I read that paragraph and noticed that I was confused. Because I was going through this post to acquire a more-than-cursory technical intuition, I was making a point to followup on and resolve any points of confusion.
There’s enough technical detail to carefully parse, without adding extra pieces that don’t make sense on first reading. I’d prefer to be able to spend my carful thinking on the math.
In Artificial Intelligence, and particularly in the domain of nonmonotonic reasoning, there’s a standard problem: “All Quakers are pacifists. All Republicans are not pacifists. Nixon is a Quaker and a Republican. Is Nixon a pacifist?”
What on Earth was the point of choosing this as an example? To rouse the political emotions of the readers and distract them from the main question? To make Republicans feel unwelcome in courses on Artificial Intelligence and discourage them from entering the field? (And no, before anyone asks, I am not a Republican. Or a Democrat.)
Why would anyone pick such a distracting example to illustrate nonmonotonic reasoning? Probably because the author just couldn’t resist getting in a good, solid dig at those hated Greens. It feels so good to get in a hearty punch, y’know, it’s like trying to resist a chocolate cookie.
As with chocolate cookies, not everything that feels pleasurable is good for you. And it certainly isn’t good for our hapless readers who have to read through all the angry comments your blog post inspired.
It’s not quite the same problem, but it has some of the same consequences.
I strongly agree.
I read that paragraph and noticed that I was confused. Because I was going through this post to acquire a more-than-cursory technical intuition, I was making a point to followup on and resolve any points of confusion.
There’s enough technical detail to carefully parse, without adding extra pieces that don’t make sense on first reading. I’d prefer to be able to spend my carful thinking on the math.
As was written in this seminal post:
It’s not quite the same problem, but it has some of the same consequences.