Working with Constrained Systems: A Review of A. K. Joshi's IJCAI-97 Research Excellence Award Acceptance Lecture

This is a brief review of Joshi's award acceptance lecture published in <I>AI Magazine</I>. This review appeared in the AI Watch column in <I>Computers and Society</I>, a quarterly magazine

Partially Resolving the Tension between Omniscience and Free Will: A Mathematical Argument

We put forward a probability-based theory of temptation with implications for philosophy of religion and philosophy of mind, alike

"The Extended Mind"--Extended

We review the argument made by Clark and Chalmers in <I>Analysis</I> for a limited externalism and extend their argument from declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge

Can One Really Reason about Laws?

Precedent decides legal cases, but few precedents make the case at bar <I>res judicata</I>. Instead, analogical reasoning is used, together with canons of statutory interpretation and theories of constitutional jurisprudence. The work under review provides a model and algorithm for analogical reasoning in the legal context. Technically, the paper represents very fine work, except that in order to find the ground of a rule, some human input is required. The rule is denied and consequences of the negation are automatically derived; then, those which a person has previously marked as undesirable are candidates for the rule's ground. So this is a man-machine system, something not emphasized by the authors. Still, it is very fine work. Aside from its technical excellence and, on the other hand, an annoying number of missing articles, misplaced modifiers, and failures of agreement, the authors imply a certain understanding of law and how laws are made. The paper uses an ordinance rather than cases for analogical reasoning, after all, a practice that makes little sense unless the legislature is always perfectly consistent. Hence, the whole epistemological basis for the paper may be flawed

An Expert System for an Idiosyncratic Domain: Love, Intimacy, and Friendship.

No abstract available

Giving Computers Emotions--Why and How

This is a brief review of Rosalind W. Picard's <I>Affective Computing</I>, introduction and Part I. It appeared in the AI Watch column in <I>Computers and Society</I>, a quarterly magazine

Restoring Integrity to the Academy: Some Sweeping Suggestions for Wholesale Change

Note that this paper is 35 pages, and had been replaced in many places w/ a draft w/o authorization. The academy, broadly construed to include faculty, administrators at all levels, and editors, referees, and publishers of academic work, is beset by more ills bespeaking of a fundamental lack of integrity than can possibly be enumerated in a single monograph; nevertheless, as the need is urgent, and everyone seems to prefer either silence or piecemeal treatments, myself heretofore included, five ills are enumerated herein, then traced to seven deadly sins that beset the entire enterprise—although not in its entirety, of course—and some surprisingly simple, commonsensical, and practicable solutions are advanced

The Worst Way (Not) to Communicate

Evaluates e-mail critically from four perspectives. Note: This is /not/ the full version. The full version is available upon written request only

Remarks on the Argument from Design

Gives two pared-down versions of the argument from design, which may prove more persuasive as to a Creator, discusses briefly the mathematics underpinning disbelief and nonbelief and its misuse and some proper uses, moves to why the full argument is needed anyway, viz., to demonstrate Providence, offers a theory as to how miracles (open and hidden) occur, viz. the replacement of any particular mathematics underlying a natural law (save logic) by its most appropriate nonstandard variant. -/- Note: This is an extended abstract; there are no present plans to complete it