.  I have yet to see any convincing
evidence that there *is* something special about mental states, and I am
very suspicious of anthropocentric, or even terracentric viewpoints.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Consciousness
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 23:27:40 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.054041.20257@muug.mb.ca> kenwolfe@muug.mb.ca (Ken Wolfe) writes:

>I've been following this thread and there is something I am wondering
>about your discussion of replacing sections of the brain with
>"prosthetics".  You seem to suggest that if this is done all at one time
>consciousness would be radically changed, but if it were done gradually,
>or rather one small part at a time, consciousness would be unaffected. 
>Would the end result of bothe of these hypothetical operations not be
>exactly the same?  I am not clear on how the speed of these prosthetic
>replacements, or their granularity if you prefer, would affect the final
>state of consciousness.  

I'm not arguing that a given endpoint will differ in its states of
consciousness according to how quickly one makes the replacement.
It seems very unlikely that consciousness is dependent on history
in that sort of way.  What I'm saying is that the different styles
of replacement will in fact lead to different classes of endpoints.

Style A (Change chunks of arbitrary size):  By this method,
one could get from a brain to a giant lookup-table, which is
hypothetically behaviourally equivalent, in a single step.

Style B: (Change small chunks at a time): The ensures that at all
stages, the systems will be equivalent in functional organization
to some considerable level of detail.  There will be no way to get
from a brain to a lookup-table by replacing small chunks one by
one with I/O equivalent chunks.

It's true that for any endpoint that is reachable by Style B, one
could instead perform a quick Style A replacement that will give
you the same endpoint, but the reverse doesn't hold, as seen with
the example of the lookup-table.  It seems to me that Style B
replacements will always leave conscious states invariant, but
that Style A replacements need not do so.  Of course, the class
of Style A replacements that don't leave consciousness invariant
will be contained in the class of Style A replacements that can't
be achieved by Style B.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.cyberpunk
From: kenwolfe@muug.mb.ca (Ken Wolfe)
Subject: Re: Akira/movies
Organization: Manitoba Unix User Group, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 02:02:35 GMT

In <8330@orbit.cts.com> anthro@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Paul Bramscher) writes:

>I recently saw the animated "Akira".  Cyberpunk in some aspects, it combined
>urban decay, hints at plutocracy, and the life-is-cheap ideology.  I'd
>be interested if anyone has a list of cyberpunkish movies that have been
>produced.  There are many urban decay type films, but few that add in the
>concept of neural interfaces.

>UUCP: {crash, tcnet, petrus, quest}!orbit!pnet51!anthro
>ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51!anthro@nosc.mil
>INET: anthro@pnet51.orb.mn.org

Since you mention Akira, another Japanese animated feature comes to mind:
an OVA (Original Video Animation) series with the unlikely name of
Bubblegum Crisis.  It depicts Tokyo as a series of ultra-wealthy
arcologies surrounded by urban decay, but the emphasis is more on the
technical toys: man-machine interfaces and artificial beings not unlike
the replicants in Blade Runner.  The series has been subtitled into
English by a company called AnimEigo.  As for American movies, I guess the
Robocop movies and Freejack are the obvious examples.

Ken Wolfe
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Consciousness
From: jamalin@watt.ccs.tuns.ca
Date: 6 Sep 92 01:00:48 AST

In article <1992Sep2.133929.2794@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark) writes:

>   Consciousness exists everywhere and in everything, like the background in
>a picture.  But you need a sufficient degree of self-awareness to see the part
>that lies in you.  So naturally people are going to confuse having
>self-awareness with being conscious.  But what I see runs far deeper than
>mere perception.
>   A good approximation of what it's like having a consciousness without any
>self-awareness is when you're in a deep sleep, or even better when you're
>asleep and in a dream that has no first person point of view.  I've had plenty
>of those: dreams in which I wasn't there and didn't exist.

I tend to believe that consciousness comes as a result of "realizing" the
concept "I", which may be considered equivalent to one's starting to believe in
self-existence. Conscious reasoning uses "I" as a distinct entity, trying
to bring "related" parameters to desirable values. Non-conscious reasoning,
au contrary, attempts discovering means of causing _instinctively_ desirable
events. This happens without a "realization" of self-existence.

Nadeem

--
Nadeem Jamali                                e-mail: jamalin@newton.ccs.tuns.ca

School of Computer Science
Technical University of Nova Scotia          phone: (902)420-7882

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark)
Subject: My definition of intelligence
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 03:28:13 GMT

   Intelligence is a qualitative assessment of something regarding the
complexity of its behavior.  Nothing more, nothing less.  No sudden emergence,
no lights turning on, no POOF I'm alive!

