Can you elaborate on this? You've written a whole paragraph, and all that is says is "Turing is bad". You say that we need a comp. sci. revolution from the perspective of a revolutionist. Can you share some insights into what we should replace Turing-based theory once we trash the entire field and replace it? It sounds to me like you've tried to wrap your head around the halting problem and NP-Completness but became furstrated after you were unable to comprehend it.
The Turing machine is not universal because it is inherently sequential by definition. That's its main problem. It cannot handle concurrency by definition. In a true universal machine the elements (operations) are inherently and implicity parallel; sequentiality simply emerges from the interactions. In addition, a true parallel system is temporally deterministic and reactive (signal based). You're free to click on my sig if you want to know more.
Plenty? I don't know if you can qualify 'plenty' with one example. You also used 'in the past' and the question at hand is more about the, you know, present.
Are you kidding me? There are lots of scientists and engineers working right now in the defense industry. It is a huge industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Famous companies like Lockheed, Hughes, Boeing, GM, Ford, Ratheon, BAE, etc.. come to mind. There are also tens of thousands of enlisted and civilian scientists and engineers working directly with the various branches of the military.
[snip stuff about Kuhn that I disagree with but don't feel like arguing about]
The academics who run DARPA would not like my ideas. So I stay away from them.
I'm sure that a) they're heartbroken, and b) you would contribute revolutionary, useful ideas to their cause. Seriously, that was a really pretentious, arrogant statement.
Not at all, because it could be that a) I am a crackpot and they will not give me the light of day or b) I say irreverent things about some dead scientist whose views they consider sacred. I choose the latter. They choose the former. That's all. You or they may consider me arrogant but there is a flip side to this coin. I, too, am free to consider you or them arrogant. That makes us even. It's a matter of opinion and nobody has a monopoly on opinions.
Well, at least I am not an anonymous kook, nor a coward.
Who are or aren't has no bearing on the correctness or rigor of your ideas or of what you say. I, like the previous poster and many other Slashdot readers, read Slashdot; I rarely interact with any of the other readers at all, and thus have no desire to set up an account at yet another web forum or whatever.
You seem to be saying that you respect people more based on their willingness to set up an account rather than on the basis of their ideas. On Slashdot, the designation of anonymous posters as "cowards" is tongue-in-cheek. It's "ha-ha, only serious"-style hacker humor (check the jargon file); don't take it too seriously or turn it into a disingenuous weapon against anonymous posters with whom you quarrel.
Not at all. You don't have to subscribe to Slashdot to identify yourself in a post. If someone is going to accuse me of being a kook or a crackpot, just write your name at the bottom. Don't hide behind internet anonymity. It's cowardly and chicken shit. I often write very controversial things and I get a lot of flack right here on Slashdot from moderators who are out to censor my point of view. But I don't hide my identity. If you can't take it, don't dish it out. That's my point.
Science welcomes such things, if in fact they pan out.
No it does not. If you are a scientist and you want to see your career plummet, try writing anything against Turing or his ideas.
Turing is basically the same as Newton in this situation.
I disagree with the analogy. Turing is not anything like Newton. Turing did not come up with anything really new about computers that had not already been invented by Charles Babbage a century earlier. If you don't believe me, ask any programmer to name one of Turing's unique contributions to computer science that they use in their every day work. Just one.
If you can disprove his theorems, or build a machine that operates under less restrictive assumptions, then get to it and make a name for yourself.
I wish it were that easy. You either misunderstood Kuhn or you are willingly oblivious to reality. Turing is an infallible god in the computer science community. His computing model is considered a god's gift to humanity even though it is awfully inadequate and seriously flawed. The truth is that the Turing machine is inherently and implicitly sequential by definition and does not even consider parallel computation, whereas the universe is parallel. The inadequacy is acutely obvious in light of the parallel programming crisis. Logic dictates that a true universal machine should be inherently and implicitly parallel. Sequential order should be explicit. One man's opinion, of course. History will judge one way or another because computer science is still in its infancy.
