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Subject: Re: New paradigm again

Author: Antonio Dieguez

Date: 15:57:43 02/19/02

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On February 19, 2002 at 17:21:47, José Carlos wrote:

>On February 19, 2002 at 14:33:22, Roy Eassa wrote:
>
>>
>>But aren't humans just vastly more complex machines?
>
>  That's an interesting topic, but I'm afraid off topic here.
>  I basically agree with you,

and your girlfriend is a machine too?

> but I believe most people don't. If we are more
>complex machines, my point is still valid for computers, but then it also appies
>to humans!
>  Difficult to say, actually... I don't believe in soul, gods or things like
>that, so I believe our brain is a incredibly complex computer. So complex to ask
>itself 'what am I?'


>  José C.
>
>
>>On February 19, 2002 at 09:24:07, José Carlos wrote:
>>
>>>  As it has been brought up again and I didn't give my opinion in the past, I'd
>>>like to say what I think about all of that.
>>>  In times of Fritz 2/3, Chris was against this fast-dumb philosophy. He
>>>proposed, and then implemented, something that was meant to be in the opposite
>>>side, this is, slow-smart. This was his 'new paradigm' then. And it seems
>>>nowadays that top programs are joining the not-so-fast-but-smarter philosophy,
>>>so he was right.
>>>  The users have normally a very different point of view than the programmers.
>>>Programmers _know_ that any program (not only chess ones) is nothing but a
>>>secuence of mathematical calculations. In the very end, some 1's and 0's and the
>>>hardware they 'dance' in.
>>>  But the users tend to see the program as if it was a person. Tend to used
>>>words like 'creativity', 'aggresiveness', 'passiveness', and so on. Programs
>>>don't have those characteristics, they only _seem_ to have some of them. But as
>>>I said, in the end, it's nothing but a mathematical calculation that choses this
>>>or that move. Believing that a program can be 'creative' is like believing that
>>>it rains because the clouds are sad and cry: poetry, romanticism, creation of
>>>myths.
>>>  Don't get me wrong, I don't say I like nor dislike poetry, that's not the
>>>topic I'm trying to discuss (actually, I'm a lover of Tal's art), what I'm
>>>saying is that that don't apply to computers. That's all.
>>>  After that, Thorsten, with his passionate and human point of view, created a
>>>myth around this new paradigm, seeing in CSTal games things he had never seen in
>>>other programs games, and though they happened for reasons they didn't. And I
>>>understand him for doing that, it's difficult to resist.
>>>  But when I read Chris' post, I read the key words 'tree', 'prunning',
>>>'search', 'nodes', ... Those words prove he was doing exactly the same:
>>>searching a game-tree. He might use a different algorithm; he might use
>>>different heuristics; whatever else. But after all, he's doing the same, find a
>>>path in a game-tree.
>>>  I think it is good to distinguish between fast-dumb and slow-smart, and that
>>>they can be cosidered two paradigms in computer chess programming, at least, two
>>>schools (I don't know if this direct translation is correct in english). But
>>>magic doesn't exist. It's all about 1's and 0's...
>>>
>>>  José C.



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