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From: bph@BUENGC.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: Two Points (ref AI Digests passim).
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Date: 5 Sep 88 04:57:00 GMT
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From: Blair P. Houghton <bph@buengc.bu.edu>
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Subject: Re: Two Points (ref AI Digests passim).
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 88 15:33 EDT
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In a previous article, "Gordon Joly, Statistics, UCL" writes:
>[b] With regard to what Einstein said, Heisenberg's uncertainty princinple
>    is also pertinent to "AI". The principle leads to the notion that the
>    observer influences that which is observed. So how does this affect the
>    observer who preforms a self analysis?

C'mon; Heisenberg said nothing of the kind.  He was talking about tiny
little particles with miniscule kinetic energies.  (...or maybe not |^D )

"Know thyself" is more like Shakespeare than Heisenberg, and likely
as old as Egypt.

Physical self-analysis on the scale for Heisenberg is moot.  Electrons
"know" where they are and where they are going.  They don't have, nor
do they need, self-analysis.

I do wish people would keep *recursion* and *perturbation* straight
and different from the Uncertainty Principle.  It's a very
poor metaphor (kindof like what Freud did to Oedipus' reputation...)

				--Blair