Saying science is like a religion, where nobody dares challenge the "orthodoxy", and there's a disincentive to upturning conventional thought, is freaking ludicrous claim in light of the facts.
Well, Thomas Kuhn said it and so did Max Planck and a bunch of others. Your opinion against theirs. I agree with Kuhn because I see it with my own eyes.
PS. I disagree that there has been any progress in quantum computing but that's a different story.
If you were right, then other academic-minded funding agencies, such as NIH and NSF, would be facing the same problem as DARPA, but they are not.
I think they are. Where are the Einsteins working on behalf of NIH and NSF? If they exist, why has research into the parallel programming problem and the software reliability and productivity crises gotten nowhere in the last 30 years? 30 years is an eternity in the computer business.
Kuhn may be popular with the so called 'philosophers' of science, but not too many actual scientists have much use for him or many of his ideas.
I am sure Kuhn fully expected this since his book was critical of scientists. That does not make him wrong, though.
The academy isn't full of a bunch of stodgy old fools who aren't able to keep up with change or adapt to new data or ideas. The academy of today is the same one that has produced many great minds of the past such as Einstein, Turing, and Planck
I'm glad you mentioned Turing because this is rather a propos. IMO, Turing and his ideas are the worse things to have happened to computer science (mod me down as a troll, if you hate Kuhn and/or the free flow of ideas). I am sure you'll disagree on what I have to say but hey, nobody has a monopoly on opinions. Consider that the computer industry is faced with three major crises: software unreliability, low productivity and the parallel programming problem. Guess what? Not one of Turing's supposedly brilliant ideas is of any help. Not a single one! You know why? It's because Turing's ideas are the cause of those crises. Now you may have a different opinion but the academic community is so enfatuated with Turing, that only a world-shaking revolution would displace Turing from his pedestal and replace the old guard with one that does not give a rat's behind about their idol. This is what Kuhn's work is about. Science is like religion and it becomes very entrenched in the status quo. That's too bad because an anti-Turing revolution is precisely what is going to happen to computer science. The time is ripe for a revolution.
The last thing we need is a bunch of people telling us that we're locked into our paradigms, because it's simply not true.
Yeah, I know. This is precisely the sort of smug complacency that Kuhn warned us about. There are plenty of people who disagree with you. The truth is that the paradigms keep on shifting in a revolutionary way, like they always do. Indeed, I believe that the fields of physics and computer science are ripe for a few disruptive changes of their own in the not too distant future. Ever since the arpanet (DARPA funded, mind you) took off and changed into the internet that we know today, we've been living in a much more rapidly changing world. Disruptive technologies are bound to emerge from places other than academia. DARPA would do well to keep its eyes open.
You should seriously consider moving to the Amazon or some other equatorial jungle, then. Be preapred to use violence to defend yourself against some of the locals who might not take too kindly to weird looking strangers like you moving into their neck of the hood:-) . Anyway, just working in a country like the US (or almost any country for that matter) contributes to warfare and violence. What do you think pays for the wars and the weapons? Your taxes, that's what. Having said that, I doubt that most intelligent people would refuse to work for DARPA because of the military issue. There are other factors such as recognition, freedom to work on pet projects, etc... Personally, I am an iconoclast by nature and I tend to go against the grain. The academics who run DARPA would not like my ideas. So I stay away from them.
Even ignoring the hyperbole, maybe they don't want to work for a group who's expressed purpose is to kill people.
This is nonsense, of course. In the past, plenty of highly intelligent people have contributed to warfare and advanced weaponry. Leornardo da Vinci comes to mind. The problem is has to do with what Thomas Kuhn wrote about in "The Structure of Scientific Revolution". DARPA relies on a filtering mechanism that employs academics. Academics are not open to new ideas that may upset their world view. New Einsteins would do just that, disrupt their world view. They therefore tend to avoid organizations like DARPA and prefer to go it alone. Eventually, new paradigms are accepted and science experiences a seismic explosion of creativity. DARPA would do well to encourage disruptive ideas but, given that the old guard is in charge, I am not holding my breath. We might have to wait for them to die off, as Max Planck once suggested.
