On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 02:56:52 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:46:27 -0500, "Reginald P. Smithers III"
"Reggie is Here wrote:

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:


With respect to my dogs, one of them is smarter than I am. :)

What I have heard, is they all are.

I suspect you may be right.

By the way, are you a closet philosopher?

No - I'm a closet moron.

You need to start writing into some weekly publications, your short
essays would definitely create a buzz.

Last time I did that, a review committee called it a dissertation and
gave me a post graduate degree after asking me some questions and
asking me to defend my position. After about five minutes of spirited
discussion, we broke for coffee and never went back into session -
they granted the degree without dissent.

I've long suspected that none of them actually read it. It was, how
you say, arcane and somewhat obtuse. No, obtuse is way too lenient -
opaque is much more descriptive. Out of the six reviewers, maybe one
understood what I was getting at and her understanding was marginal at
best. What they did read was the acknowledgement page in which every
one of the reviewers was given due credit for their contribution to my
meager efforts and I liberally dropped footnotes using their papers,
essays and, in one case, an item that had nothing what so ever to do
with the dissertation, being so convoluted that it was impossible to
understand, but it sounded good.

You see, mathematicians write in the passive voice using few nouns and
verbs developing a neutral approach without ever actually saying
exactly what it is they wish to say doing it all by implication
sprinkling graphs, charts and equations liberally in between
paragraphs and when they get bored with their own voice they throw in
a semi-colon; and then continue on with their original thought only by
this time the reviewer has gotten so bored with the long sentence that
he/she automatically assumes that something important was said and
thus will agree as long as he/she has been quoted and properly
footnoted.

The secret of my success was very long sentences sometimes
encompassing whole paragraphs and gratuitous fawning - see above. :)

That and color - lots of bright lines, color highlighting equations
and interesting variables and pretty colored explosions of graph
lines. Distracting camouflage which blinded them to the fact that I
didn't know what the hell I was talking about either.

There you have it.

This seems to be a good example of the type writing you refer to:

http://www.ipcc-wg2.org/

--
John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."

On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 07:25:37 -0500, John H.
wrote:

This seems to be a good example of the type writing you refer to:

An even better example is right here in the newsgroup.

WTC towers post. :)

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 07:25:37 -0500, John H.
wrote:

This seems to be a good example of the type writing you refer to:

An even better example is right here in the newsgroup.

WTC towers post. :)


What? You don't believe a U.S. government conspiracy took down the towers?

On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:17:01 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 07:25:37 -0500, John H.
wrote:

This seems to be a good example of the type writing you refer to:

An even better example is right here in the newsgroup.

WTC towers post. :)

I believe you can thank Doug for that. If you check, you'll see he's a
poster in other groups to which this was crossposted.
--
John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:19:39 -0500, "jamesgangnc"
wrote:

That was what they believed at the time. I don't think anyone seriously
buys that anymore and no significant efforts in the ai world today are
trying to pass the turing test. The turing test is a pretty old definition
of intelligence. And it all depends on your definition of intelligence.

That is true, and 10 people would no doubt come up with 10
definitions. And there is no question in my mind about whether or not
animals display intelligence at some level. Of course they do, and
why not?

If you start with the assumption that intelligence as we know it
derives from highly developed neural networks, combined with sensors,
memory, experience and communication, why could that not be
synthesized given a sufficient understanding of the process?