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Fuzzy logic can be useful when combined with a frequentist distribution for doing natural language processing (e.g. how many people would refer to someone at he

Fuzzy logic can be useful when combined with a frequentist distribution for doing natural language processing (e.g. how many people would refer to someone at height X as "tall"?). It's really just a special case of Bayesian inference: p(A calls B "tall" | B is a 6'1 man) is a combination of what you know about who is called tall in general and what you know specifically about who A thinks is tall. Unfortunately, for some reason many linguists don't like thinking in these terms, so it is easier to communicate with them using fuzzy logic vocabulary than Bayesian inference.

roundsquare 17y ago
It's really just a special case of Bayesian inference: p(A calls B "tall" | B is a 6'1 man) is a combination of what you know about who is called tall in general and what you know specifically about who A thinks is tall. As far as I know, thats not true. Fuzzy logic is meant to encapsulate the idea that someone is "sort of" tall.
- drunkpotato 17y ago
  You're right, it can also be used in that fashion, in which case it's not like Bayesian inference. I haven't studied fuzzy logic or degrees-of-Xness, do you know how useful that ends up being in practice?
  - roundsquare 17y ago
    I believe fuzzy logic, or something similar, is used in some handwriting recognition software. E.g. as you are looking at a letter, you start with "This letter is an A" as having value 1/26, etc... and start to change them as you look at it. In this case its very similar to probability. I'm not sure of any other uses. However, I remember reading studies that seemed to indicate that apes/chimps use fuzzy logic. I don't remember who wrote it or how they tested it, but it seemed fairly convincing at the time. So, I guess I'd say its not so useful now (at least not as an independent concept) but if its true that humans use it, it might become useful in the future. In the end though, fuzzy logic isn't going to solve your problems for you, at least not alone. The way you use the fuzzy logic is going to be much more important.

roundsquare 17y ago

It's really just a special case of Bayesian inference: p(A calls B "tall" | B is a 6'1 man) is a combination of what you know about who is called tall in general and what you know specifically about who A thinks is tall. As far as I know, thats not true. Fuzzy logic is meant to encapsulate the idea that someone is "sort of" tall.

drunkpotato 17y ago
You're right, it can also be used in that fashion, in which case it's not like Bayesian inference. I haven't studied fuzzy logic or degrees-of-Xness, do you know how useful that ends up being in practice?
- roundsquare 17y ago
  I believe fuzzy logic, or something similar, is used in some handwriting recognition software. E.g. as you are looking at a letter, you start with "This letter is an A" as having value 1/26, etc... and start to change them as you look at it. In this case its very similar to probability. I'm not sure of any other uses. However, I remember reading studies that seemed to indicate that apes/chimps use fuzzy logic. I don't remember who wrote it or how they tested it, but it seemed fairly convincing at the time. So, I guess I'd say its not so useful now (at least not as an independent concept) but if its true that humans use it, it might become useful in the future. In the end though, fuzzy logic isn't going to solve your problems for you, at least not alone. The way you use the fuzzy logic is going to be much more important.