some seemingly fuzzy concepts actually have perfect intuitive consensus (e.g. almost everyone will classify any example as either concept X or not concept X the same way)
Well, as I said, ‘actual cause’ appears to be one example. The literature is full of little causal stories where most people agree that something is an actual cause of something else in the story—or not. Concepts which have already been formalized include concepts which are both used colloquially in “everyday conversation” and precisely in physics (e.g. weight/mass).
One could argue that ‘actual cause’ is in some sense not a natural concept, but it’s still useful in the sense that formalizing the algorithm humans use to decide ‘actual cause’ problems can be useful for automating certain kinds of legal reasoning.
The Cyc project is a (probably doomed) example of a rabbit-hole project to construct an ontology of common sense. Lenat has been in that rabbit-hole for 27 years now.
Thanks for the Causality heads-up.
Can you name an example or two?
Well, as I said, ‘actual cause’ appears to be one example. The literature is full of little causal stories where most people agree that something is an actual cause of something else in the story—or not. Concepts which have already been formalized include concepts which are both used colloquially in “everyday conversation” and precisely in physics (e.g. weight/mass).
One could argue that ‘actual cause’ is in some sense not a natural concept, but it’s still useful in the sense that formalizing the algorithm humans use to decide ‘actual cause’ problems can be useful for automating certain kinds of legal reasoning.
The Cyc project is a (probably doomed) example of a rabbit-hole project to construct an ontology of common sense. Lenat has been in that rabbit-hole for 27 years now.