Rule-Based Systems Quotes

What I realized is that if we're going to be able to have a theory about what happens in, for example, nature there has to ultimately be some rule by which nature operates. But the issue is does that rule have to correspond to something like a mathematical equation, something that we have sort of created in our human mathematics? And what I realized is that now with our understanding of computation and computer programs and so on, there is actually a much bigger universe of possible rules to describe the natural world than just the mathematical equation kinds of things.

There are three basic approaches to AI: Case-based, rule-based, and connectionist reasoning.

Anything that we know how we do, machines will do better. Now, the key element of this phrase is, "We know how we do it." Because we do many things without knowing exactly how we do them. So this is the area where machines are vulnerable, because it still has to learn from some kind of experience. It needs something - at least the rules of the game. You have to bring in something that will help the machine to start learning. It's like square one. If there's nothing there, if you can't explain it, that's a problem.

The strange flavour of AI work is that people try to put together long sets of rules in strict formalisms which tell inflexible machines how to be flexible.

The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation.

Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.

In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.

Even the most powerful people at a given point in terms of class, will all play by the same rules.

...All the wonders of our universe can in effect be captured by simple rules, yet ... there can be no way to know all the consequences of these rules, except in effect just to watch and see how they unfold.

The brain sure as hell doesn't work by somebody programming in rules.

My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is, rather, to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.

In the Small group the individual can know the effects of his actions on his several fellows, and the rules may effectively forbid him to harm them in any manner and even require him to assist them in specific ways. In the Great Society many of the effects of a person's actions on various fellows must be unknown to him. It can, therefore, not be the specific effects in the particular case, but only rules which define kinds of actions prohibited or required, which must serve as guides to the individual.

For remember that in general we don't use language according to strict rules-- it hasn't been taught to us by means of strict rules, either. We, in our discussions on the other hand, constantly compare language with a calculus preceding to exact rules.

In any case, A New Kind of Science is a wonderful book, and I'm still absorbing its teachings.

I think games are a good medium for approaching any subject, particularly difficult ones, because by their very nature, they are abstract, invite interaction and allow us to confront and question things... particularly rules that we may blindly follow.