HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mackd@Sol34.essex.ac.uk (Mack D P)
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
Subject: Re: Lesbian/Gay Rights and the Cognitive Science Meeting
Date: 23 Jan 93 16:06:53 GMT
Reply-To: mackd@essex.ac.uk (Mack D P)
Organization: University of Essex, Colchester, UK

In article <16B5CA3FB.JHARTLEY@cmsa.gmr.com> JHARTLEY@cmsa.gmr.com writes:
>I guess democracy is okay unless it doesn't meet your selfish goals.
>Just like the people of Arizona who voted not to have another holiday
>only to find sanctimonious PCers attribute racism to them, the people of
>Colorado are now getting pummeled by the likes of Michael Cox.  Never
>mind that many people voted this way because they didn't want to see a
>quota system based on sexual preference

I hate to butt in on a US politics debate, but from my admittedly
distant viewpoint, it appears that no matter what their reasons for
voting that way, what the people of Colorado were actually doing is
voting for a law which denies people the right to claim they were
being discriminated against solely on grounds of sexual orientation.
This means the law will effectively support those who choose to
discriminate unfairly against people who sometimes prefer to have
same-sex sexual relations.  Surely Michael Cox is just trying to point
this out to them, and persuade them to get the law changed once more
so it is fairer to all parties.

Daniel
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
From: kreinddm@ucunix.san.uc.edu (David M Kreindler)
Subject: Re: Cog. Psych vs Cog. Sci
Organization: University of Cincinnati
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 16:27:48 GMT

In article <ROLFL.93Jan20082744@ulrik.uio.no> rolfl@ulrik.uio.no (Rolf Lindgren) writes:
>
>According to Schank and Abelson's "Scripts, Plans, Goals and
>Understanding," Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary subject,
>contributed to by, among others, Psychology, AI, Logic and Linguistics.

I prefer Martin Gardner's characterization of it, from "The Mind's
New Science": CogSci sits at the intersection point of Neuroscience,
Philosophy, Anthropology, CompSci, Philosophy, and Linguistics. 

As I've come to understand it, Cognitive Science deals with understanding
how information is processed by the brain, whereas Artificial Intelligence
is more interested in the production of behaviour by machines that is
a facsimilie of "real" intelligent behaviour, with less emphasis on
worrying about whether the mechanisms generating such behaviour do, in
fact, resemble those used by actual minds.

Cheers,
	DK


-- 
kreinddm@ucunix.san.uc.edu -------------------------------------------------

"Sometimes you're the windshield / Sometimes you're the bug...." - Dire Straits
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,comp.ai,sci.anthropology,sci.archaeology
From: swann@divsun.unige.ch (SWANN philip)
Subject: Re: Cog Psych theories
Organization: University of Geneva, Switzerland
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 13:59:28 GMT

In article <1993Jan27.205744.21558@psych.toronto.edu>, christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:

> >There's a theory at the moment that the
> >Dinosaurs were warm-blooded: I don't see how this theory could be
> >formalized, nor do I see how it relies on our "intuitions" - but I'm sure
> >that it's an interesting theory that contributes to scientific progress.
> 
[stuff deleted]

> As for reliance on intuitions, you've stumbled right into the problem.
> It is often *very* difficult to see how theories rely crucially on
> our pre-theoretic intuitions until they've been around for a very long
> time.

It's only a problem for philosophers. Scientists judge theories according
to their effectiveness in the real world and neither know nor care about
their origins. Given the ineffectiveness of psychological theories in the
real world,  it is easy to see that they are not very good theories. No amount
of formalization can save a bad idea.... Perhaps you can elaborate a bit
more on the point you're trying to make about the philosophy of psychology.

philip swann
From: ct976@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (H. Daniel Hirsch)
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
Subject: Re: Cog Sci vrs Cog Psych
Date: 26 Jan 1993 09:23:56 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


My impression was that Cog. Psych. was studiing humans based
on the 'computer metaphor of mind', with the focus on humans.
Cog. Sci. I've thought of as applying the 'human metaphor of mind
to computers, the focus being a computer 'end product'.
-HH
##
From: pmgt1425@altair.selu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
Subject: Re: Cog Psych theories
Date: 28 Jan 93 13:07:43 -0600
Organization: Southeastern Louisiana University

