Actually, he does. After several games, the brain can extrapolate pretty accurately the necessary parameters. The guy doesn't think in terms of parameters and forces, of course. But the brain adapts to the problem.
But since we are able to do everything a turing machine can do as well, this means the pattern matching is just another form of a turing machine, right?
As mentioned before, it is all a matter of how the problem is viewed. If you can translate the addition into an abstract visual model, then the brain is very quick.
Yes, the brain works visually, and this is the problem with math. Mathematicians often say that they imagine the mathematical problems in a visual way, but so abstract that it cannot be painted on paper. So the actual problem is the translation.
Functional languages are no silver bullet, however. Things like I/O do not fit well in there. Yes, there are solutions for this, but they tend to be overly complicated. A hybrid functional/imperative language with safeguards for side-effects of the imperative parts seems to be the way to go.
In this case, the current parallelization efforts miss the point. Is there actual research into CPUs consisting of billion miniscule neuron-like units? Something like a neural net hardware? Maybe these would fare better than pure software ones...
Well the indeterministic nature of multithreading is still a problem. With one thread, debugging is simple: the only thread present will be stopped. But with multiple threads, how is the debugger supposed to handle the problem? Stop all threads? Only the current one? Etc. This is relevant when debugging race conditions.
Also, the second great problem is that thread problems are hard to find. When I write a class hierarchy, an OOP language can help me with seeing design errors (for example, unnecessary multiple inheritance), or misses in const-correctness. Threading, however, is only present as mutexes, conditions etc.
One other issue with threads is that they effectively modify the execution sequence. Traditional single-threaded programs have a sequence that looks like a long line. Threading introduces branches and joins, turning the simple line into a net. Obviously, this complicates things. Petri nets can be useful in modeling this.
Again: Creationism isnt banned because its religion, its banned because it does NOT qualify as a scientific theory. Period. A scientific theory must not include non-verifiable factors. God *is* a non-verifiable factor. Come, try to disprove God! Try to prove God! Neither is possible. So God *might* exist, but we cannot verify that. The result is that you can explain everything away with God. "Cambrian Explosion... hmm.... oh, I'm sure God did it!" "Well why has the eye a blind spot, which is an obvious design error.... oh I know, God designed it, and this is actually some kind of test!" etc.
As a result, in the Dark Ages everything was clear, no questions were unanswered: "God did it", and when Gods works were illogical, "God works in mysterious ways". Fortunately, some people didn't buy into the cheap God answer and started researching...
This is another big indicator: Science can never be closed. There are always unanswered question. Creationism IS closed, since everything is "proven" by God.
About the Big Bang, yes people tend to confuse things, and it is widely believed to be a truth, which is just incorrect. But Creationism - without the God joker - can be easily disproven by fossils, geological and biological evidence. But oh, I know, God planted that evidence as a test, right?
Limitless unverifiable factors. E.g. zero factors with scientific value. Take God out of ID, and the whole thing falls apart. Besides, this question has been asked many times, and one possible answer is the anthropic principle, e.g. no matter how small the chances of a life-supporting universe are, this one must support life because we are here to see it. Therefore, the probability is irrelevant and no proof at all.
This does not explain - the background radiation's homogeneity - why the redshift is so uniform, e.g. why galaxies seem to be moving away from one another
Note that these are also the main reasons why steady state theories are dismissed.
It just has to be falsifiable. A well-constructed theory depends on several factors. Disprove one, and at least parts of the theory are no longer valid.
ID does not qualify as a scientific theory because of including God as a factor. God, however, cannot be probed. No one can prove or disprove God, essentially turning God into a joker. "Hmm... there was the Cambrian Explosion... oh - I know, God did it!" Since god is a non-verifiable entity, it has no place in science. For the same reason, some scientists are starting to dismiss String Theory (there is currently no way to verify it).
Explain to me the cosmic background radiation, the galaxy redshift, the decrease of the alpha constant... the big bang theory has explanations for these.
