Genetics, locality, AI

Reductionistic Explanation of Protein Function, p 522

But for better or for worse, this is a general phenomenon which arises in the explanations of complex systems. In order to acquire an intuitive and manageable understanding of how parts interact --in short, in order to proceed-- one often has to sacrifice the exactness yielded by a microscope, context-free picture, simply because of its unmanageability. But one does not sacrifice at that time the faith that such an explanation exists in principle!

Two Types of Form, p 582

[...] "semantic" properties are connected to open-ended searches because, in an important sense, an object's meaning is not localized within the object itself.

The Crux of AI: Representation of Knowledge, p 616

A large amount of work in AI has [...] gone into systems in which the bulk of the knowledge is stored in specific places --that is, declaratively.

The Concept Network, p 653

Science and the World of Bongard Problems, p 660

The Kuhnian theory that certain rare events called "paradigm shifts" mark the distinction between "normal" science and "conceptual revolutions" does not seem to work, for we can see paradigm shifts happening all throughout the system, all the time. The fluidity of descriptions insures that paradigm shifts will take place on all scales.

GEB ToC
Marc Girod
Last modified: Fri Nov 22 18:28:35 EET 2002