How is this different from a multi-threaded app in which one thread changes a variable (so during this change, a mutex or critical section must be used so no other thread can modify it), which is then read by n-many threads on multiple processors?
A multi-threaded system consists of multiple algorithms running at the same time. The threads, as you point out, may manipulate the same data. The problem is that the threads are not synchronous: they run at different speeds which wreaks havoc on temporal relationships and leads to unreliability. In a synchronous system, all elementary operations have the same fundamental duration.
What examples of signal-model computers exist today (if any)?
If you mean software systems, there are none that I know of. However, integrated circuits are non-algorithmic signal-based, synchronous systems. That's why they are so stable.
Perhaps I don't know exactly what you mean. Care to elaborate?
In an algorithm communication is limited to only two elements or statements at a time, a predecessor and a successor. In other words, there is a single signal path through the sequential elements. In a non-algorithmic program, by contrast, a predecessor element can communicate with an indefinite number of successor elements. As a result, there are more than one signal path and more than one element may be running synchronously in parallel.
The Future of Computing: Non-algorithmic Software
on
The Future of Computing
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Consider that our basic approach to computer programming has not changed in over a century and a half. It all started when Lady Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm (or table of instructions) for Babbage's gear-driven analytical engine. Software construction has been based on the algorithm ever since. As a result, we are now struggling with hundreds of operating systems and programming languages and the ensuing unreliability and unmanageable complexity. It's a veritable tower of Babel. Computing will not reach its true potential unless and until we abandon the algorithmic model and embrace a non-algorithmic, signal-based, synchronous software model. Only then will we be able to guarantee that our software systems are free of defects. There will be no limit to their complexity.
Donofrio is correct only within the context of the current computing paradigm. Consider that our current computing model has not changed much since Lady Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithmic program for Babbage's analytical engine, a computer built with gears and rotating shafts! That was a century and a half ago. We've been writing algorithms ever since. Now we are mired in a sea of complexity and unreliable software that even experts can make ends of. I think it's time for a change. Only by switching to a non-algorithmic, signal-based, synchronous computing model will computing reach its true potential. It will not only eliminate the biggest problem of the computer industry (unreliability), but it will open up programming to the masses and usher in an explosion of creativity. A true renaissance of the computer age is in the making.
I didn't express an opinion, I stated a fact. Are you not the same 'Louis Savain' whose posts to sci.physics.relativity, amongst other Usenet groups, are the source of much ridicule and disdain?
Says a well-known crackpot, whose loony posts to sci.physics.relativity are the sole driving force behind the ever-bouyant market for humour-related incontinence pads.
Asking why things happen is verging into the realm of philosophy, rather than physics.
Of all the scientific fields, only physicists make this idiotic claim. Why? Because they really have no clue as to what is really going on. All other sciences are based on causality, from biology to psychology to artificial intelligence and computer science. Physicists have fallen in love with ignorance and pedantry.
Equations festoon the pages, daring you to ignore them. But you may not, they're fundamental to the discussion. Mr. Oliver opines that anyone with basic undergraduate math should be able to handle it.
If you have to use math to explain something to someone else, it is because you do not truly understand it at its fundamamental level. Math does not explain anything. On the contrary, it is the math that cries for a physical explanation.
As an example, neither Newtonian's inverse square law nor Einstein's GR equations explain why things fall. They just describe the motion of massive bodies with respect to one another.
Actually, you can jump up and down and foam at the mouth but nothing belongs to you. Not your writing, nor your car or your house. Someone else may come along and kick your sorry ass off the land and shit all over your writing. This has been demonstrated over and over again throughout history. Just ask the Indians. A little humility is in order.
IP isn't property. It never has and never will be.
I posted this before but a clueless moderator is trying to silence me:
If you can't put a fence around it or put chains on it, it does not belong to you. Like the air that we breathe, it belongs to nobody and everybody. The only reason that there are IP laws is because we have an economic system based on slavery (labor).