You are yet another one of the persons who falsely believe that science deals with truths. Guess what: SCIENCE DOES NOT DEAL WITH TRUTHS. It deals with MODELS, called "theories". No one claims that the big bang is "the truth". It is the best thing we have, however, since it explains most phenomena. Your jain stuff has to be verifiable AND be a) simpler than the big bang theory and/or b) cover phenomena not explained by it, then it could be considered a valid theory.
2. Relevant for old hardware, yes. For new hardware, use the closed-source ones. 3. Ha ha. Good devs aren't common or expendable. nvidia has some VERY good devs working at these drivers. A 3D graphics driver is not trivial to develop. And unlike many free-as-in-freedom evangelists think, it IS much more difficult than a NIC driver. 4. Unfortunately, this is one reason why IHVs tend not to support Linux (read "support" as in writing drivers by themselves and providing call-center support).
Nouveaux is the closest thing there is to a free, decent 3D graphics driver, and guess what - its because they use reverse-engineered stuff. Its not just the specs. A lot of the 3D functionality is in the drivers themselves.
History shows unfortunately that idealists, especially fundamentalist idealists, nearly always did much more harm than good, even though their ideals might look quite good, theoretically.
Yeah, or to make it short: "hell is paved with good intentions." Always fear those who want to make the world a better place.
A good point, I also considered this a while ago. However, there are key arguments against this.
1) BSD was involved in the AT&T case back when Linux started to take off. Maybe without the lawsuit things would have been different. 2) IBM. Never forget IBM. They are the Nr.1 Linux supporters. Without IBM, Linux may never have come this popular. Thanks to IBM support, Linux is actually considered for servers. Why? Precisely because IBM offers support. Red Hat wouldn't have been enough, they didn't have a name back then. IBM had. 3) Linus is a pragmatist. He didn't mind involving corporations in the Linux development. A evangelist Linus would have resulted in something entirely different. 4) Maybe it was just casual? I mean, look at the entire community. We have Unix veterans, GPL evangelists, ex-Amiga guys, ex-Windows guys, gamers-turned-programmers (esp. in the 3D graphics sector). They were scattered before, and Linux became a focal point for all these groups. Considering (1), BSD could have become that focal point too. Especially the ex-Amiga guys tend to despise the GPL campaigns, and spiritually they are much closer to BSD, but Linux is the alternative OS with the best hardware support..
What we see is a problem I noticed a while ago. There are TWO main groups in the Linux community: the pragmatists and the idealists.
The pragmatists want a Windows alternative. They want Linux to be this alternative. License issues are secondary. This group well accepts closed-source software and -drivers. Their primary goal is to push Desktop Linux so that MS is no longer the hyperpowerful monopoly.
The idealists want everything to be free. They couldn't care less about Linux being popular, they want a 100% free system, even if it means that only 5 people in the world use it.
The FSF belongs to the latter group. However, one argument the pragmatists definitely have is by not pushing Linux the idealists ultimately give MS carte blanche to redesign the IT sector to their liking. This can't happen if there is a real competitor. In the end, Linux may not run at all on *any* PC because of this.
This is why I wonder why BSD wasn't pushed. It does not have any license worries, and could work just as well on a desktop.
Well, I doubt nvidia and ATI will answer that one... so one of the biggest problems - full support of the most popular graphics cards - is still unsolved.
You want *useful* OpenGL support in Linux? Use the blobs. There is no other choice, unfortunately. Also, I find the answer "use Windows then" ironic - it means that for using the OpenGL standard I have to use a non-free OS because the free one locks it out. Oh, except when using 3D stuff from 1995..
Slashdot Mirror
You didn't read the article, did you.
The poor DO NOT CARE about free-as-in-freedom. OpenOffice does not give them the chance for getting a job, MS Office does. So MS Office wins.
You can start thinking about free-as-in-freedom once your belly is full.
But *why* does it terminate every calculation? In which situations? Is it actually proven that the brain always terminates its calculations?
Actually, he does. After several games, the brain can extrapolate pretty accurately the necessary parameters. The guy doesn't think in terms of parameters and forces, of course. But the brain adapts to the problem.
