response to J. Prothero book review and comments of 12 Oct 90

[Major <cbmvax!uunet!pta.oz.au!major>]

lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com (Bob LeChevalier) writes:

> Sheldon Linker has claimed that he could do a Lojban conversing
> program with heuristic 'understanding' a la HAL 9000 in 5 man-years.

If this is true, then he should be able to do English in 6; understanding
the chaos of natural language would not be particularly difficult after
understanding the chaos of natural thought.

> This is, in my mind, of comparable difficulty to a heuristic translation
> program.

Yes, all such stuff would be simple if we just had 'understanding'.

Major

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