[Verba] The Interconnectedness of all Things

[Stuart D. Gathman]

"And HE, [Christ], IS before all things and in and through Him the universe is
a harmonious whole." Collossians 1:17 WEY

	Question 1

In our last meeting, we talked about how Materialism denies the
reality of "meaning".  We talked about the game of Boggle«, and the
difference between complexity and specified complexity.  Specified
complexity means certain combinations are intelligently chosen beforehand.
The word "intelligence" literally means "to choose between".  I claimed
that symbols have meaning when they are chosen by an intelligent
person.

In "G÷del, Escher, Bach" on page 50, Hofstadter gives his definition
of "meaning" - meaning is an isomorphism between symbols and some
portion of "reality".

Are these definitions of "meaning" the same, different, related?

	This guy just doesn't know when to quit ...

    Exercise 1

At the bottom of page 39, Hofstadter describes a genie with all the
time in the world creating theorems in the MU system.  Write a python
program to output MU theorems using the method described.  Besides
time, what limits the number of theorems the program can output?

    Exercise 2

In the newpaper, there is a "Jumble" puzzle.  Write a program that
takes jumbled letters as input, and lists all permutations that
are english words.  "English word" is defined as any word occuring
in the "Official Scrabble Players Dictionary" version 3.  You can
download this at:

    http://gathman.org/python/OSPD3.gz

You will need some things we didn't mention in class.  Use the Library
Reference and Module Index at http://www.python.org/doc/

Hints:  

a) you will need the gzip module to unpack OSPD3.gz

b) you will need to use File objects:

    http://docs.python.org/lib/bltin-file-objects.html

Here is the output from my version:

$ python2.4 jumble.py
~ terp
PERT
~ alksf
FLASK
~ an
AN
NA
~ 

I will share my solutions when you are ready.

You can learn a lot from looking are python code from people all over
the world:

    http://www.python.org/community/

	Future Directions (Next year?  Summer?)

Python is a very high level imperative language.

a) We can go low level and tackle assembler code and Knuth.  A Linux or Mac
   system is required.  Windows is too dangerous to play around with assembler
   (and you will learn basic precautions such as not testing your cool
   brand-new assembler program as root or even with your normal login).

b) We can go non-imperative and tackle Prolog or Functional programming.

c) We can go mid level and look at Forth or C.

d) We can go really low level and look at logic gates and memory cells
   in various technologies from TinkerToys« to CMOS.

e) We can go really hands on and buy a robotics kit to play with.

-- 
	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.