In article <1993Jan27.101200.14835@news.unige.ch>, swann@divsun.unige.ch (SWANN philip) writes:
> In article <1993Jan23.015123.12162@psych.toronto.edu>, christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
> 
>> >
>> Obsessive use of an unexplicated notion of "model"  ("schema", etc.)
>> is at the core.  The "theories" put forward by researchers such a 
>> Johnson-Laird, Lakoff, Rosch, Gick & Holyoak, Cheng & Holyoak lack 
>> rigor in the extreme. To act like a Hempelian for a moment, theories
>> have got to have formal objects manipulated by formal rules or they
>> are in grave danger of relying upon our intuitions for their
>> explanatory power.
> 
> Surely formalization is neither necessary nor sufficient for a theory
> to be powerful or productive. There's a theory at the moment that the
> Dinosaurs were warm-blooded: I don't see how this theory could be
> formalized, nor do I see how it relies on our "intuitions" - but I'm sure
> that it's an interesting theory that contributes to scientific progress.
> 
Correct me if I am wrong (I am very good in being wrong), but if we look at
the problem in terms of input --> process --> output, process is the part
that "formalization" is most suitable in theory development.  The I/O parts
are more suitable in descriptive stats.  We do not "formalize" a theory for
describing the physical and chemical property of copper -- or do we?

Pete
From: QWFK@MUSICT.MCGILL.CA (QWFK000)
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
Subject: Cog Psych theories
Date: 22 Jan 93 23:35:00 GMT
Organization: McGill University

Christopher Green says:
"Analogy, judgement,
reasoning, concept formation etc. are in awful shape, as far as I'm conc
I have seen little in those areas that I would recognize as a theory...
and they have been my central areas of interest, so it's not as though
I'm not familiar with their literature."

This comment interests me because for a while now I've had a nagging
worry that a lot of the so-called theories in these fields were not
exactly theories.  The problem is, I can't put my finger on the
reason why.  I think it partly has to do with the overuse/abuse of
"models".  But there's a lot more to it than that.  Chris, how do
explanations in those fields fall short of your definition of a
theory?

-Daniel Engelberg


Daniel Engelberg
5531 Rosedale
Cote St. Luc, Quebec
Canada  H4V 2J2
(514) 486-3490
From: BPHEINTZ@UCSVAX.UCS.UMASS.EDU (BRADLEY P HEINTZ)
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
Subject: Voice
Date: 27 Jan 93 00:01:56 GMT
Organization: B. P. Heintz & Associates
NNTP-Posting-Host: phobos.ucs.umass.edu
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

Anyone know of anyplace I could get C/C++ programs or libraries dealing with:

Natural language understanding and generation
Parsing
Machine Translation
Voice/Speech Recognition

Thanks ahead of time,

- Brad

*=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=*
I'm not into money.  I'm into freedom.

(413)546-5152
bpheintz@phobos.ucs.umass.edu
From: rsmith@pearl.tufts.edu
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
Subject: Maze-generation software
Date: 23 Jan 93 15:54:25 GMT
Organization: Tufts University - Medford, MA

Does anybody know of or have any source code (preferably in Pascal, but I'll
take anything short of assembly) for generating mazes?  I want to generate
quite a few maze stimuli for some research I'm planning, so this would be
invaluable.  Thanks.
 
                                        --Rod Smith
                                          RSMITH@PEARL.TUFTS.EDU
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Cog Psych theories
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 20:57:44 GMT

In article <1993Jan27.101200.14835@news.unige.ch> swann@divsun.unige.ch (SWANN philip) writes:
>In article <1993Jan23.015123.12162@psych.toronto.edu>, christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>
>Surely formalization is neither necessary nor sufficient for a theory
>to be powerful or productive. 

At the very least, it's highly desirable.

>There's a theory at the moment that the
>Dinosaurs were warm-blooded: I don't see how this theory could be
>formalized, nor do I see how it relies on our "intuitions" - but I'm sure
>that it's an interesting theory that contributes to scientific progress.

