From: Noam Chomsky Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2015 6:24 PM To: Jeffrey E. Subject: RE: Re: Forty years ago, Israel was one of the most admired countries in the world. Now it is most disliked. Forty years ago it was pretty clear, as I wrote at the time (and I was far from alone), that those who call themselves "supporters of Israel" are in fact supporters of its moral degeneration, international isolation, constant conflict and security problems, and maybe worse. So it has occurred. Israel even now has an official whose task is to deal with international isolation. Israelis like to attribute all this to anti-Semitism, which hasn't changed in the past 40 years. Or to appeal to "we have no negotiating partner," which won't wash. The problem is not Netanyahu. The policies and problems are much deeper. The crucial question is how long and how far will Israel proceed on the course to self-destruction. A lot of work in AI, neural network theory, "Big Data and statistics," etc., is as you describe — mimicking behavior (which I don't even find amazing or particularly interesting). But I think you underestimate the theoretical insights and explanations, such as the few I mentioned in the papers I sent, the theories that yield explanations for such surprising phenomena as rigidity and structure-dependence, with their far-reaching consequences. Those I think are the kinds of results that are rarely found outside the hard sciences. They don't mimic behavior, but explain fundamental properties of cognitive processes that enter into behavior, of course indirectly. And there's a lot more like it. From: Jeffrey E. [mailto:jeevacation@gmailcomj Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2015 6:43 AM To: Noam Chomsky Subject: Re: Re: 1.do you have any specific questions for him? he thinks its not going in the right direction. ie. bibi, not strong enough to make tough decisions. . ehud trusts hamas more than abbas. I know you dont like telephones but we could set up a text exchange if you wanted to. 2. more important I use my coin flip analogy often. ie. . single cell experiments, like looking through a microscope at my coin , measure its content it moment, its shape, all trying to figure out why the result after a long while is always the same -equal number of tails and heads. a consistent result. no algorithm , no computation . Why i am pushing you on this , is that i firmly believe that language needs a theory, cognitive science needs a theory, your minions and intellectual offspring are like bio engineers --they will be able to mimic some of the behavior, yes it is amazing but not interesting. you have thought long and hard and more importantly have seen what does NOT work. einsteins thought experiments led to truly remarkable results in physics. Im hoping that results like that can be achieved for biology On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Noam Chomsky < rote: Have a good weekend. I wonder what he thinks about where the state is heading now. We'll probably be at the Cape, in Wellfleet, if we can make it. Maybe there are miracles, but I think more prosaic approaches yield rich results in domains like vision (Marr's main concern) and language. Like some of those I've mentioned. I don't see how to progress in other ways. EFTA_R1_01322451 EFTA02348391