A good system should be based on property not labor. The land (earth) has been around for billions of years. It does not belong to anyone in particular. It should be divided among families for an inheritance. It should not be divided for a price. It should be an inheritance for our children and their children.
What will we do when robots and AI replace everybody, i.e., when human labor and expertise become worthless? Neither capitalism nor communism will do since they are both based on labor. Always demand liberty, nothing less.
If you can't put a fence around it or put chains on it, like the air that we breathe, it belongs to nobody and everybody. The only reason that there are IP laws is because we have an economic system based on slavery (labor).
The system should be based on property not labor. The land (earth) has been around for billions of years. It does not belong to anyone in particular. It should be divided among families for an inheritance. It should not be divided for a price. It should be an inheritance for our children and their children.
What will we do when robots and AI replace everybody, i.e., when human labor and expertise becomes worthless? Neither capitalism nor communism will do since they are both based on labor. Always demand liberty, nothing less.
The grid related problems faced in particle physics are of another nature, such as ensuring that the data is copied around the various grid facilities as needed and of ensuring that even if a given node fails to execute its job for some reason it is rerun elsewhere automatically - that sort of thing.
I appreciate your input on this matter. I tend to look at things from an AI/neural network perpective. So I thought, there is no way a brain could be simulated on a world grid because timing is crucial to the brain's operation. However, I can see where repetitive computations on isolated (although related) problems can benefit immensely from a world grid. Thanks for clarifying this.
I don't see what this has to do with Big Brother. What about robots of the future? They will have eyes to see, won't they? Are we going to need to add a special law for robots: A robot must not look at a human being? That's ridiculous. It is a Big Brother problem only if it is used by the government or some other organization for spying purposes. Casual observation by a machine as you move around a store is no more spying than being observed by a salesperson or spotted by a security guard.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you elaborate on this? You've written a whole paragraph, and all that is says is "Turing is bad". You say that we need a comp. sci. revolution from the perspective of a revolutionist. Can you share some insights into what we should replace Turing-based theory once we trash the entire field and replace it? It sounds to me like you've tried to wrap your head around the halting problem and NP-Completness but became furstrated after you were unable to comprehend it.
The Turing machine is not universal because it is inherently sequential by definition. That's its main problem. It cannot handle concurrency by definition. In a true universal machine the elements (operations) are inherently and implicity parallel; sequentiality simply emerges from the interactions. In addition, a true parallel system is temporally deterministic and reactive (signal based). You're free to click on my sig if you want to know more.
Plenty? I don't know if you can qualify 'plenty' with one example. You also used 'in the past' and the question at hand is more about the, you know, present.
Are you kidding me? There are lots of scientists and engineers working right now in the defense industry. It is a huge industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Famous companies like Lockheed, Hughes, Boeing, GM, Ford, Ratheon, BAE, etc.. come to mind. There are also tens of thousands of enlisted and civilian scientists and engineers working directly with the various branches of the military.
[snip stuff about Kuhn that I disagree with but don't feel like arguing about]
The academics who run DARPA would not like my ideas. So I stay away from them.
I'm sure that a) they're heartbroken, and b) you would contribute revolutionary, useful ideas to their cause. Seriously, that was a really pretentious, arrogant statement.
Not at all, because it could be that a) I am a crackpot and they will not give me the light of day or b) I say irreverent things about some dead scientist whose views they consider sacred. I choose the latter. They choose the former. That's all. You or they may consider me arrogant but there is a flip side to this coin. I, too, am free to consider you or them arrogant. That makes us even. It's a matter of opinion and nobody has a monopoly on opinions.
Well, at least I am not an anonymous kook, nor a coward.
Who are or aren't has no bearing on the correctness or rigor of your ideas or of what you say. I, like the previous poster and many other Slashdot readers, read Slashdot; I rarely interact with any of the other readers at all, and thus have no desire to set up an account at yet another web forum or whatever.
You seem to be saying that you respect people more based on their willingness to set up an account rather than on the basis of their ideas. On Slashdot, the designation of anonymous posters as "cowards" is tongue-in-cheek. It's "ha-ha, only serious"-style hacker humor (check the jargon file); don't take it too seriously or turn it into a disingenuous weapon against anonymous posters with whom you quarrel.
