Dear Bruno,
You have, more than once, referred to something I (jokingly) said a month ago: "I've endured this thread long enough! Let's get
back to something I can understand!"
I said this because I am hungry for more informed
speculation on "Why does anything exist?" and related questions.
Most recently you have very kindly offered to help me
understand some of the foundation concepts you are so proficient
at.
I have spent years doing scientific Fortran programming,
and am already familiar with elementary math concepts such
as trig, number bases, statistics, differential equations and the
like. It even makes sense to me that natural numbers are
countable and real numbers are not.
However my aged brain is unable, or perhaps unwilling, to exert the time
and effort it would take for me to learn concepts such as eigenvalues,
diagonalization, Godel's incompleteness theorem, Turing's proof that no
algorithm can solve the halting problem, the Universal Dovetailer Argument,
etc.
I accept those and many other concepts on faith
- enough respected experts (such as yourself) affirm their truth that I
have no doubt that they are correct.
Computationalism makes sense to me, and I do not
accept this quote from a recent book: "
human
cognition is too rich to be simulated by computer programs" (Horgan and Tienson 1996, p. 1).
Thanks again for your offer, but I do not want you to
spend your valuable time attempting to get blood from a turnip.
Norman Samish --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- |
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