Numerics in JavaScript.  Messed-up.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2022 8:43 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] naive question

Just for example. I run my fib.js twice wrapped by time and get:

gepr@elric:~/lang/js$ time ./fib.js 100
354224848179262000000

real    0m0.148s
user    0m0.137s
sys     0m0.013s

gepr@elric:~/lang/js$ time ./fib.js 100
354224848179262000000

real    0m0.134s
user    0m0.116s
sys     0m0.020s

strace also shows quite a bit of difference:

gepr@elric:~/lang/js$ strace ./fib.js 100 2> fibout1
354224848179262000000
gepr@elric:~/lang/js$ strace ./fib.js 100 2> fibout2
354224848179262000000
gepr@elric:~/lang/js$ diff -C0 fibout?|wc -l
1331


On 10/21/22 08:16, glen wrote:
> No, not even from the user's perspective. The time program helps show how 
> much system, process, and user time is executed by the same script on 
> different systems. This is especially important on multi-user systems, but 
> any system that allows multiple processes will show differences. I suggest 
> you run your script, wrapped by time or strace on the different systems and 
> examine the output.
> 
> Now, *you* as the user, may not have noticed the differences in execution 
> time or resource use. But *you* would not be the canonical Unix user, if 
> that's the case. >8^D Hell, even on VMS, we were plagued with differences 
> between successive executions of various scripts. That you didn't notice such 
> is interesting.
> 
> On 10/21/22 08:08, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>> Yes.  From the user's perspective they ran identically.  Those workstations 
>> didn't even have the same instruction sets.
>>
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:24 AM glen <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>>     By "ran identically", you actually mean "produced identical outputs". 
>> They didn't run identically. Simple ways to see this are system and process 
>> monitors, top, strace, etc.
>>
>>     On 10/20/22 17:19, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>>      > Back in the 80s I wrote many Unix shell scripts.  For my purposes 
>> they ran identically on various workstations whether Sun, SG, or, 
>> eventually, Vax (running Unix).  The software existed in my mind/brain, in 
>> files in the various filesystems, or on paper listings.  What's wrong with 
>> my thinking?
>>      >
>>      > Frank
>>      >
>>      > ---
>>      > Frank C. Wimberly
>>      > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>      > Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>      >
>>      > 505 670-9918
>>      > Santa Fe, NM
>>      >
>>      > On Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 3:52 PM glen <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>>> wrote:
>>      >
>>      >     I can't speak for anyone else. I'm a simulationist. Everything I 
>> do is in terms of analogy [⛧]. But there is no such thing as a fully 
>> transparent or opaque box. And there is no such thing as "software". All 
>> processes are executed by some material mechanism. So if by "computational 
>> metaphor", you mean the tossing out of the differences between any 2 
>> machines executing the same code, then I'm right there with you in rejecting 
>> it. No 2 machines can execute the same (identical) code. But if you define 
>> an analogy well, then you can replace one machine with another machine, up 
>> to some similarity criterion. Equivalence is defined by that similarity 
>> criterion. By your use of the qualifier "merely" in "merely the equivalent", 
>> I infer you think there's something *other* than equivalence, something 
>> other than simulation. I reject that. It's all equivalence, just some 
>> tighter and some looser.
>>      >
>>      >     [⛧] Everyone's welcome to replace "analogy" with "metaphor" if 
>> they so choose. But, to me, "metaphor" tends to wipe away or purposefully 
>> ignore the pragmatics involved in distinguishing any 2 members of an 
>> equivalence class. The literary concept of "metaphor" has it right. It's a 
>> rhetorical, manipulative trick to help us ignore actual difference, whereas 
>> "analogy" helps us remember and account for differences and similarities. 
>> "Metaphor" is an evil word, a crucial tool in the toolkit for manipulators 
>> and gaslighters.
>>      >
>>      >
>>      >     On 10/20/22 13:27, Prof David West wrote:
>>      >      >
>>      >      > Marcus and glen (and others on occasion) have posted 
>> frequently on the "algorithmic "equivalent" of [some feature] of 
>> consciousness, human emotion, etc.
>>      >      >
>>      >      > I am always confronted with the question of of "how 
>> equivalent?" I am almost certain that they are not saying anything close to 
>> absolute equivalence - i.e., that the brain/mind is executing the same 
>> algorithm albeit in, perhaps, a different programming language. But, are 
>> their assertions meant to be "analogous to," "a metaphor for," or some other 
>> semi/pseudo equivalence?
>>      >      >
>>      >      > Perhaps all that is being said is we have two black boxes into 
>> which we put the same inputs and arrive at the same outputs. Voila! We 
>> expose the contents of one black box, an algorithm executing on silicon. 
>> From that we conclude it does not matter what is happening inside the other 
>> black box—whatever it is, our, now, white box is an 'equivalent'.
>>      >      >
>>      >      > Put another way: If I have two objects, A and B, each with an 
>> (ir)regular edge. in this case the irregular edge of A is an inverse match 
>> to that of B—when put together there are no gaps between the two edges. They 
>> "fit."
>>      >      >
>>      >      > Assume that A and B have some means to detect if they "fit" 
>> together. I can think of algorithms that could determine fit, a simplistic 
>> iteration across all points to see if there was a gap between it and its 
>> neighbor, to some kind of collision detection.
>>      >      >
>>      >      > Is it the case that whatever means used by A and B to detect 
>> fit, it is _*/merely/*_ the equivalent of such an algorithm?
>>      >      >
>>      >      > The roots of this question go back to my first two published 
>> papers, in _AI Magazine_ (then the 'journal of record' for AI research); one 
>> critical of the computational metaphor, the second a set of alternative 
>> metaphors of mind. An excerpt relevant to the above example of fit.
>>      >      >
>>      >      > /Tactilizing Processor
>>      >      > /
>>      >      > /Conrad draws his inspiration from the ability of an enzyme to 
>> combine with a substrate on the  basis  of  the  physical  congruency  of  
>> their respective shapes (topography). This is a generalized  version  of  
>> the  lock-and-key  mechanism  as  the  hormone-receptor  matching discussed 
>> by Bergland. When the topographic shape  of  an  enzyme  (hormone)  matches  
>> that of  a  substrate  (receptor),  a  simple  recognize- by-touch  
>> mechanism  (like  two  pieces  of  a puzzle  fitting  together)  allows  a  
>> simple  decision,  binary  state  change,  or  process  to  take place, 
>> hence the label “tactilizing processor.”/
>>      >      >
>>      >      > Hormones and enzymes, probably/possibly, lack the ability to 
>> compute (execute algorithms), so, at most, the black box equivalence might 
>> be used here.
>>      >      >
>>      >      > [BTW, tactilizing processors were built, but were extremely 
>> slow (speed of chemical reactions) but had some advantages derived from 
>> parallelism. Similar 'shape matching' computation was explored in DNA 
>> computing as well.]
>>      >      >
>>      >      > My interest in the issue is the (naive) question about how our 
>> understanding of mind/consciousness is fatally impeded by putting all our 
>> research eggs into the simplistic 'algorithm box'?
>>      >      >
>>      >      > It seems to me that we have the CS/AI/ML equivalent of the 
>> quantum physics world where everyone is told to "shut up and compute" 
>> instead of actually trying to understand the domain and the theory.
>>      >      >
>>      >      > davew
> 
> 

-- 
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