🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MZeW3XO00WB4MBpksI@andrew.cmu.edu> sn13+@andrew.cmu.edu (S.
Narasimhan) writes:
>    But, can we build a system which only "understands", but does'nt learn?
>But,how are we to test whether the system really "understands"? For that
>matter, when do we say a person has learnt   something? I'd say when,
>
>          (1) he can respond to that "something" as does a person who has
>"understood" that and
>
>       (2) he is REMINDED of another event or episode which is SIMILAR to
>that recalled by a person who has understood.

I'm not sure why you think being reminded of something is a good test for
understanding.  In fact, i'd say that the more of the opposite is true.  If
you don't understand something, you tend to use logical reasoning, and
analogy, using something things you are reminded of to reason about the thing
you want to reason about.  However, if you truly `understand' something, you
don't need to do that at all, you just _know_ what properties it has or how it
will behave.

> In other words, (1) is a test for "inteelligence" and (2) is a test for
>"understanding ability". By now you might have noticed that (1) is nothing
>but the well-known "Turing's test". I'd call (2) as the "Case-Retrieval"
>test,where by case, I mean a previous episode or event.

In fact, your Case-Retrieval Test is included in the Turing Test.  It is
perfectly reasonable as part of the Turing Test to ask the candidates for
word-association, their childhood history, their feelings about Manuel
Noriega, or whatever else you want.  That's what makes it so difficult.