Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!AI.AI.MIT.EDU!AIList-REQUEST
From: AIList-REQUEST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (AIList Moderator Nick Papadakis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: AIList Digest   V7 #4 [bwk@mitre-bedford.arpa: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness]
Message-ID: <8805250052.AA00922@BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU>
Date: 25 May 88 00:52:24 GMT
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 28
Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu

Date: 9 May 88 10:52:56 GMT
From: bwk@mitre-bedford.arpa  (Barry W. Kort)
Reply-to: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness [AIList Digest   V7 #4]

I was doing fine reading Cliff's rejoinder to Lloyd's comments until
I came to this part:

>>We can't demonstrate true randomness in present day computers;
>>the closest we can come (to my knowledge) is to generate a string
>>of numbers which does not repeat itself. [Lloyd]

>This is not possible in a von Neumann machine. [Cliff]

I was under the impression that a simple recursion (or not-so-simple
if one is a fan of Ramanujan) can emit the digits of pi (or e or
SQRT(2)) and that such a string does not repeat itself.

I think what Cliff meant is that a von Neumann machine cannot emit
a string whose structure cannot be divined.

If I wanted to give my von Neumann machine a *true* random number
generator, I would connect it to an A/D converter driven by thermal
noise (i.e. a toasty resister).

--Barry Kort

------------------------------