[Nettime-bold] CYC

["|{.f|." <ke_an@o-o.lt>]

About CYC:

http://www.linguafranca.com/print/0109/cover.html

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                   After a bit of forensic work, Klein found the problem. The Cyclists
                   hadn't completely distinguished the concepts of bronze and statue.
                   Cyc had been told that bronze was a material that retained its essential
                   property—its "bronzeness," as it were—no matter what state it was in,
                   solid or liquid. But now Cyc was trying to apply that fact to the statue
                   aspect of "bronze statue." Cyc hadn't been told anything about statues
                   that would invalidate its conclusion; nobody had ever thought it
                   necessary to tell Cyc, for example, that statues are only statues if
                   they're more or less in their original form. It's common sense,
                   sure—but who would bother to meditate on it? "Trying to think of
                   everything," Klein quips, "is quite daunting." 


                   This is the chief problem that all Cyclists face: Commonsense
                   knowledge is invisible. It's defined as much by what we don't say as by
                   what we do say. Common knowledge is what we assume everyone
                   has, because it's, well, obvious. This is precisely what makes
                   commonsense knowledge so powerful as an intellectual tool—but it's
                   also what makes it so hard to identify and codify. 

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