On Sunday 07 Dec 2003 1:27 pm, Lanman wrote:
You might be surprised to learn how many people think computers are intelligent, simply because they are so hard to learn ! I get that very often ! Once I explain that a significant amount of the complexity is due to the fact that computers are essentially stupid, things usually go better!
I'll own that for a long time I told people that computers were logical, and could not do whatever it was that was totally illogical. Eventually I came to see that we had passed a point of complexity at which apparently illogical things do happen because of interactions that we may be totally ignorant or unaware of. Now I just say that they are supposed to be logical, but accompany it with a wry grin.
In situations like this, I go for the Dr. McCoy appraoch: "It's logic, captain, but not as we know it."
Sir Robin
-- "Certitude is possible for those who only own one encyclopedia." - Robert Anton Wilson
Robin Turner IDMYO Bilkent Univeritesi Ankara 06533 Turkey
www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin
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