Not at all. You don't have to subscribe to Slashdot to identify yourself in a post. If someone is going to accuse me of being a kook or a crackpot, just write your name at the bottom. Don't hide behind internet anonymity. It's cowardly and chicken shit. I often write very controversial things and I get a lot of flack right here on Slashdot from moderators who are out to censor my point of view. But I don't hide my identity. If you can't take it, don't dish it out. That's my point.
That makes us even then. :-D
Science welcomes such things, if in fact they pan out.
No it does not. If you are a scientist and you want to see your career plummet, try writing anything against Turing or his ideas.
Turing is basically the same as Newton in this situation.
I disagree with the analogy. Turing is not anything like Newton. Turing did not come up with anything really new about computers that had not already been invented by Charles Babbage a century earlier. If you don't believe me, ask any programmer to name one of Turing's unique contributions to computer science that they use in their every day work. Just one.
If you can disprove his theorems, or build a machine that operates under less restrictive assumptions, then get to it and make a name for yourself.
I wish it were that easy. You either misunderstood Kuhn or you are willingly oblivious to reality. Turing is an infallible god in the computer science community. His computing model is considered a god's gift to humanity even though it is awfully inadequate and seriously flawed. The truth is that the Turing machine is inherently and implicitly sequential by definition and does not even consider parallel computation, whereas the universe is parallel. The inadequacy is acutely obvious in light of the parallel programming crisis. Logic dictates that a true universal machine should be inherently and implicitly parallel. Sequential order should be explicit. One man's opinion, of course. History will judge one way or another because computer science is still in its infancy.
Saying science is like a religion, where nobody dares challenge the "orthodoxy", and there's a disincentive to upturning conventional thought, is freaking ludicrous claim in light of the facts.
Well, Thomas Kuhn said it and so did Max Planck and a bunch of others. Your opinion against theirs. I agree with Kuhn because I see it with my own eyes.
PS. I disagree that there has been any progress in quantum computing but that's a different story.
You seem to believe yourself to be some kind of grand revolutionary - smarter and more capable than those fools in the universities.
Nope. There are many others who share my ideas. They are just not as upfront as I am.
It's far more likely that you're nothing but a simple kook.
ahahaha... Well, at least I am not an anonymous kook, nor a coward. I face the music, unlike some other people, right?
If you were right, then other academic-minded funding agencies, such as NIH and NSF, would be facing the same problem as DARPA, but they are not.
I think they are. Where are the Einsteins working on behalf of NIH and NSF? If they exist, why has research into the parallel programming problem and the software reliability and productivity crises gotten nowhere in the last 30 years? 30 years is an eternity in the computer business.
Uh, doesn't this jibe with what I said? Paradigms can't shift if people are locked into them.
But they are.
Kuhn may be popular with the so called 'philosophers' of science, but not too many actual scientists have much use for him or many of his ideas.
I am sure Kuhn fully expected this since his book was critical of scientists. That does not make him wrong, though.
The academy isn't full of a bunch of stodgy old fools who aren't able to keep up with change or adapt to new data or ideas. The academy of today is the same one that has produced many great minds of the past such as Einstein, Turing, and Planck
I'm glad you mentioned Turing because this is rather a propos. IMO, Turing and his ideas are the worse things to have happened to computer science (mod me down as a troll, if you hate Kuhn and/or the free flow of ideas). I am sure you'll disagree on what I have to say but hey, nobody has a monopoly on opinions. Consider that the computer industry is faced with three major crises: software unreliability, low productivity and the parallel programming problem. Guess what? Not one of Turing's supposedly brilliant ideas is of any help. Not a single one! You know why? It's because Turing's ideas are the cause of those crises. Now you may have a different opinion but the academic community is so enfatuated with Turing, that only a world-shaking revolution would displace Turing from his pedestal and replace the old guard with one that does not give a rat's behind about their idol. This is what Kuhn's work is about. Science is like religion and it becomes very entrenched in the status quo. That's too bad because an anti-Turing revolution is precisely what is going to happen to computer science. The time is ripe for a revolution.
