Re: Olcott is cured of CrackPottery! (Halting Problem)

From: G. Frege (no_spam_at_aol.com)
Date: 09/26/04 

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 16:20:17 +0200

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 14:21:16 +1200, Barb Knox <see@sig.below> wrote:

> >
> > All of this discussion over Turing's proof that there are problems
> > that can't be programmed only misses the real point. Any good
> > programmer can tell you there are plenty of problems that can't be
> > programmed, including many more than discovered by Turing. Such as:
> >
> > 1. Specifications that the user refuses to evaluate or approve.
> > 2. Users who keep changing their minds.
> > 3. Incomplete or inconsistent specs.
> > 4. Writing a program to compose a song or critique a work of art.
> > 5. Writing a program that can love, hate or envy.
> >
> > These are very practical problems - when did Turing ever do anything
> > useful such as address these problems?
> >
It's obvous, that Charlie-Boo is talking nonsense again. He's just an
illiterate idiot.

"When did Turing ever...?"

For example here:

A. M. Turing, COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE (1950)
http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html

Famous first sentence:

        "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'"

Final paragraphs:

        "We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in
all purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start
with? Even this is a difficult decision. Many people think that a very
abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also
be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense
organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak
English. This process could follow the normal teaching of a child.
Things would be pointed out and named, etc. Again I do not know what the
right answer is, but I think both approaches should be tried.

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that
needs to be done."

Btw, Turing actually DID produce a program which was able to write
little poems! (Actually, h e was the first person to do so.)

And he did even more:

"Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, first proposed the
idea of programming a computer to play chess in 1950. In general,
Shannon's ideas worked like this: the program would take a given board
position, then calculate out the possible moves that might follow from
that position. A picture of these multiple possibilities resembles the
branches of a tree, hence they are called "search trees." The program
would have to include a final level or cut-off point beyond which the
computer would stop calculating; to calculate all possible variations
would require too much time and computing power. One solution would be
to construct computers with increasing computational power. Another
solution involves writing programs in such a way as to "prune" the
number of variations. The program would then assign a "score" to each
position as a way to gauge its effectiveness as a move. The program
would weigh such factors as material, pawn structure and the mobility of
the pieces, just as a human chess player might. While the specifics of
Shannon's theory have been surpassed by subsequent generations of
programmers, the basic idea behind computer chess programs is
essentially the same.

Shannon's theory was entirely speculative; he wrote no actual program.
Alan Turing, another pioneer in computer research, created an actual
chess playing program, albeit by hand. Turing's program was based on
similar principles to Shannon's theory, in that the program assigned
scores to various positions based on certain criteria, such as mobility,
piece safety, and king mobility. All chess players evaluate these and
other similar considerations; the difference is that the programmer must
assign a numerical value to what are often very subjective, intuitive
qualities. Turing's program was tested in 1951 against a weak human
opponent. The program--playing White--resigned after 29 moves.

Interestingly, Turing noted that the program was weak because "It was in
fact based on an introspective analysis of my thought processes when
playing" which proves to be significant in understanding the history of
computer chess. From this early date it is clear that the intention of
the programmer is to model the human thought process. Indeed, this
explains why computer scientists are so serious about chess-playing
programs. If a computer can be programed to play great chess--any
program can merely play chess--then perhaps a computer could be
programed to carry out other complex cognitive tasks. And the only way
to determine how well a program is playing chess is to pit it against
the best human competition."

Digital Historiography: David J. Staley, Kasparov vs. Deep Blue
http://mcel.pacificu.edu/JAHC/JAHCIII2/P-REVIEWS/Kasparov.html

F.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Olcott is cured of CrackPottery! (Halting Problem)
    ... "When did Turing ever...?" ... abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. ... scores to various positions based on certain criteria, such as mobility, ...
    (comp.theory)
  • Re: Better than the Dragon Sicilian?
    ... grandchildren play chess. ... if you're playing at correspondence chess speeds ... openings and defenses so I don't seem a total duffer. ... dozen that are worth reading again that I'd recommend to others. ...
    (rec.games.chess.analysis)
  • Re: Are There Better Chess Software Packages Than Chessmaster 10000?
    ... It is a matter of experience, that decent level of play will only be reached by tournament players or players playing with tournament players on a regular level. ... In both cases you should have stumbled over the notion of Elo ratings - except of course you learned your lessons 40 years ago and stopped in between, including reading chess publications. ... Chessbase has spent at least considerable marketing budget to point out their fabulous graphics for the chess programs (Their graphical user interface is usually the same for all current engines, where Fritz sets the pace, i.e. with each new version of Fritz there comes a new version of the GUI which is then used by all following new engines presented, as Shredder, Junior). ...
    (rec.games.chess.computer)
  • Re: Which desktop chess computer ?
    ... I have set the Citrine up against my twenty year old Kasparov Team Mate computer on 15 seconds/move several times now. ... The Citrine wins no matter playing White or Black. ... Persons at the shop told me that the Citrine is stronger than the Excalibur Grandmaster and the Novag Osidian but weaker than Mephisto Chess Challenger and Master Chess. ... The Senator is over twice as expensive and plays stronger but the finish is poor and the drawer containing the chess module feels like cheap "dont-touch-me-plastic". ...
    (rec.games.chess.computer)
  • the 2007 World Chess Champion
    ... The results of the 2007 World Chess Championship according to my guess. ... Aronian (he has been playing very strongly lately; ... Morozevich (he is enough overrated compared to these players as he does ... Nothing to show for being stronger today than ...
    (rec.games.chess.misc)