The Simple Economics of Open Source

[Felix Thibault]

At 23:57 4/24/00 +0200, Juergen A. Erhard wrote:
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>>>>>> "Robin" == Robin Becker <robin at jessikat.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>    Robin> In article <390451C0.4B5D3196 at tcac.net>, Albert Wagner
>    Robin> <alwagner at tcac.net> writes
>    >> You STILL don't understand.  Artifice can only copy.  It cannot
invent.
>    >> An end product can be copied, even a style can be copied, but not the
>    >> creative process itself.
>    >> 
>    >> Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
>    Robin> ...
>
>    Robin> This position is like the weak AI position; you assert
>    Robin> there's something magical about creation. I think A Turing
>    Robin> was right; any human behaviour can be simulated and the
>    Robin> best simulators (people) are around already.
>
>Fundamental question is: Are we just a complex arrangement of
>bio-chemical (and thus ultimately physical) processes... or is there
>more to being `human beings'?
>
>If we are just a collection of bio-chemical processes, it's simple to
>`simulate' or replicate us in machine form[1].

<rant mode='ax-grinding'>

No it's not. Even when we're looking at (what seem to us to be) simple
processes like a solution of a pure compound in a pure solvent, a 
lot of the data we're interested in (solubility, acidity) has to be
empirically determined.

Let me underline this point:
       a. we _know_ (as much as we know anything) that chemicals
          are just part of the material world, and the domain of
          chemistry (atoms, molecules, solutions) is built of the
          domain of physics (dynamics, masses, waves)

       b. still, we can't reduce the behavior of a solution to a
          set of fudge-factorless equations.

So I don't see that there's any reason to believe that our being all
biochemical implies we are simple to simulate.

</rant>

Just-because-we-may-not-be-what-we-think-we-are-doesn't-mean-we-
aren't-what-we've-always-been-ly yrs,

Felix

>
>If we are more... than it will not be possible.
>
>Since I'm a christian, I guess it's obvious where I'll put my bets...
>
>Bye, J
>
>[1] I'm just reading Bill Joy's Wired essay `Why the future doesn't
>need us'...
>
>PS: For the record, I'm 100% with Albert (though maybe he's not 100%
>with me ;-)
>
>- -- 
>Jürgen A. Erhard      eMail: jae at ilk.de      phone: (GERMANY) 0721 27326
>     MARS: http://members.tripod.com/Juergen_Erhard/mars_index.html
>                    "Ever wonder why the SAME PEOPLE
>      make up ALL the conspiracy theories?" -- Michael K. Johnson
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