From: "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...>
Date: 2001-04-28T13:36:16+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:14368] Re: SV:  Re: how change instances class

----- Original Message -----
From: Henning VON ROSEN <hvrosen@world-online.no>
To: ruby-talk ML <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 4:28 AM
Subject: [ruby-talk:14313] SV: Re: how change instances class


>
> Let me give an example of a (maybe) natural class-change operation, in
human
> dialog context: (This is purely fictional. I include it only in case that
> someone might be interested)
>
> Language input .......Human Language Interpreter does:
> I see something => instance of Something
> It is a person   => change class of the instance to Human
> It is a woman     => mix-in Female
> No, it is a man => un-mix Female and mix-in Male
> He looks Asian => mix in Asian
> He is smiling     => indicate that smile is active
> It is Haruki Murakami! => check if there is merge viloations, if not then
> merge the instance into the Haruki Murakami instance, which does already
> exist in the knowledge bank.
>
> Is the smiling person an author? => Yes. And a famous one too. [references
> to the mentioned person are changed to Haruki Murakami instance,
> which has an Author mix-in]
>
> Is Haruki Murakami smiling? => Yes, he is smiling. [information merged
> from the temporary instance into the Haruki instance]
>
> Does Haruki Murakami exist? => Yes, [in the knowledge base, he is
> represented by an instance of subclass of Something]
>

I find this example fascinating. It does sound difficult to implement,
though...

Hal