What's a Theory (was Re: deconstructing....

[Arthur T. Murray]

Mark Young in news:comp.ai.philosophy wrote inter alia on 17 Apr 2000:

> Not all theories are scientific. A theory is a "system
> of ideas explaining something" (the Pocket Oxford).

http://www.geocities.com/mentifex/theory5.html : "Know Thyself!"
aspires to being a scientific theory, but will settle for being
an explanation of how to model the brain-mind in sufficient
detail for implementation of artificial minds in software.

> Scientific theories are generally associated with sciences,
> and are generally well studied and well tested.

A theory of mind for AI and robotics can only be tested
by implementing the theory in such AI software packages as
http://www.geocities.com/mentifex/mind4th.html : Mind.Forth;
http://www.scn.org/~mentifex/mindrexx.html : Mind.Rexx and
http://www.virtualentity.com/mind/vb/ : Mind.VB in Visual Basic.

> Other theories are less so (this is description, not definition).
> [...] ...mark young

--
Come one, come all AI hackers and mindmakers on 5-10 Aug 2001 to
http://www.geocities.com/mentifex/ijcpdai.html : IJCPDAI-01 the
International Joint Conference on PD Artificial Intelligence to be
held sub rosa in the coffee houses and 'Net cafes of Seattle WA USA.