David, thanks.
Hofstadter's G-E-B is a delightful (BIG) book, I regret that I lost my
(voracious ?) reading situation (possibility), especially to re-read it.
Just next week I will quote GEB at a recital I will perform for our area
music club about the Wohltemperiertes which "Bach wrote for his sons to
practice their fingers in piano-technique learning."
I also loved his "translation-book" about that French poem of 1 word lines.-
I cannot recall in which book I read that he was tricked by AI people into
asking esoteric questions from an AI-computer - getting incredible answers,
until next day 'they' confessed and showed him the 5 young guys in another
room who made up the replies for him.
Thanks for the URL
To the statement in question here: "a 'computation' can be
anything I say it is " - I find true, as long as I feel free to identify
'comp' as I like (need) it. (Same for 'numbers' and 'consciousness).
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Nyman" <david.nyman.domain.name.hidden>
To: "Everything List" <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 10:38 AM
Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
>
> jamikes.domain.name.hidden wrote:
>
> > > >In other words, a 'computation' can be
> > > > anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious
> > > > examples).
> > >
> > David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find
such?
>
> John
>
> I was thinking of various examples in 'Godel, Escher, Bach', and it's
> years since I read it. Here's a URL I just Googled that may be
> relevant:
>
> http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6100/geb.html
>
> >From memory, Hofstadter decribes 'implementations' of computations that
> involve the detailed behaviour of anthills, and worse yet, detailed
> descriptions of 'Einstein's Brain' listed in a book that you can
> supposedly ask questions and receive answers! Trouble is, Hofstadter is
> such a brilliantly witty and creative writer that I could never be
> completely sure whether he was deliberately torturing your credulity by
> putting these forward as tongue-in-cheek reductios (like Schroedinger
> with his cat apparently) or whether he was actually serious. I'll have
> to re-read the book.
>
> David
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
> > (Brent's quote):
> > > David Nyman wrote:
> > (I skip the discussion...)
> > >
> > > >In other words, a 'computation' can be
> > > > anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious
> > > > examples).
> > >
> > David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find
such?
> >
> > John M
>
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Received on Thu Oct 05 2006 - 11:59:15 PDT