It's also embedded in evolutionary theory, which is highly articulated,
if not actually formalized. To the degree that evolutionary theory has
been informal, it has sufferred from many of the criticisms I mentioned
before. Until it was linked up with genetic theory -- therby offering
*means* of hereditary transmission -- it was hardly taken seriously.
As for reliance on intuitions, you've stumbled right into the problem.
It is often *very* difficult to see how theories rely crucially on
our pre-theoretic intuitions until they've been around for a very long
time. The problem has been particularly damaging in psychology, where
unexplicated terminology has often turned out, upon analysis, to make
theories utterly circular. Fortunately, with J-L et al., it's not
so hard to see, since they give *no definitions whatsoever* of
crucial terms such as model, schema, and the like. There's an excellent
critique of this in an unpublished paper by Jaakko Hintikka called
"Mental models, semantical games, and varieties of intelligence".
(I know it's bad form to cite unpublished papers, but what can I do?
Send me a self-addressed, self-stamped envelope, and I'll send you a copy.
US postage ok.)

Also see Lance Rips' "Mental muddles" in Brand & Harnish's _The representation
of knowledge and belief_.


-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
From: waander@cs.umd.edu (Bill Andersen)
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
Subject: Re: Lesbian/Gay Rights and the Cognitive Science Meeting
Date: 25 Jan 93 07:24:52 GMT
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742

>	AMENDMENT 2  (AMENDING THE COLORADO CONSTITUTION)  
>	   "Neither the State of Colorado, through any of its branches  
>	or departments, nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions,  
>	municipalities or school districts, shall enact, adopt or 
>	enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby 
>	homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices
>	or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis of 
>	or entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any  
>	minority status, quota preferences, protected status, or claim 
>	of discrimination."  

  You are on the mark concerning the last clause "or claim of discrimination".
It should not be part of the law.  I would not want someone discriminating 
against me for an arbitrary personal trait which others may dislike.

  However, it is a big stretch from that which I just mentioned to according
me special status in the eyes of the law as a function of said trait.  I have
problems with *any* quota scheme, implicit or explicit.  And to shun any
dealings with the state of Colorado based on your (or the Cog Sci Society's,
or anyone elses') views on how they should run their state is simply
childish.  We live in a Federal Republic, in which states' rights are 
supposed to have primacy over those of the federal government and over
the whims of coastally-based elites which promote an agenda of political
correctness, enforced by a sympathetic media.

  I lived in Arizona for several years and have first hand knowledge of
what it's like to have the agenda of the "enlightened" elites in New York,
Washington, and Los Angeles shoved down my throat.  Witness the Super Bowl
which will not be held in Phoenix this year.  No one bothered to ask why
the voters of Arizona did not want another paid holiday, and no one 
bothered to mention that the original holiday imposed by executive order
by then governor Bruce Babbitt was illegal.  In Arizona a vote of the
state legislature is required to institute an official holiday.  Arizona
now (rightly in my opinion) celebrates Dr. King's birthday, but as an
unpaid holiday - and still no superbowl.

  The people of Colorado voted this bill in legally.  This peaceful
determination of what laws our people will live under is one of the things
which make America a pretty cool place to live.  If you doubt this ask
anyone who's been to South Africa, or the former Soviet Union - places
where "enlightened" elites are allowed to impose their will by fiat
over the people.  This sort of political bullying subverts the democratic 
process.  The intent may be good, but the process is everything...

  BTW: I *plan* to attend the conference.

  ...bill

-- 
   / Bill Andersen (waander@cs.umd.edu) /
  / University of Maryland             /
 / Department of Computer Science     /
/ College Park, Maryland  20742      /
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
From: pautler@ils.nwu.edu (David Pautler)
Subject: Re: Cog Psych vs. Cog Sci
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:12:49 GMT

Christopher Green says:
> Nevertheless, I would characterize cog psy's function with 
> relation to cog sci as the supplying of data. Certainly it's theoretical
> work of late has been none to impressive, on the whole.

I'm sure you don't want to name names, but what areas of cognitive psychology
do you have in mind?  Cog psych seems to be doing a pretty good job in
memory, analogy, and judgement IMO (perception, too, from what I hear).

If there's blame to be laid, I'd place it at the unwillingness of all
subdisciplines of cog sci to pay more attention to each other (I'm
guilty of largely ignoring neuroscience for one).  I also wish anthropology
played a more active role.  A review of the CYC project by a cognitive
anthropologist would be very interesting, for example.