   It's an attribute that can apply to problem solving behavior.  You can say,
for instance, this is an intelligent problem solver.  It could apply to
navigation, then you'd have an intelligent navigator in direct proportion to
the intricacy of its operation.  It could apply to language, you could then
be referring to the intelligent use of language.

   In all cases, the usage is referring to the complexity of a system's
behavior in such and such field.

   It also implies simplicity.  For instance, a naive or "simple" proof
generator would appear to be textbookish and would be producing oversized
output.  An intelligent proof generator operates in a far less naive and far
more intricate manner than thus will almost always produce correspondingly
more concise proofs.

    So in cases like that conciseness is the hallmark of intelligence.  Thus,
for example, the more intelligently written machine program is the smaller and
simpler one.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.cyberpunk
From: braca2@cspyr1.cs.adfa.oz.au (BRAY CHRISTOPHER)
Subject: Re: 21st Century Soldier
Organization: Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 14:54:57 GMT

I'll tell you all you need to know about tomorrow's infantryman.

They be like todays infantrymen, carrying a few different things, and going
out to some place.  Killing people they dont know, getting dirty, angry,
tired, scared, bored, and dieing.

What a life.

Glad I joined the navy.


hook
From: olson@dstl86.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: 21st Century Soldier
Date: 14 Sep 92 18:31:00 GMT
Organization: Mission Operations and Data Systems
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Sep13.064805.16276@oracle.us.oracle.com>, mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes...
> 
>Doc, two questions...
> 
>1.  Why the heck do you think it will be hand to hand even then?  Even
>in Vietnam there was very little hand-to-hand combat.  

But there was still needed.  If you bypass the basics, you're dead if you lose
your technology advantage.  Case in point (and off the subject), kids who grow
up using a calculator and don't learn the multiplication tables are toast when
the batteries run out.  How is a soldier, who is dependant on high-tech, going
to survive when his high tech gives out?  And it always gives out, you know. 
They only way to survive is with basic training.

> 
>2.  What on earth makes you think that those electronics aren't
>hardened against EMP?  It seems like a pretty obvious system
>requirement.

Is it possible to completely harden a device against all EMP?  It depends on
the strength of the pulse.

>-- 
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>I am not an official Oracle spokesman.  I speak for myself and no one else.

Dr. Forbin
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.cyberpunk
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Re: 21st Century Soldier
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 06:48:05 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

In article <11SEP199212055913@dstl86.gsfc.nasa.gov> olson@dstl86.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul Olson) writes:
>In article <1992Sep10.172333.4545@oracle.us.oracle.com>, mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes...

>>Given that very little fighting today is done hand-to-hand why do you
>>think this is an important feature?  Today artillery and tanks are two
>>of the biggest killers on the battlefield.  The infantry system
>>described will let US soldiers fight better especially in certain types of
>>terrain, for example places with lots of obstacles like forrests and
>>cities, where tanks and artillery are not as useful.

>O.K., give the infantry all kinds of high-tech electronic equipment.  Train
>them on it.  Make them dependant on it.  Then put them up against a
>third world 
>army who is medium or low tech, but has a number of cheap tactical nukes made
>from materials supplied by Iran who bought their nuclear capabilities from
>China (see the news from this last week).  The high tech soldiers
>move in, only 
>to have all of their electronics (visual, audio, communications,
>cooling vests, 
>etc.) wiped out by an electromagnetic puslse from a nuke which was detonated
>overhead.  It doesn't even need to drop on them.  They are now back to
>hand-to-hand combat against a foe who has been trained to fight that way.

Doc, two questions...

1.  Why the heck do you think it will be hand to hand even then?  Even
in Vietnam there was very little hand-to-hand combat.  

2.  What on earth makes you think that those electronics aren't
hardened against EMP?  It seems like a pretty obvious system
requirement.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am not an official Oracle spokesman.  I speak for myself and no one else.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Don't try to "define" flight
Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 02:30:18 GMT

In article <715493498@sheol.UUCP> throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:

>And, since no artificial so-called "flying machine" has really flapped
>its wings as the primary method of propulsion, they are all
>distinguishable from natural flyers, the criterion has never been
>acheived, so it's too soon to weaken it.  So clearly, humans have not
>yet attained artificial flight. 
>--
>Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw

Gosh, I thought everyone on the planet had by now heard of Paul MacReady's
successful construction and flight of a genuine ornithopter.  Three or
four yars ago, at least.  Flapped its wings fine.  Look like a
pterodactly, pretty much.