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From: minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Minds, machines, and Godel
Message-ID: <4987@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: 22 Jan 91 23:30:21 GMT
References: <1377@ucl-cs.uucp>
Reply-To: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA
Lines: 25

In article <1377@ucl-cs.uucp> G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) writes:
>
>  "I'll show you machines can't think."
>  (Two of hundred pages of irrelevant mathematical autobiography)
>  "See, I showed you!"
>
>Oxbridge Professor is asked "Is that correct?". He thinks, goes away
>and comes back twenty minutes later, and says to the class "Yes, it is
>correct and what is more, it is obvious." He then carries on the lecture.
 
This really happened. I was young student at harvard taking linear 
algebra-type course given by Hassler Whitney, the great topologist.  
A couple of weeks into abstract vector space theories, one student 
finally got the courage to speak up:

  "Sir, I can sorta see what's happening in 2 and 3 dimensions, but I
can't get the hang on what it's like in n-dimensional space.  Could
you suggest a practical way to visualize this?"

  Whitney stared into nothingness for a very long time.  Finally he
faced the student again and said,

 "Yes.  Just think of some particular n."

  And he continued on, as abstract as before.