     -dp-
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: chrisb@seachg.uucp (Chris Blask)
Subject: Re: Freedom's orbit
Reply-To: chrisb@seachg.UUCP (Chris Blask)
Organization: Sea Change Corporation, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 19:10:22 GMT

In article <1j74t4INNa2k@mojo.eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes:
>In article <1993Jan15.192031.6998@iti.org>, aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>>In article <1j6r6aINN6fs@mojo.eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes:
>>>And Alan thinks you'll see a Soyuz sitting on top of a U.S. booster launched
>>>from a U.S. facility....
>>Oh, that's a given. The booster may be the Shuttle but we will see Soyuz
>>being launched for (at the very least) ACRV on US launchers.
>And the booster to lift ACRV may not be shuttle, for that matter. Lockheed has
>made a proposal to use Proton <sp?> to deliver them to Freedom.

'scuse me if this has been covered, but Buzz Aldrin apparently has been
advocating using the Energia boosters (larger and cheaper than enything we
have, yes?) to boost US payloads, and possibly putting Freedom into Mir's
orbit to take advantage of both Mir and the leftover Russian lifting
capability (OMNI Jan '93).  I'm sure western aerospace companies are
clutching at their chests over that idea, as if they didn't have enough
problems in the slash-and-burn budget environment, but then again, who
cares?  I mean, life's rough, and a track record of public funding isn't a
guarantee of future funding.  

I'm sure there are lots of great arguments why it isn't that simple, but
still, if it comes to having or not having a platform (which is really
where we are now) we need to have the damn thing.  Combining the two
services seems like a brilliant idea to me, with the shuttle and our
high-tech experience and know-how and the Russian workhorse lifters, Mir
(for what it's worth) and their experience with 'just do it' engineering,
we could be in business within my lifetime.  Current scheduling doesn't
seem to have a chance in hell of actually _getting_ the thing up there any
time soon.

Flame the hell out of me if I'm just being niave.

-chris blask
From: chris@pacsoft.com (Chris Ott)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Surface map of Venus
Date: 26 Jan 93 21:07:21 GMT
Organization: Pacific Software Group, Riverside, CA


     I'm looking for a surface map of Venus, i.e. the one returned
from Magellan, in computer readable form. Anyone know where I might
get such a thing? I'm considering calling JPL, but I suspect they
won't want to be bothered, so I'm going to use them as a last resort.

     Please respond by email, as my site does not receive this
newsgroup.  If there is enough interest, I will post a reply.

Thanks in advance,
Chris Ott
chris@pacsoft.com
...!uunet!pacsoft!chris
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall)
Subject: Re: So what's happened to Henry Spencer?
Organization: NetLabs, Inc.
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 23:08:37 GMT

In article <schumach.727849241@convex.convex.com> schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) writes:
: Does anyone know why Henry Spencer has not posted recently?
: His were consistently the most interesting, informative
: and terse posts. What a shame if the intemperate remark by
: that Harvard snotnose drove him away...

Highly unlikely.  Henry is much too stable to be bothered by mere snivel.

He said he was going away for a few weeks.  This week he's extremely
likely to be hanging around at Usenix in San Diego.  They've got a
terminal room there, so you'll probably see something from him by
Wednesday or so.

Larry Wall
lwall@netlabs.com
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: "UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER"@utspan.span.nasa.gov
Subject: Dynamics or Mechanics?
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 21:39:48 GMT


What is the difference between orbital mechanics and orbital dynamics?

_____________
Dale M. Greer, whose opinions are not to be confused with those of the
Center for Space Sciences, U.T. at Dallas, UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER
"Let machines multiply, doing the work of many,
                     But let the people have no use for them." - Lao Tzu
From: nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Clinton's Promises (space) in Charlotte Observer
Date: 28 Jan 93 02:58:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: acad3.1993Jan27.185844.1
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks

In article <1k6beeINNgtf@mojo.eng.umd.edu>, sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) writes:
> In article <1993Jan27.021023.8557@pages.com>, bwebster@pages.com (Bruce F. Webster) writes:
>>. I have friends who are still heavily involved in  
>>the space industry at various levels. I happen to think that the best thing  
>>Clinton could do would be to kill SS Fred and offer $10B, tax-free, to the  
>>first US corporation or consortium to put a station on orbit and keep it  
>>staffed by at least X people for a year and day. He should also offer $5B to  
>>the second corporation/consortium to do the same thing. The government would  
>>spend less, create more jobs, and built an 21st century industrial base.  
> 
> Gosh, you been hanging out with Jerry Pournelle, huh? 
> 
> He has expounded on the bonus plan to build a moon colony through the same
> fashion. 
> 
> I got some questions for you:
> 
> 	A) Who owns possession of the technology used to develop the station?
Good solution/answer given below! But its debatable.

