Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!oddjob!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!vu0112
From: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness
Message-ID: <1191@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Date: 9 May 88 18:22:01 GMT
References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <10942@sunybcs.UUCP> <4543@super.upenn.edu> <1179@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <31337@linus.UUCP>
Reply-To: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Distribution: comp
Organization: SUNY Binghamton, NY
Lines: 37
Keywords: randomness responsibility

In article <31337@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Kort) writes:
>I was doing fine reading Cliff's rejoinder to Lloyd's comments until
>I came to this part:
>
>>>We can't demonstrate true randomness in present day computers; 
>>>the closest we can come (to my knowledge) is to generate a string
>>>of numbers which does not repeat itself. [Lloyd]
>
>>This is not possible in a von Neumann machine. [Cliff]
>
>I was under the impression that a simple recursion (or not-so-simple
>if one is a fan of Ramanujan) can emit the digits of pi (or e or
>SQRT(2)) and that such a string does not repeat itself.
>
>I think what Cliff meant is that a von Neumann machine cannot emit
>a string whose structure cannot be divined.

Hmm, I suppose you're right.  I was thinking of your typical
psuedo-random process whose cycle length was a function of the size of
the seed.

I forget the impact on the argument at this point: it seems it would
rest on the epistemic grounds of determining a truly random string from
a simply chaotic one.  My impressions is that this is not always
possible. 

Food for mailer
Food for mailer
Food for mailer
Food for mailer
Food for mailer

-- 
O---------------------------------------------------------------------->
| Cliff Joslyn, Cybernetician at Large
| Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu
V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .