# fox-grain-chicken

**URL:** http://discourse.iapct.org/t/fox-grain-chicken/13844
**Category:** CSG1993
**Created:** [September 9, 1993, 5:31am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/fox-grain-chicken/13844 "1993-09-09T05:31:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![William\_T\_Powers2](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@William\_T\_Powers2](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/William_T_Powers2)
#### Post date: [September 9, 1993, 5:31am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/fox-grain-chicken/13844/1 "1993-09-09T05:31:23Z")

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[From Bill and Mary Powers (930908.2315 MDT)]

Damn you guys, I have to get to bed.

Ray Allis, that was a brilliant post and anticipated mine which I  
send before I read yours.

Avery Andrews (930909.1415) --

> In the case of our farmer, he has to come up with a plan, a  
> sequence of imagined states of affairs, such that the first one  
> is how things are, the last one is how things are wanted to be  
> (everybody on the opposite sides of the bank), and each state  
> can be attained from the previous ones by dumb control systems.  
> It of course requires a lot of experience to know what kinds of  
> state-transitions can be achieved by your personal library of  
> systems, so it comes as no surprise when we learn that children  
> are pretty bad at (realistic) planning. On this view, AI-type  
> planning happens, but is very heavily dependent on experience,  
> and on the existence of control systems to actually make the  
> steps in the plans happen.

There's one more aspect to this, which is that logic and symbol-  
manipulation that goes with it is not the highest level of  
organization in the human brain. Mary, in her usual up-a-level  
way, points out that the AI program for solving the fox-grain-  
chicken program will never come up with the solution that lets  
the farmer get across the pond in either of two ways: build a  
cage for the chicken. You take the chicken and the grain (or fox)  
across, and go back and get the fox (or grain). Where did the  
cage come from? From outside the premises given to the AI  
program.

When you set the conditions of the problem, the logic-based  
approach is helpless: it can't get outside them. A higher level  
of system can look at the premises and see that a better set of  
premises would lead to a solution that achieves the goal more  
elegantly or with fewer constraints (these criteria are  
principles, not programs). So the logical approach fails both by  
not having low enough levels of control and by not having high  
enough levels.

Good night,

Bill (and Mary) P.