RE: virus: MS Weapon

Richard Brodie (RBrodie@brodietech.com)
Thu, 9 Oct 1997 18:10:41 -0700


On Wednesday, October 8, 1997 1:49 AM, Robin Faichney
[SMTP:r.j.faichney@stir.ac.uk] wrote:
> Your question *might* make sense if I had been talking about
> *absolutely* all patterns, but in fact it was all "these patterns
> people see". Say two people look at a photograph of a cloud,
> and one sees a similarity to a sheep, while the other is
> reminded of the Mandelbrot set. A pattern-matching algorithm,
> set up to compare scanned-in photos of the cloud and of a
> sheep in the appropriate position WRIT viewpoint, with the
> M set, will find and match these patterns, because all are
> really there.

No, your program will find and match those patterns because you have
programmed it to do so. Hofstadter has done much research on patterns. Have
you read his latest "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies"? It's
interesting. I'd say the fact that patterns AREN'T inherent in reality is
the reason such programming is so difficult.

Richard Brodie RBrodie@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie
Author, VIRUS OF THE MIND: The New Science of the Meme
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
Visit Meme Central: http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm