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From: mwtilden@math.uwaterloo.ca (Mark W. Tilden)
Subject: Re: GREAT Pynchon AI.Life Quote!
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Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 20:50:00 GMT
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In article <3emljr$6ts@crl.crl.com>, Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com> wrote:
>  "If patterns of ones and zeros were 'like' patterns of human lives and 
>death, if everything about an individual could be represented in a 
>computer record by a long string of ones and zeros, then what 
>kind of creature would be represented by a long string of lives and deaths?"
>   - Thomas Pynchon (*Vineland*, pp. 90-91)

Nice idea, but an inexact premise I think.  Saying that a life could be
represented by ones and zeros is like converting all the information
about a life to a single number, then marking that number on a bar with
a notch.  Superficially accurate but lacking the necessary detail.

Living things, not just humans, are a bit more complex than that.

Is all.

-- 
Mark W. Tilden.  "Gomi no Sensei des"   _    _    ________________________
P3, LANL, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA.   / \  / \  /________________________)
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