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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: FIRST order?
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Date: Sun, 16 Jul 1995 23:08:19 GMT
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>I guess I have to spell it out.  For any program, and any input, it is
>possible to predict the output by purely mechanical means.  No such
>regularity is known in living beings.

I guess I have to spell it out.  Prediction in principle is irrelevant.
Predictability is not the same as determinability; that's why it is
*pre*diction, not *post*diction or just plain *diction*.  Predicting the
output of a program by *running* it is no prediction at all.  That robs the
word of its useful meaning.  You are using the wrong model.

As for "No such regularity is known", that doesn't mean none exists, which is
the issue.  Perhaps you, unlike Wiener, know the meaning of "argumentum ad
ignorantiam" and can educate him regarding this "term of art" (Wiener
professes to know Latin, I do not; yet it is he who is unfamiliar (or feigns
unfamiliarity for his own immoral purposes) with it).

>>But not the zealotry of accomplished sophists, eh?
>
>I am easily impressed by manifestations of intelligence.

As measured largely by whether they happen to agree with you.

>This is handwaving, not explaining.

I'm sorry if the factual implications of my statements weren't evident
to you, but I'm easily bored by unprincipled sophistry.  I won't
expend a lot of effort to pry you out of the grips of your ideology.
-- 
<J Q B>

