Author: Fernando Villegas
Date: 16:36:13 02/16/99
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Dear dan: theris is ajoke in my country about an stubborns owner of a grosery that chewed a piece of soap and when a guy told so to him, he said: "yes, its has the flavour of soap, makes bubbles as sopa, smell like sopa, but is is cheese..." Now about a program based in Crafty we cxabn do the same joke: it plays better than Crafty, it wins all the test to Crafty, makes differents assestment of positions than Crafty, has his own style opposite to that of Crafty and venvertheless is still crafty.. Well, I think we should think something more in what makes the difference in the definitions of things. As I learned in ths school in my philosophy classes, what makes the better definition is not that based in shape, etc, but in function. Or if you want, perfomace. What is a table? Just a piece of wood with 4 legs or maybe we could do a better job saying a piece of stell with thhree legs? Or just saying a piece of furniture designed to put things above his surface? Maybe Bionic or Voyager have 99% of components from Crafty, but if the behaviour is not like Crafty, then is not Crafty. A chess program is for playing chess and so matters of style and strenght are the important ones, no how was done, how many new or olds pieces has, etc. Besides, Is not the way science and technology grows? First trains wagons seemed conventional horses pulled wagons. Same shape, etc. Relativity cannot be understood without Nweton phisics, Einstein made his job on the ground of previous jobs. I don not imagine Nweton saying "Hey, you have stolen 98% of my ideas, you thief...!" Or just 23% if you want. In other words, this is a collective endeavour even if individual wheels into it feel it is not so and try to get all the credit or using general knowledege just for themselves without interest in share his own ideas, but then even so they will be used by someone else. Nobody can hide nothing for ever and be taken away the general trend of huma thinking and movement. Julio Verne kind of scientific monsters are not posible. You can delay, nothing else. Bob chose the contrary, to push, and that is his great achievement. fernando
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