The last thing we need is a bunch of people telling us that we're locked into our paradigms, because it's simply not true.
Yeah, I know. This is precisely the sort of smug complacency that Kuhn warned us about. There are plenty of people who disagree with you. The truth is that the paradigms keep on shifting in a revolutionary way, like they always do. Indeed, I believe that the fields of physics and computer science are ripe for a few disruptive changes of their own in the not too distant future. Ever since the arpanet (DARPA funded, mind you) took off and changed into the internet that we know today, we've been living in a much more rapidly changing world. Disruptive technologies are bound to emerge from places other than academia. DARPA would do well to keep its eyes open.
I consider it equal to being a murderer.
:-) . Anyway, just working in a country like the US (or almost any country for that matter) contributes to warfare and violence. What do you think pays for the wars and the weapons? Your taxes, that's what. Having said that, I doubt that most intelligent people would refuse to work for DARPA because of the military issue. There are other factors such as recognition, freedom to work on pet projects, etc... Personally, I am an iconoclast by nature and I tend to go against the grain. The academics who run DARPA would not like my ideas. So I stay away from them.
You should seriously consider moving to the Amazon or some other equatorial jungle, then. Be preapred to use violence to defend yourself against some of the locals who might not take too kindly to weird looking strangers like you moving into their neck of the hood
Even ignoring the hyperbole, maybe they don't want to work for a group who's expressed purpose is to kill people.
This is nonsense, of course. In the past, plenty of highly intelligent people have contributed to warfare and advanced weaponry. Leornardo da Vinci comes to mind. The problem is has to do with what Thomas Kuhn wrote about in "The Structure of Scientific Revolution". DARPA relies on a filtering mechanism that employs academics. Academics are not open to new ideas that may upset their world view. New Einsteins would do just that, disrupt their world view. They therefore tend to avoid organizations like DARPA and prefer to go it alone. Eventually, new paradigms are accepted and science experiences a seismic explosion of creativity. DARPA would do well to encourage disruptive ideas but, given that the old guard is in charge, I am not holding my breath. We might have to wait for them to die off, as Max Planck once suggested.
How is this different from a multi-threaded app in which one thread changes a variable (so during this change, a mutex or critical section must be used so no other thread can modify it), which is then read by n-many threads on multiple processors?
A multi-threaded system consists of multiple algorithms running at the same time. The threads, as you point out, may manipulate the same data. The problem is that the threads are not synchronous: they run at different speeds which wreaks havoc on temporal relationships and leads to unreliability. In a synchronous system, all elementary operations have the same fundamental duration.
What examples of signal-model computers exist today (if any)?
If you mean software systems, there are none that I know of. However, integrated circuits are non-algorithmic signal-based, synchronous systems. That's why they are so stable.
Perhaps I don't know exactly what you mean. Care to elaborate?
In an algorithm communication is limited to only two elements or statements at a time, a predecessor and a successor. In other words, there is a single signal path through the sequential elements. In a non-algorithmic program, by contrast, a predecessor element can communicate with an indefinite number of successor elements. As a result, there are more than one signal path and more than one element may be running synchronously in parallel.
Consider that our basic approach to computer programming has not changed in over a century and a half. It all started when Lady Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm (or table of instructions) for Babbage's gear-driven analytical engine. Software construction has been based on the algorithm ever since. As a result, we are now struggling with hundreds of operating systems and programming languages and the ensuing unreliability and unmanageable complexity. It's a veritable tower of Babel. Computing will not reach its true potential unless and until we abandon the algorithmic model and embrace a non-algorithmic, signal-based, synchronous software model. Only then will we be able to guarantee that our software systems are free of defects. There will be no limit to their complexity.
