"The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem. The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set of possible messages." (Claude E Shannon, "A mathematical theory of communication", Bell Systems Technical Journal 27, 1948)
"Almost every problem that you come across is befuddled with all kinds of extraneous data of one sort or another; and if you can bring this problem down into the main issues, you can see more clearly what you’re trying to do."
"Another approach for a given problem is to try to restate it in just as many different forms as you can. Change the words. Change the viewpoint. Look at it from every possible angle. After you’ve done that, you can try to look at it from several angles at the same time and perhaps you can get an insight into the real basic issues of the problem, so that you can correlate the important factors and come out with the solution."
"Electronic computers are normally used for the solution of
numerical problems arising in science or industry. The fundamental design of these
computers, however, is so flexible and so universal in conception that they
maybe programmed to perform many operations which do not involve numbers at all
- operations such as the translation of language, the analysis of a logical
situation or the playing of games. The same orders which are used in
constructing a numerical program maybe used to symbolize operations on abstract
entities such as the words of a language or the positions in a chess game."
"This duality can be pursued further and is related to a duality between past and future and the notions of control and knowledge. Thus we may have knowledge of the past but cannot control it; we may control the future but have no knowledge of it." (Claude E Shannon, "Coding theorems for a discrete source with a fidelity criterion", IRE International Convention Records Vol. 7, 1959)
"It is very difficult to estimate how well a computer can be made to play with ideal programming. I tend to agree that it would be very difficult to reach the caliber of world champions or even most chess masters but I do not regard this as unthinkable. The machines do have certain very strong advantages of accuracy, speed, etc., and our present techniques of programming are bound to improve enormously in the future."
"It seems to be much easier to make two small jumps than the
one big jump in any kind of mental thinking."
"Many proofs in mathematics have been actually found by
extremely roundabout processes. A man starts to prove this theorem and he finds
that he wanders all over the map. He starts off and prove a good many results
which don’t seem to be leading anywhere and then eventually ends up by the back
door on the solution of the given problem."
"The chief weakness of the machine is that it will not learn
by its mistakes. The only way to improve its play is by improving the program. Some
thought has been given to designing a program that would develop its own
improvements in strategy with increasing experience in play. Although it
appears to be theoretically possible, the methods thought of so far do not seem
to be very practical. One possibility is to devise a program that would change
the terms and coefficients involved in the evaluation function on the basis of
the results of games the machine had already played. Small variations might be
introduced in these terms, and the values would be selected to give the
greatest percentage of wins.
"The idea of a machine thinking is by no means repugnant to
all of us. In fact, I find the converse idea, that the human brain may itself
be a machine which could be possibly duplicated functionally with inanimate
objects, quite attractive. Until clearly disproved, this hypothesis concerning
the brain seems the natural scientific one in line with the principle of
parsimony, etc., rather than hypothecating intangible and unreachable “vital
forces,” “souls” and the like."
"The redundancy of a language is related to the existence of
crossword puzzles. If the redundancy is zero any sequence of letters is a
reasonable text in the language and any two dimensional array of letters forms
a crossword puzzle. If the redundancy is too high the language imposes too many
constraints for large crossword puzzles to be possible."
"There is a vast, explored sea of nature just waiting for things to be discovered in it, and the science and technology needed are progressing at an exponential rate. You see, it all feeds back into itself. Someone discovers a new principle or a new theory and it’s not only new knowledge but a new instrument for seeking more knowledge."
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