But since we are able to do everything a turing machine can do as well, this means the pattern matching is just another form of a turing machine, right?
As mentioned before, it is all a matter of how the problem is viewed. If you can translate the addition into an abstract visual model, then the brain is very quick.
Yes, the brain works visually, and this is the problem with math. Mathematicians often say that they imagine the mathematical problems in a visual way, but so abstract that it cannot be painted on paper. So the actual problem is the translation.
Functional languages are no silver bullet, however. Things like I/O do not fit well in there. Yes, there are solutions for this, but they tend to be overly complicated. A hybrid functional/imperative language with safeguards for side-effects of the imperative parts seems to be the way to go.
In this case, the current parallelization efforts miss the point. Is there actual research into CPUs consisting of billion miniscule neuron-like units? Something like a neural net hardware? Maybe these would fare better than pure software ones...
Well the indeterministic nature of multithreading is still a problem. With one thread, debugging is simple: the only thread present will be stopped. But with multiple threads, how is the debugger supposed to handle the problem? Stop all threads? Only the current one? Etc. This is relevant when debugging race conditions.
Also, the second great problem is that thread problems are hard to find. When I write a class hierarchy, an OOP language can help me with seeing design errors (for example, unnecessary multiple inheritance), or misses in const-correctness. Threading, however, is only present as mutexes, conditions etc.
One other issue with threads is that they effectively modify the execution sequence. Traditional single-threaded programs have a sequence that looks like a long line. Threading introduces branches and joins, turning the simple line into a net. Obviously, this complicates things. Petri nets can be useful in modeling this.
"but is likely to face diminishing returns as 16 and 32 processor systems are realized"
Then we are doing something wrong. The human brain provides compelling evidence that massive parallelization works. So: what are we missing?
Hey, I have nothing against the God concept. But God just doesn't fit into science. Thats it. I already explained why.
Again: ... hmm.... oh, I'm sure God did it!" "Well why has the eye a blind spot, which is an obvious design error .... oh I know, God designed it, and this is actually some kind of test!" etc.
Creationism isnt banned because its religion, its banned because it does NOT qualify as a scientific theory. Period. A scientific theory must not include non-verifiable factors. God *is* a non-verifiable factor. Come, try to disprove God! Try to prove God! Neither is possible. So God *might* exist, but we cannot verify that. The result is that you can explain everything away with God. "Cambrian Explosion
As a result, in the Dark Ages everything was clear, no questions were unanswered: "God did it", and when Gods works were illogical, "God works in mysterious ways". Fortunately, some people didn't buy into the cheap God answer and started researching...
This is another big indicator: Science can never be closed. There are always unanswered question. Creationism IS closed, since everything is "proven" by God.
About the Big Bang, yes people tend to confuse things, and it is widely believed to be a truth, which is just incorrect. But Creationism - without the God joker - can be easily disproven by fossils, geological and biological evidence. But oh, I know, God planted that evidence as a test, right?
Limitless unverifiable factors. E.g. zero factors with scientific value. Take God out of ID, and the whole thing falls apart.
Besides, this question has been asked many times, and one possible answer is the anthropic principle, e.g. no matter how small the chances of a life-supporting universe are, this one must support life because we are here to see it. Therefore, the probability is irrelevant and no proof at all.
This does not explain
- the background radiation's homogeneity
- why the redshift is so uniform, e.g. why galaxies seem to be moving away from one another
Note that these are also the main reasons why steady state theories are dismissed.
It just has to be falsifiable. A well-constructed theory depends on several factors. Disprove one, and at least parts of the theory are no longer valid.
ID does not qualify as a scientific theory because of including God as a factor. God, however, cannot be probed. No one can prove or disprove God, essentially turning God into a joker. "Hmm... there was the Cambrian Explosion... oh - I know, God did it!" Since god is a non-verifiable entity, it has no place in science. For the same reason, some scientists are starting to dismiss String Theory (there is currently no way to verify it).
Sigh...