Donofrio is correct only within the context of the current computing paradigm. Consider that our current computing model has not changed much since Lady Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithmic program for Babbage's analytical engine, a computer built with gears and rotating shafts! That was a century and a half ago. We've been writing algorithms ever since. Now we are mired in a sea of complexity and unreliable software that even experts can make ends of. I think it's time for a change. Only by switching to a non-algorithmic, signal-based, synchronous computing model will computing reach its true potential. It will not only eliminate the biggest problem of the computer industry (unreliability), but it will open up programming to the masses and usher in an explosion of creativity. A true renaissance of the computer age is in the making.
I didn't express an opinion, I stated a fact. Are you not the same 'Louis Savain' whose posts to sci.physics.relativity, amongst other Usenet groups, are the source of much ridicule and disdain?
And your point is...?
Says a well-known crackpot, whose loony posts to sci.physics.relativity are the sole driving force behind the ever-bouyant market for humour-related incontinence pads.
And your opinion matters to me because...?
Asking why things happen is verging into the realm of philosophy, rather than physics.
Of all the scientific fields, only physicists make this idiotic claim. Why? Because they really have no clue as to what is really going on. All other sciences are based on causality, from biology to psychology to artificial intelligence and computer science. Physicists have fallen in love with ignorance and pedantry.
Equations festoon the pages, daring you to ignore them. But you may not, they're fundamental to the discussion. Mr. Oliver opines that anyone with basic undergraduate math should be able to handle it.
If you have to use math to explain something to someone else, it is because you do not truly understand it at its fundamamental level. Math does not explain anything. On the contrary, it is the math that cries for a physical explanation.
As an example, neither Newtonian's inverse square law nor Einstein's GR equations explain why things fall. They just describe the motion of massive bodies with respect to one another.
Horseshit. My writing belongs to me.
Actually, you can jump up and down and foam at the mouth but nothing belongs to you. Not your writing, nor your car or your house. Someone else may come along and kick your sorry ass off the land and shit all over your writing. This has been demonstrated over and over again throughout history. Just ask the Indians. A little humility is in order.
Solving the Software Crisis:
IP isn't property. It never has and never will be.
I posted this before but a clueless moderator is trying to silence me:
If you can't put a fence around it or put chains on it, it does not belong to you. Like the air that we breathe, it belongs to nobody and everybody. The only reason that there are IP laws is because we have an economic system based on slavery (labor).
A good system should be based on property not labor. The land (earth) has been around for billions of years. It does not belong to anyone in particular. It should be divided among families for an inheritance. It should not be divided for a price. It should be an inheritance for our children and their children.
What will we do when robots and AI replace everybody, i.e., when human labor and expertise become worthless? Neither capitalism nor communism will do since they are both based on labor. Always demand liberty, nothing less.
If you can't put a fence around it or put chains on it, like the air that we breathe, it belongs to nobody and everybody. The only reason that there are IP laws is because we have an economic system based on slavery (labor).
The system should be based on property not labor. The land (earth) has been around for billions of years. It does not belong to anyone in particular. It should be divided among families for an inheritance. It should not be divided for a price. It should be an inheritance for our children and their children.
What will we do when robots and AI replace everybody, i.e., when human labor and expertise becomes worthless? Neither capitalism nor communism will do since they are both based on labor. Always demand liberty, nothing less.
The grid related problems faced in particle physics are of another nature, such as ensuring that the data is copied around the various grid facilities as needed and of ensuring that even if a given node fails to execute its job for some reason it is rerun elsewhere automatically - that sort of thing.
I appreciate your input on this matter. I tend to look at things from an AI/neural network perpective. So I thought, there is no way a brain could be simulated on a world grid because timing is crucial to the brain's operation. However, I can see where repetitive computations on isolated (although related) problems can benefit immensely from a world grid. Thanks for clarifying this.
I don't see what this has to do with Big Brother. What about robots of the future? They will have eyes to see, won't they? Are we going to need to add a special law for robots: A robot must not look at a human being? That's ridiculous. It is a Big Brother problem only if it is used by the government or some other organization for spying purposes. Casual observation by a machine as you move around a store is no more spying than being observed by a salesperson or spotted by a security guard.