tod levitt rbotuqiietcom course quite easy get rid condominium arguably easier getting rid gonorrhea relabel buildings sales office usage aspects considered sufficient one destroy building thereby also eliminating condo one fills cement still condominium point entity events category identity whatever else one might trying label similar independent observability function task andor intent claim first question generalpurpose definition similarity illposed secondly challenge professor zadehs implicit claim exists general purpose computational definition similarity one thing must distinguish biological cognitive neuroscience goals understanding humans operate taskdriven goals automation priori reason believe solution one provides solution even turns practical basis disparity objectives progress different research areas implies neither afford wait exemplified fields human versus computer vision arguably obvious parallels notion similarity done relatively little enable crossfield progress eliminate reference human cognition ask general purpose computational definition similarity purposes automation least dispense notion human agreement reasonable measure performance aim make notion purpose automation rigorous thereby hope achieve intelligible definition general purpose done question scientifically meaningless original message nhipljlbixengrorstedu mailtonhipljlbixengrorstedu behalf lotfi zadeh sent tuesday november 20 2007 800 pm faqengrorstedu cc lotfi zadeh subject uai define similarity dear concept similarity one basic concepts human cognition similarity plays essential role taxonomy recognition casebased reasoning many fields enormous literature yet many aspects concept similarity eluded formalization concretely thesis like put table exist valid generalpurpose definition similarity exist many specialpurpose definitions employed success cluster analysis search classification recognition diagnostics typically point departure definitions similarity following formulation given descriptions two objects b asked assess degree similarity b usually descriptions b form lists attributes features b respective values frequently employed measures similarity tversky jacard spirit problem formulation degree similarity assessed given descriptions b explicitly implicitly case point wellknown story buffalo given four objects b c asked tell object different three objects aids herpes gonorrhea condominium buffalo obvious candidate condominium buffalo correct answer gonorrhea one get rid gonorrhea possible get rid aids herpes condominium buffalo clearly degree similarity depends purpose andor context mind let us reformulate definition similarity attribute allowed take undefined value loss generality assuming b associated identical lists attributes r1 rn let us assume attribute ri associate degree similarity si attribute values ria rib furthermore given purpose associate attribute degree importance wi problem reduces aggregation list si wi sn wn single degree similarity formulation framework definition may called general purpose definition furthermore serious difficulty degrees similarity ria rib rja rjb may low 0 yet degree similarity function ria rib function rja rjb may high example ri length rj width b may different lengths widths yet area conclusion formulation valid generalpurpose definition similarity challenging problem definition point valid generalpurpose definition literature regards lotfi lotfi zadeh professor graduate school director berkeley initiative soft computing bisc teloffice 510 6424959 fax office 510 6421712 fri 08 aug 2008 031307 0500 uai define similarity