Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!rutgers!seismo!rochester!ritcv!rocksvax!rocksanne!sunybcs!colonel
From: colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman)
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: computer science vs. math
Message-ID: <1122@sunybcs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Oct-86 16:25:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: sunybcs.1122
Posted: Wed Oct  8 16:25:26 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Oct-86 03:11:37 EDT
References: <10202@cca.UUCP> <1729@mcc-pp.UUCP> <10332@cca.UUCP>
Organization: DALEK Reproducing Equipment, Inc.
Lines: 31

In article <10332@cca.UUCP>, g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
) In article <> edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards) writes:
) >    I believe the roots of Lambda Calculus can be traced farther back
) > then that. People like liebnitz (sp ?) and others from the 12th -14th
) > century. And the notion of artificial intelligence to the same period
) > by I think Raoul (sp ?). One of my prof's showed my Computational
) > Linguistics Class a reference in Latin from a book from that period.
) > The words Artificial Intelligence were clearly distinguishable, even
) > though it was Latin.
) ...
) There was also a spaniard who had a logical wheel, resembling a
) circular slide rule.  It had multiple disks, with each disk divided
) into categories.  He was trying to create a universal reasoning machine.
) The date, however, was in the 1500s as I recall (I can't lay my hand on
) a reference at the moment.)

That was Lully; his project was known afterwards as the Ars Magna Lulli.
Then there's Kurd Lasswitz's Universal Library, as adapted by Borges ...

I think the original argument is missing the point.  Programmers don't
use lambda calculus--even McCarthy would have to admit that--and they
don't use recursion and iteration in the same way that mathematicians
do.  Programming practice is not based in mathematical theories; on the
contrary, mathematicians have just begun trying to devise formal theories
of "real" programs.  The first time a student writes "N=N+1", he has
stepped out of the old mathematical universe and into a new world.
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel
CS: colonel@buffalo-cs
BI: colonel@sunybcs, csdsiche@sunyabvc