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> "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." - Edsger Dijkstra Something about th

> "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." - Edsger Dijkstra Something about that quote always bothers me. I'm not sure what, but if I were to try to express the same fundamental idea, I would probably phrase it as "whether a bicycle can walk".

robbrown451 5y ago
I think you are missing the point. A submarine "swims" in the same way an airplane "flies." But for some reason, in English anyway, we seem to define "swim" such that, by definition, only an animal can do it. Or at least, it must behave similarly to a swimming animal...such as by flapping fins and the like. Meanwhile we don't think an airplane doesn't fly simply because it doesn't flap its wings. The point is that semantics tells you very little about reality. And debating semantics is not particularly interesting, or at least a good way of missing the point. Walking bicycles? Well, ok. That's much more of a stretch, partly because of the fact that there is a human much more directly involved in the propulsion of a bicycle compared to things with actual engines (airplanes and submarines)
- OJFord 5y ago
  I don't know how useful/meaningful any of this is? It's just language quirks, and different languages have different quirks. In Hindi for example the verb 'to walk' is the same as ~'to operate' - so you can 'walk', and 'walk a bicycle', etc.
  - robbrown451 5y ago
    It's useful when someone asks things like "will machines ever be able to think?" And you might say "well, define 'think' ". In other words, that's not that interesting a question, since it is more about semantics than about reality. Or you say it as Djykstra did, which I think is pretty clever. And yes, your example about how words differ in different languages does a good job of explaining how this is just semantics. If a question becomes moot in a different language, it is a good indicator that the question is less about reality than it is about semantics.
jhncls 5y ago
You can read Edsger's handwritten quote in the third paragraph at page EWD898-2. [0] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd08xx/EWD898.PDF https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd08xx/EWD898.PDF
pjmorris 5y ago
Agreed. The thing that bothers me is that the task of swimming is an example of something that is already defined while thinking includes the creation of new definitions.

robbrown451 5y ago

I think you are missing the point. A submarine "swims" in the same way an airplane "flies." But for some reason, in English anyway, we seem to define "swim" such that, by definition, only an animal can do it. Or at least, it must behave similarly to a swimming animal...such as by flapping fins and the like. Meanwhile we don't think an airplane doesn't fly simply because it doesn't flap its wings. The point is that semantics tells you very little about reality. And debating semantics is not particularly interesting, or at least a good way of missing the point. Walking bicycles? Well, ok. That's much more of a stretch, partly because of the fact that there is a human much more directly involved in the propulsion of a bicycle compared to things with actual engines (airplanes and submarines)

OJFord 5y ago
I don't know how useful/meaningful any of this is? It's just language quirks, and different languages have different quirks. In Hindi for example the verb 'to walk' is the same as ~'to operate' - so you can 'walk', and 'walk a bicycle', etc.
- robbrown451 5y ago
  It's useful when someone asks things like "will machines ever be able to think?" And you might say "well, define 'think' ". In other words, that's not that interesting a question, since it is more about semantics than about reality. Or you say it as Djykstra did, which I think is pretty clever. And yes, your example about how words differ in different languages does a good job of explaining how this is just semantics. If a question becomes moot in a different language, it is a good indicator that the question is less about reality than it is about semantics.

jhncls 5y ago

You can read Edsger's handwritten quote in the third paragraph at page EWD898-2. [0] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd08xx/EWD898.PDF https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd08xx/EWD898.PDF

pjmorris 5y ago

Agreed. The thing that bothers me is that the task of swimming is an example of something that is already defined while thinking includes the creation of new definitions.