IUBio

The Art of Computer Mindmaking

Arthur T. Murray uj797 at victoria.tc.ca
Mon Jan 25 11:38:25 EST 1999


scott at nospam.doubleu.com (Scott Hess) told it like it is:

>In article <5317.691T149T990937 at i2k.com>,
>        "Lyster E. Wick Jr." <lwickjr at i2k.com> writes:
>   On 22-Jan-99 04:04:16 Sean Luke <seanl at drinkme.cs.umd.edu> typed:
>    SL> As a guy in his field (AI), you can take it from me. The man is a
>    SL> grade-A certified wacko.
>
>   I accept that his ideas do not fit in with the current mainstream
>   AI thinking, but that does not automaticaly, in and of itself, mean
>   that he is wrong and you are right, even if he does happen to be
>   wrong, and you to be right.
>
>   Have you given him a fair hearing?
><...>
>   In my humble opinion, we should support such serious attempts at
>   the presumed-impossible, for we may well find out that some things
>   are not so impossible after all, and will surely learn from the
>   failures as well, if we're paying attention.
>
>   Thus, I find what he has to say to be interesting, no matter how
>   contrary it may be to current mainstream AI thinking.
>
>You're on a long and slippery slope.  Everyone seems to follow along
>nodding with the first mentifex posting that they see.  It seems
>interesting, different - hey, maybe it's weird enough to succeed!
>
>Things look a bit different after the 150th or so posting that you
>see.  He posts regularily to comp.arch, for instance.
  "Mentifex"/Arthur here.  (I can't post as "Mentifex" any more;
   my Canadian ISP changed its software.)  Yes, I *sometimes* post
   to the computer architecture newsgroup, and I cite my Website

   http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/7256/comparch.html

   where I connect the state of comp.arch with Vingean AI, as at

   http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge/vinge-sing.html

   -- what I consider to be the most important document about AI.

>                                                       His postings
>never really seem to _say_ much.  The best I can say is that he
>appears to be stuck in the "posing college-age cafe dude" stage of
>development, without the ability to break through to the next level
>(going from talking about how things are going to come together to
>_bringing_ them together).
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The talk phase is over; even today after
  a little more coding I plan on Internet Web Release #21 at URL

  http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/7256/m-forth.html Mind.forth

>
>[Hey, I feel for mentifex, I get stuck in a similar stage every couple
>months.  But I try to keep my Usenet postings more varied and
>interesting. :-),]
   Thanks for the gentlemanly posts, Mr. Wicks and Mr. Hess. - ATM
>--
>scott hess <scott at doubleu.com> (408) 739-8858 http://www.doubleu.com/
><Favorite unused computer book title: The Compleat Demystified Idiots
>  Guide to the Zen of Dummies in a Nutshell in Seven Days, Unleashed>



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