> 	B) Who owns the data? 
Same solution to a point.
> 	C) How do you set the damned thing up without using goverment help
> 	   in the first place? Guess who owns all the big launch facilities.
> 	   (Unless, of course, you wish to disguise this as a Russian 
> 	    Marshall Plan, which is not necessary a Bad Thing. Just be say
> 	    so up front).
Hum, I think there is some space facilties that are not directly federally
owned and we shall see. I do like the idea of a marshal plan type idea, after
all it can make us the benefiters, have the russians do all the work and we
benefit. Also make the russian ean their money and they will be paying it back
in many ways better than a long term loan (which many counteries never seem to
pay off).. (see Poker flats in Alaska for semi-Nasa facilty.
> 	D) Does it have to be a U.S. corp? What if I use off-shore tech, say
> 	   get the Italians into building my living modules?
Off the shelf would be nice, forgein that is a problem that will be worked
out.. Maybe if the holding company is US, many subcontrators are not US even in
normal projects. Ever heard of Alyeska, its a front/combo company to handle the
Alaska Pipeline and build it.. Co-owned by Arco, BP, Standard, and one or two
others, BP is not a US company.. I think Shell was the other one (Dutch).
> 
> IF, in exchange for the prize money, the government gets rights to the
> "science" without infringing on trade secrets, it might work. 
> 
> 

>                     I have talked to Ehud, and lived.
>   -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --

Jerry Pournelle, hum.. Does anyone have access to a ear at the Planetary
Society? Pass these ideas on to them...
Does Jerry Pournell have anet address (drop box is better)??
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: bwebster@pages.com (Bruce F. Webster)
Subject: Re: Clinton's Promises (space) in Charlotte Observer
Reply-To: bwebster@pages.com
Organization: Pages Software Inc.
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 02:10:23 GMT

In article <21JAN199320444611@judy.uh.edu>  
wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes:
> In article <ewright.727553712@convex.convex.com>, ewright@convex.com (Edward  
V. Wright) writes...
> >In <rabjab.31.727504007@golem.ucsd.edu> rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (rabjab)  
writes:
> > 
> >>>        B. Support completion of the space station Freedom.
> > 
> >>Looks like Clinton is going to make some rather severe cuts in space
> >>projects.  And "supporting completion" doesn't mean actual completion.
> > 
> >You don't understand.  NASA doesn't *want* Space Station Freedom
> >completed.  
> > 
> 
> No you don't understand and your statement is a prime reason people like
> you are not listened to at NASA. Even looking at the proposition from a
> pragmatical political perspective, this statment of yours is false. Why?
> 
> If NASA drags their feet and does not finish the station costs soar and
> nothing gets done. 

Space Station Freedom was originally proposed in what? 1982?, was supposed to  
be on orbit and operational in 1992, and was supposed to cost a total of $8B.  
It is now 1993, not a single actual piece of Fred has been built (much less  
placed on orbit), and the estimated total cost is $40B and rising. Q.E.D.

I used to work for NASA (as an employee of Singer/Link, the former contractor  
on the Space Shuttle Flight Simulator at JSC) and also worked at the Lunar and  
Planetary Institute next door. I have friends who are still heavily involved in  
the space industry at various levels. I happen to think that the best thing  
Clinton could do would be to kill SS Fred and offer $10B, tax-free, to the  
first US corporation or consortium to put a station on orbit and keep it  
staffed by at least X people for a year and day. He should also offer $5B to  
the second corporation/consortium to do the same thing. The government would  
spend less, create more jobs, and built an 21st century industrial base.  
..bruce..

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce F. Webster             |  We hackers linger by our leading edge
CTO, Pages Software Inc      |  Forgetting what is pending in the cache
bwebster@pages.com           |  Till practice hurtles past us, and we crash.
#import <pages/disclaimer.h> |            -- Jeff Duntemann
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------