Author: Rolf Tueschen
Date: 11:51:50 01/22/03
Go up one level in this thread
On January 21, 2003 at 19:09:17, Sune Fischer wrote: >On January 21, 2003 at 18:17:15, James T. Walker wrote: > >>On January 21, 2003 at 14:49:36, Dann Corbit wrote: >> >>>On January 21, 2003 at 07:33:46, James T. Walker wrote: >>>[snip] >>>>Playing Fritz 8 vs Chess Tiger 15 or something similiar is not equal to a coin >>>>toss. You are purposely distorting the issue with false analogies to try to >>>>prove a not so valid point. For instance a coin toss would be more like playing >>>>Fritz 8 vs Fritz 8. >>> >>>Everything is like a coin toss in a physical world. >>> >>>For instance, you turn on the light switch and the light comes on. Or does it? >>>Perhaps the bulb is burned. Perhaps the power grid is down. Perhaps there is a >>>fault in the switch. >>> >>>There is a great deal of randomness in everything in the physical world. >>>Randomness is deliberately built into chess programs. If they played in a >>>completely deterministic way, once you figured out a way to beat them, you would >>>win every time. >>> >>>For programs at the top, there is very little difference (according to >>>measurements). >>> >>>I am convinced that we will never know which of the top programs are strongest. >>>It should be easy enough to prove me wrong[*], but I doubt if anyone has the >>>time or the will to even attempt it. >>> >>>[*] In theory. In practice, I think a quintillion hours of computer time will >>>be hard to come up with. >> >>Dann,Dann,Dann, >>Every thing in the world is not like a coin toss. Please prove that simple >>statement and I will read the rest of your nonsense. >>Jim > >The coin toss is an abstraction, a mathematical model used to encapture some >statistical properties. Many things, like those Dann mentioned, has same type of >probablity distribution, from a mathematical point of view they are identical >problems, solve one and you solve them all. > >-S. It's a general tic of mathematicians to believe that they could reduce all problems to mathematics which is wrong. It's another tic of mathematicians to believe that if they are really good in maths that then they could "solve" general questions of society or human life - which is wrong again. Dann did NOT say "many things", no, he said something different and I agree fully with Jim on that one. Either Dann made a joke or he is one of the mathematicians I meantioned above. I fear the latter is the case. Jim is completely right in his opposition against the reduction of complex problems to the tossing of a coin. You simply didn't get this because your probability doesn't fit either. Just to keep it serious: Dann said that ALL things in science could be dealt with tossing a coin. -tststs- :) Rolf Tueschen
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