3 ms·
Seems like this presages this idea of Kolmogorov[0] Complexity by half a century. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity http://en.wikipedia.or
by heydenberk 12y ago
Seems like this presages this idea of Kolmogorov[0] Complexity by half a century.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity
- JadeNB 12y agoI don't know—there's a big gap between asking "how do you measure this philosophical-sounding quantity?" and actually coming up with a concrete means of doing so. I could ask here "how do you define consciousness for machines?", but (even if I were the first to do so) it wouldn't be fair to say that I'd anticipated Sharmach's landmark 2098 paper solving the problem.
- infinity0 12y agoThat might not have been parent's point. I see it more as "this is such a natural thing to want" that mathematicians had been thinking about it, even before we could come up with a coherent definition for the concept. In some ways, this is a good example to avoid making the "fallacy fallacy" - just because someone's argument/reasoning is wrong or incoherent, it doesn't mean the point itself is wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_fallacy The solution of other similar things like the halting problem, is also a testament to the power of mathematics and formal language, and gives us some hope that this problem (and similar things like consciousness) will be solved in the future.
- tom_scrace 12y agoSharmach! Pah! Everybody knows that it was Wang-Kleetch who solved the problem in 2094. The charlatan Sharmach merely read the pre-publication draft and claimed the work as his own. It is hard to believe that this nonsense is still being promoted all this time later.
- hiker 12y agoI think Kolmogorov complexity is spot on comparison, considering programs as proofs, theorems as types in the Curry–Howard isomorphism.
- tel 12y agoIt certainly seems to be asking for proof-relevant mathematics which is funny since my understanding was that Hilbert and Brouwer hated one another http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy