No one is arguing that they've found a domain that statistics can't be applied to or gathered from.
What is implied is that statistics should not be chosen as the preferred main engine of conciousness--because as far as we can tell conciousness is more than just a gestalt voting between the cells of the host it's housed in.
The issue being discussed is the choice of right level of abstraction and the right tools for modeling a given real-world phenomenon. My comment says that statistics is essential in modeling this particular phenomenon, based on my experience and intuition and that of many experts in the field. Responding with "who cares?" doesn't make sense to me. What part of my statement do you disagree with?
I don't disagree with any of it, and I think perhaps my non-chalant "Who cares?" somehow conveyed to you that I think something stated was false. I don't.
But, why waste time with this?
You cannot not reduce it to statistics, vast majority of your cognitive activity is statistical in nature, in the more general sense of the word.
Most here believe statistics are globally applicable, even in domains dealing with the odd, esoteric, or random. With that said..
- lumps hofstadter into statistical ai > "but hofstadter is non-conformist!"
- create seperate subgroup which hofstadter can exist within with his experiments
- "but you can't be non-statistical!"
... and on and on. Is this the kind of recursion geb was talking about?
A lot of us think we know statistics are universally applicable. It's a waste of time to state, and adds little to the discussion overall. Sorry that it came off so negatively, either before in my first post or now. I don't mean it that way.
No one is arguing that they've found a domain that statistics can't be applied to or gathered from.
What is implied is that statistics should not be chosen as the preferred main engine of conciousness--because as far as we can tell conciousness is more than just a gestalt voting between the cells of the host it's housed in.