From: earlcox@earlcoxreports.com   
      
   Yes, I'm guilty of biasing and disrupting and rudely inflaming the entire   
   discussion, my one dismissive sentence certainly tainted the thread and, of   
   course, since you have been victimized by my apparent indifference to your   
   assertions on the meaning of fuzzy implication, you have taken refuge in the   
   security of the infallible thoughts of your seniors.   
      
   Come on, Corrado, 99.9% of the thread was a discussion with Bill Siler who   
   carefully and I think reasonably and unemotionally pointed out the problems   
   in your description of the mechanics underlying if-then fuzzy rules. I had   
   nothing to do with any of this. Incidentally, I cautioned Bill about   
   spending time with you exactly because of the predicted and actual   
   outcome -- a refusal to understand and an appeal to authority. Ph.D.   
   candidates and grad students do it all the time. They are always quoting   
   this professor or that professor or this journal article or that journal   
   article. Magister dixit! It's true because Professor Tweedlebug said blah   
   blah blah in some article in some important journal. One of the foundations   
   of the scientific method is this: appeals to authority are not allowed. You   
   cannot say that X is true because [Einstein, Newton, Crick, etc.] said so.   
      
   See George Polya, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, Volume II, "Patterns   
   of Plausible Inference".   
      
   My point is simply this: you say from your understanding of some paper that   
   a fuzzy rule If A then B is equivalent to (A and B), but this as well as   
   other forms you mention lead to logical contradictions as Bill Siler pointed   
   out by simply supplying some values in the underlying truth tables. Did you   
   do the same thing? Did you take the logical formulation of these rules and   
   sit down and work through a set of examples to see if they were logically   
   consistent and unambiguous and made sense? Or did you just take what you   
   thought you understood and repeat it? That's the difference between an   
   appeal to authority and the scientific method (which is the basis for   
   confirmation and deep understanding).   
      
   I have absolutely no intention of engaging in a flame war over this issue.   
   Goodbye, indeed!!   
      
   Earl   
      
      
      
   "Corrado Mencar"  wrote in message   
   news:d6cbba91.0402200729.dd521ee@posting.google.com...   
   > ,   
   > >   
   > >  will not reply to any other (eventually offending) comments. Such   
   > > debacle can be solved by genuine scientific investigation.   
   > >   
   > > is also very unfair to Bill Siler who has been most civil and most   
   giving of   
   > > his   
   > > time. If nothing else you owe him a apology.   
   > >   
   >   
   > I will reply to this comment only, because the rest of the message is   
   > self-explanatory. The offending comments were not given by William   
   > Siler (who has given an explanation from his point of view in his last   
   > posting, and could be debated in a polite way according to different   
   > schools of thought) but from your first (public) reply, that could   
   > have been surely avoided by a scientific personality as you.   
   > Notwithstanding, as a phd student I am disappointed that a message   
   > that would stimulate scientific discussion, from which people would   
   > learn new perspectives or different points of view, is fallen down in   
   > such a deplorable way. For the rest of your comments, readers can   
   > judge who is in the middle age and who is not.   
   >   
   > Goodbye.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)