abstract : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English)	by Linux fortune

She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way a midget is good at being short. -- Clive James, on Marilyn Monroe
SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT Title: Are Frogs Turing Compatible? Speaker: Don "The Lion" Knuth ABSTRACT Several researchers at the University of Louisiana have been studying the computing power of various amphibians, frogs in particular. The problem of frog computability has become a critical issue that ranges across all areas of computer science. It has been shown that anything computable by an amphi- bian community in a fixed-size pond is computable by a frog in the same-size pond -- that is to say, frogs are Pond-space complete. We will show that there is a log-space, polywog-time reduction from any Turing machine program to a frog. We will suggest these represent a proper subset of frog-computable functions. This is not just a let's-see-how-far-those-frogs-can-jump seminar. This is only for hardcore amphibian-computation people and their colleagues. Refreshments will be served. Music will be played.
*** Special AI Seminar (abstract**) It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call "wisdom engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth. IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration.
We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. -- Alan M. Turing
The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity often abstract away its essence. - Fred Brooks, Jr.
Abstract: This study examined the incidence of neckwear tightness among a group of 94 white-collar working men and the effect of a tight business-shirt collar and tie on the visual performance of 22 male subjects. Of the white-collar men measured, 67% were found to be wearing neckwear that was tighter than their neck circumference. The visual discrimination of the 22 subjects was evaluated using a critical flicker frequency (CFF) test. Results of the CFF test indicated that tight neckwear significantly decreased the visual performance of the subjects and that visual performance did not improve immediately when tight neckwear was removed. -- Langan, L.M. and Watkins, S.M. "Pressure of Menswear on the Neck in Relation to Visual Performance." Human Factors 29, #1 (Feb. 1987), pp. 67-71.
Periphrasis is the putting of things in a round-about way. "The cost may be upwards of a figure rather below 10m#." is a periphrasis for The cost may be nearly 10m#. "In Paris there reigns a complete absence of really reliable news" is a periphrasis for There is no reliable news in Paris. "Rarely does the 'Little Summer' linger until November, but at times its stay has been prolonged until quite late in the year's penultimate month" contains a periphrasis for November, and another for lingers. "The answer is in the negative" is a periphrasis for No. "Was made the recipient of" is a periphrasis for Was presented with. The periphrasis style is hardly possible on any considerable scale without much use of abstract nouns such as "basis, case, character, connexion, dearth, description, duration, framework, lack, nature, reference, regard, respect". The existence of abstract nouns is a proof that abstract thought has occurred; abstract thought is a mark of civilized man; and so it has come about that periphrasis and civilization are by many held to be inseparable. These good people feel that there is an almost indecent nakedness, a reversion to barbarism, in saying No news is good news instead of "The absence of intelligence is an indication of satisfactory developments." -- Fowler's English Usage
My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or even that they were always wrong. Rather, I believe that science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of robots programmed to collect pure information. I also present this view as an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on the alter of human limitations. I believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it. Galileo was not shown the instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion. He had threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal stability: the static world order with planets circling about a central earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord. But the Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology. They had no choice; the earth really does revolve about the sun. -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man"
I am getting into abstract painting. Real abstract -- no brush, no canvas, I just think about it. I just went to an art museum where all of the art was done by children. All the paintings were hung on refrigerators. -- Steven Wright
Catching his children with their hands in the new, still wet, patio, the father spanked them. His wife asked, "Don't you love your children?" "In the abstract, yes, but not in the concrete."