Mystery and Determinism

Steve Witham (sw@tiac.net)
Wed, 9 Apr 1997 22:58:59 -0400

>On Tue, 1 Apr 1997, Dan Hook wrote:
>
>> The problem here is that human emotion and cognition are largely
>> mysterious, at least to the individual. Any computer program is going to
>> be obviously deterministic.

Reminds me of one of my favorite poems:

Slice a visage to build
A visage. A puzzle to its owner.

By Racter, an obviously deterministic computer program. But its point is
well taken: being deterministic does not eliminate one's mystery to
oneself--far from it. Goedel and Turing said the same thing
if less
mysteriously.

--Steve

--
sw@tiac.net           Steve Witham          web page under reconsideration
"At the latter I was informal, at the former I wore my suit,
 I wore my swimming suit."  --Kate & Anna McGarrigle