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From: khorsell@ee.latrobe.edu.au (Kym Horsell)
Subject: Re: What is a crackpot?
Sender: news@lugb.latrobe.edu.au (News System)
Message-ID: <3s5i5q$mv3@laplace.ee.latrobe.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 04:18:02 GMT
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References: <3rk9n5$ejh@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com> <3rotg1$str@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU> <3rr4ig$eps@laplace.ee.latrobe.edu.au> <3s3910$8ji@ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>
Organization: School of Electronic Engineering, La Trobe University
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.physics:126111 comp.ai:30723 sci.skeptic:116284

In article <3s3910$8ji@ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>,
Jack Sarfatti <sarfatti@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In <3rr4ig$eps@laplace.ee.latrobe.edu.au> khorsell@ee.latrobe.edu.au
>(Kym Horsell) writes: 
>
>>Some would extend that to very complex systems-as-a-whole such
>>as human beings. But obviously this is a very chancy business
>>at best. Unlike (simple models of) electrons, people can change, they 
>>can lie, they can remember, they can "remember the future" aka
>>anticipate, they have complex goals.
>
>I call anticipation a weak form of "remembering the future". The
>idea is classically local and in accord with the principle of retarded
>causality (effects after causes in all inertial frames, ergo no causal
>relations across spacelike intervals outside the light cones). The idea
>also includes the notion that the mind is algorithmic executing
>programs only forward in time.

"remembering the future" wasn't meant to _require_ such notions as 
"deterministic algorithms" of course.

In a sense nondeterministic algorithms might represent something along
the lines of what I meant -- ones that appear to have access to a
"magic genie" that determines at each point where a choice is to
be made which is the "right" once (as far as I know "right" can be
generalised). 

One view of this might be "the algorithm tried all possibilities and told 
itself at the start what to do". And this is not eliminated by P=NP -- 
there are more non-det algorithms than the "efficient" ones. ;-)

>[various other things]

I certainly have a great deal of sympathy (in the nicest possible sense)
for the position(s) you advocate.

-- 
R. Kym Horsell
khorsell@EE.Latrobe.EDU.AU              kym@CS.Binghamton.EDU 
