Re: Edge.org: Jaron Lanier

From: Perry E.Metzger (perry@piermont.com)
Date: Wed Nov 26 2003 - 11:40:35 MST


Aaron McBride <themcbrides@mindspring.com> writes:
> Here is a new article (and video) by Jaron Lanier:
> http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier03/lanier_index.html
>
> "I've had a suspicion for a while that despite the astonishing success
> of the first generation of computer scientists like Shannon, Turing,
> von Neumann, and Wiener, somehow they didn't get a few important
> starting points quite right, and some things in the foundations of
> computer science are fundamentally askew."

I've heard such assertions for the last 20 years, but none of those
making the assertions every show an alternate basis of computation
that somehow works better.

I think what's really being said is "Computation has inherent limits
and awkwardness, because, like mathematical theorems, programs do not
and indeed cannot have a completely predictable structure. Rather than
accepting this, I choose to blame the people who started the field."

-- 
Perry E. Metzger		perry@piermont.com


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