Re: ESSAY: AI and Effective Sagacity

From: Mitch Howe (mitch_howe@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Aug 02 2001 - 16:14:53 MDT


Gordon Worley wrote:

> So, I sleep about 7 hours, leaving me with 17, so I guess I am using
> sage for about 12 or 13 hours a day. Now, I'll admit, I can't do
> this everyday, since other people are good at breaking me away from
> it, but this is what I do if no one interrupts me. Also, I should
> note that when I was in school, it was mind numbing, so sage got lazy
> and I only got a couple hours out of it a day (and they certainly
> weren't devoted to school, but I keep going because I want the
> general education but I won't get it on my own because I'll learn
> specific things that I'm really interested in, but I know that
> general knowledge is very useful).
>
> Anyway, I doubt I'm the only person in the world who uses sage more
> often than fidget (at least when it hasn't been numbed by school) and
> I think we're an important group of people when it comes to sagacity.

I agree completely. I think that there are many people who effectively use
Sage more often than not, and that some of these even manage to have very
high level thought for much of this. These are the people who generally
stand out as being productive, useful, significant, etc. I have noticed a
trend whenever the daily schedule of some powerful businessperson or
politician is outlined: there is always a great amount of variety. The
length of the work day may vary (think George W. Bush vs. Bill Clinton) but
said work day is still broken up into small, potent sessions of high-level
thought. I think Sage makes a much better decathalete than marathon runner.
Like the typical day you outlined, you are able to do many tasks requiring
high level thought, but can't linger too long on any specific one. It is an
effective workaround to human mental fatigue.

Fortunately, we shouldn't have to worry about Sage fatigue in an AI -- if it
turns out that we do it should prove to be a very interesting topic of
study.

For that matter, does anyone have a short answer or theory as to why humans
have difficulty with sustained high level thought in the first place?

--Mitch Howe

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