Its not mythology.
Explain to me the cosmic background radiation, the galaxy redshift, the decrease of the alpha constant... the big bang theory has explanations for these.
You are yet another one of the persons who falsely believe that science deals with truths. Guess what: SCIENCE DOES NOT DEAL WITH TRUTHS. It deals with MODELS, called "theories". No one claims that the big bang is "the truth". It is the best thing we have, however, since it explains most phenomena. Your jain stuff has to be verifiable AND be a) simpler than the big bang theory and/or b) cover phenomena not explained by it, then it could be considered a valid theory.
2. Relevant for old hardware, yes. For new hardware, use the closed-source ones.
3. Ha ha. Good devs aren't common or expendable. nvidia has some VERY good devs working at these drivers. A 3D graphics driver is not trivial to develop. And unlike many free-as-in-freedom evangelists think, it IS much more difficult than a NIC driver.
4. Unfortunately, this is one reason why IHVs tend not to support Linux (read "support" as in writing drivers by themselves and providing call-center support).
Nouveaux is the closest thing there is to a free, decent 3D graphics driver, and guess what - its because they use reverse-engineered stuff. Its not just the specs. A lot of the 3D functionality is in the drivers themselves.
History shows unfortunately that idealists, especially fundamentalist idealists, nearly always did much more harm than good, even though their ideals might look quite good, theoretically.
Yeah, or to make it short: "hell is paved with good intentions." Always fear those who want to make the world a better place.
Well, absolute freedom is ultimately self-contradictory. Absolute freedom includes the option of voluntarily giving up freedom.
A good point, I also considered this a while ago. However, there are key arguments against this.
1) BSD was involved in the AT&T case back when Linux started to take off. Maybe without the lawsuit things would have been different.
2) IBM. Never forget IBM. They are the Nr.1 Linux supporters. Without IBM, Linux may never have come this popular. Thanks to IBM support, Linux is actually considered for servers. Why? Precisely because IBM offers support. Red Hat wouldn't have been enough, they didn't have a name back then. IBM had.
3) Linus is a pragmatist. He didn't mind involving corporations in the Linux development. A evangelist Linus would have resulted in something entirely different.
4) Maybe it was just casual? I mean, look at the entire community. We have Unix veterans, GPL evangelists, ex-Amiga guys, ex-Windows guys, gamers-turned-programmers (esp. in the 3D graphics sector). They were scattered before, and Linux became a focal point for all these groups. Considering (1), BSD could have become that focal point too. Especially the ex-Amiga guys tend to despise the GPL campaigns, and spiritually they are much closer to BSD, but Linux is the alternative OS with the best hardware support..
What we see is a problem I noticed a while ago. There are TWO main groups in the Linux community: the pragmatists and the idealists.
The pragmatists want a Windows alternative. They want Linux to be this alternative. License issues are secondary. This group well accepts closed-source software and -drivers. Their primary goal is to push Desktop Linux so that MS is no longer the hyperpowerful monopoly.
The idealists want everything to be free. They couldn't care less about Linux being popular, they want a 100% free system, even if it means that only 5 people in the world use it.
The FSF belongs to the latter group. However, one argument the pragmatists definitely have is by not pushing Linux the idealists ultimately give MS carte blanche to redesign the IT sector to their liking. This can't happen if there is a real competitor. In the end, Linux may not run at all on *any* PC because of this.
This is why I wonder why BSD wasn't pushed. It does not have any license worries, and could work just as well on a desktop.
It should be noted, however, that this is actually an Evolution bug. See the screenshots below.
Intel Graphics? And reasonable performance with advanced GL2.1 effects?
Well, I doubt nvidia and ATI will answer that one...
so one of the biggest problems - full support of the most popular graphics cards - is still unsolved.
You want *useful* OpenGL support in Linux? Use the blobs. There is no other choice, unfortunately.
Also, I find the answer "use Windows then" ironic - it means that for using the OpenGL standard I have to use a non-free OS because the free one locks it out. Oh, except when using 3D stuff from 1995..