Words: blocks, amoebas, or patches of fog? Artificial intelligence and the conceptual foundations of fuzzy logic

Stanley L. Jaki

doi:10.1117/12.243247

14 June 1996 Words: blocks, amoebas, or patches of fog? Artificial intelligence and the conceptual foundations of fuzzy logic

Stanley L. Jaki

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Proceedings Volume 2761, Applications of Fuzzy Logic Technology III; (1996) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.243247
Event: Aerospace/Defense Sensing and Controls, 1996, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

Words are the fundamental carriers of information. Words that refer to numbers stand apart from all other words in one respect: Numbers are concepts that lend themselves to spatial representations with exact contours. Yet the verbal definition of numbers, through which their meaning is defined, shares in a property common to all words: their verbal definition cannot be given a spatial representation with exact contours. In that definitional respect, words are not even comparable to amoebas which, although they constantly change their shapes, have clear boundaries. Words are best to be likened to patches of fog that not only change but have no strict boundaries. While this does not land all discourse in the realm of half-truths, it sets basic limits to what can be achieved by fuzzy logic and programs of artificial intelligence.

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Stanley L. Jaki "Words: blocks, amoebas, or patches of fog? Artificial intelligence and the conceptual foundations of fuzzy logic", Proc. SPIE 2761, Applications of Fuzzy Logic Technology III, (14 June 1996); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.243247

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