Twiddling Bits

Among the many excellent presentations and posters of this conference, I was tasked with making sense of two of the most esoteric. This is my meat and potatoes. I hasten to add that they are not esoteric because they are peripheral; au contraire, they are central. They are only esoteric because you have to be an intellectual searcher to delve into them. In the face of them, they are formidable; but, relax, and contemplate them, and they are most intellectually gratifying. McDowell shows us how, through the same sort of selection processes that both animals and their habits are subject to, the basic laws of behavior arise. This is foundational-where do our laws come from?-McDowell gives us a glimpse. Cox tells us what those laws do; or don't. He demonstrates these in the contexts that matter-very large data sets form the world of action-where our cloistered predictions may be evaluated, and improved. His Natural Language Programming Machines provide visions of what we say and do that can only be seen at this higher level. If we are to move our field to higher relevance, this is the way.