Category Archives: Software Design
30 Dec Aristotle and von Neumann
In the 1950’s, John von Neumann compared the computer to the brain. Scientific inquiry that laid the foundation for that comparison, however, had begun long before. The influence of the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s association theory (metaphysics), for example, is evident in neural net theory. In The Computer and the Brain, Dr. von Neumann describes how […]
30 Dec Context Models
Building a Model The goals of the research that evolved into Understanding Context were twofold: to investigate human physiology/psychology for clues that would let us evaluate neuromorphic computational paradigms; and to explore the possibility of new computational models using context to correlate and associate concepts. Birds fly and they are lightweight. Building models of flight with lightweight materials works […]
01 Oct Methodology or Mythology
Call me a “nut”, but I have always been enthralled by science fiction. An image of Dave, a surprised and confused astronaut from 2001, a Space Odyssey, stays in my mind. In his eyes, I could see his brain working frantically to figure out how to master the situation, and giving way to hopelessness. The […]
04 Aug Context of Knowing, Thinking and Believing
There may be an incontrovertible thing out there called “truth.” But it seems quite elusive to me. In Japanese it is very polite to append just about any declarative sentence, any assertion of knowledge with “to omoimasu” (と思います) meaning I think. By being less committal, we save the other people in the conversation from embarrassment because their […]
17 Mar Intro to Cybernetic Models
Are you my Motherboard? From Eliza to Watson, Jeeves, Siri and Alfred, people have been naming their computers. Some systems are named after their inventors – like Wolfram Alpha and its siblings. Who is JARVIS? Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System? These attempts have, in their own little ways, touched our lives. But we are still waiting on the cusp of an innovation that will […]
26 Feb Choosing an Ontology Framework
Ontology is a knowledge representation language like Roger Schank‘s Semantic Networks and John Sowa‘s Conceptual Graphs or Doug Lenat‘s Semantic Web. An Ontology framework is the model (structure, function and content definition) in which you choose to build your ontology. Like a Relational Database or an Object Oriented Programming Language, an ontology has defined structures, functions […]
24 Feb Intro to the End of Code
By: Joe Roushar – February 2013 In the Beginning When computer programming began, it consisted mostly of written computer instructions called code. Data was minimal. Decks of dozens to hundreds of punched cards told the computer what to do with the data, which was also encoded on punched cards. The process of writing and debugging code was tremendously tedious. As computing […]
07 Dec Probability of Understanding Meaning
Some suggest that computers can achieve full language understanding capabilities using statistical models. Others argue that heuristics or programmatic interpretation that uses special procedures tailored to linguistic phenomena. The two camps are as far apart as ever. Consider the comments around this recent article on Tor.com. On the one side, Norvig demonstrates the validity […]