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From: smryan@garth.UUCP (Steven Ryan)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence
Message-ID: <1919@garth.UUCP>
Date: 18 Nov 88 06:15:22 GMT
References: <490@soleil.UUCP> <14577@mimsy.UUCP>
Reply-To: smryan@garth.UUCP (Steven Ryan)
Organization: INTERGRAPH (APD) -- Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 22

>Professor Garrett Birkhoff, a prominent mathematician not unfamiliar with the
>use of infinity in mathematics, often remarks in his undergraduate ODE class
>that when mathematicians begin to speak about infinity, they don't know 
>what they are talking about.

Just a short note that is a mortal sin for a mathematician to say
`inf***ty.' Penance usually is usually five Hail Davids.

The word `infinite' only occurs before `set,' `infinite set,' where it has
a very precise meaning.

The correct term is `arbitrary.'

Discrete transistion machines with arbitrary resources cannot necessarily
navigate through a partial recursive set in finite time. Whether humans
can is an open question.
-- 
                                                   -- s m ryan
+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|    ....such cultural highlights as    |    Nature is Time's way of having    |
|    Alan Thicke, and, uh,....          |    pausible deniability.             |
+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+