(urth) 5HC : Skinner, Turing (fwd)

[maru]

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

>>Mmmm. Yes and no. Support, yes. Not proof ... except ... Well, 
>>there are real-world problems with limited domains, and in those
>>domains, you can sometimes demonstrate that only a certain
>>number of possible _theories_ exist. But most such situations
>>concern theories-about-fact rather than theories-about-general-
>>principles. 
>>
>>(Ex: Three people are locked in a room. One is stabbed
>>to death - several wounds. There are only seven possible 
>>answers to the question "whodunit?") 
>>    
>>
Well, that's assuming quite a number of givens or axioms e g. ' no one else
coulda got in' 'people cannot commit suicide or help each other murder a 
person'
'stab wounds cannot magically or spontaneously appear- all stab wounds 
correspond
with a stab and vice versa' etc.

>But for more general (scientific) problems ... it seems to me that
>disconfirmation is the best we can hope for, because there are
>always more theories and, while we can generally rank them
>in loose probability-clusters,
>
>(Ex: How does gravitation work?
>High probability: gravitation is mediated by a particle exchange.
>Lower probability: exchange of massive, charged particles.
>Still lower probability: exchange of protons.
>Extremely low probability: exchange of gumballs.
>Vanishingly small probability: massive particles yearn for
>    each other.)
>
>and in fact we _have_ to rank them this way, because otherwise
>there's no way of deciding which theories are most worth testing.
>
>(Ex: We will probably never test the gumball theory, nor the
>theory I've just invented, that gravitation is mediated by 
>tiny alien elephants flying around in the noosphere, propagating 
>morphogenic resonance and administering random rectal
>probes to isolated humans.)
>
>But, alas, now and then theories that look like they should be
>ranked very low turn out, with new experimental data, to be
>much more likely true than the ones in the former high 
>probability grouping. (Ex: the heliocentric theory. Evolution.
>Quantum decoherence - well, no, anyone with any common
>sense recognized the inherent rightness of that one 
>immediately...)
>
>  
>
>>Consider that every situation can be broken down to a binary choice 
>>    
>>
>
>I suspect that this is true only of situations where you are faced
>with countably finite numbers of possible choices...
>
>  
>
Sounds to me like someone has thought up a situations
in which one is faced with transfinite choices
Wait, does that even make sense in our universe? ><

>Regarding your "bi-lemma": It only works if you're reasonably
>confident of your ability to choose the option that best matches
>your desires. Some of us (me) often wind up like the famous
>donkey that starved to death because he was equidistant from 
>two equally tasty-looking piles of hay.
>
>This example was originally cooked up to prove that animals 
>_aren't_ automata, because this would never  happen to any 
>_real_ donkey. Which however suggests to me that the real 
>donkey is indeed the automaton, which evolution has 
>thoughtfully provided with a nonalgorithmic solution to such
>situations - "pick one at random." Whereas we, nonautomata,
>can dither forever.
>
>--Dan'l
>
>  
>
Or the odds are against a static enviroment *AND* static internal variables.
Consider a donkey in such a dilemna sitting outside- a bird or human will
eventually fly/walk by and startle the donkey, who will thereby find 
himself nearer
one hay rather than the other. So he picks the easier nearer one. 
Problem solved.
Or another similar scenario.  I just don't think it is possible for a 
situation to occur
in which anybody can dither forever, because of everyone else doing 
other things.
But maybe a dead-lock breaker was built-in by evolution.  Doesn't seem 
very likely tho'

~Maru
One more thing!
I was reading in my Star Wars collection t'other day, when, en route to 
Boba Fett's
story in Tales from Jabba's Palace, to see whether I could place anymore 
of the anecdotes,
an excruciating name caught my eye.
It was remarkably similar to yours.  A relation?