Week 7:No True Scotsman
Dr. Trask looked at the readings on the screen another time. Yes, the predicates were all valid; all inference rules were accounted for, as were all the fundamental axioms. He knew he should go over the code for the problem description, but he didn't want to; he knew it would have no mistakes. He had been over it fifteen times already; there were no mistakes to be found.
He covered his hands with his eyes. "Walter...what do you think?"
"We have to go public with this," his assistant answered. "You can't sit on these results forever."
Trask nodded. He knew Walter was right.
Forty-three years of his life he'd spent building the thing: the most sophisticated automated deductive problem solving system ever built. It was now as sophisticated an artificial intelligence as had ever existed in human history. It drew power from supercomputers on six continents, its digital neurons connected by high-speed internet links, constantly exchanging packets of intellect. It was a system designed to answer any question, any question at all...definitively. It was only inevitable that the question would be asked.
Sighing, he looked over the results one last time. There would be controversy over this one. People would dispute the answer. There might be war. But to withhold the answer...it was unthinkable.
He had to publish it.
Tapping the screen before him, he began to dictate the memo. "Results for query #229631 to the Gödelian Ontological Deduction System: Does God exist. Answer follows..."
NOTE: This entry probably needs some explanation: researching the phrase "no true Scotsman", I discovered it's attributed to philosopher Antony Flew; I also read about his embrace of deism, after a lifetime of atheism...which led to articles about the proof of the existence of God, including the interesting fact of using an automated logic solving computer to solve the proof (in reality, it supposed proved the existence of the divine).
He covered his hands with his eyes. "Walter...what do you think?"
"We have to go public with this," his assistant answered. "You can't sit on these results forever."
Trask nodded. He knew Walter was right.
Forty-three years of his life he'd spent building the thing: the most sophisticated automated deductive problem solving system ever built. It was now as sophisticated an artificial intelligence as had ever existed in human history. It drew power from supercomputers on six continents, its digital neurons connected by high-speed internet links, constantly exchanging packets of intellect. It was a system designed to answer any question, any question at all...definitively. It was only inevitable that the question would be asked.
Sighing, he looked over the results one last time. There would be controversy over this one. People would dispute the answer. There might be war. But to withhold the answer...it was unthinkable.
He had to publish it.
Tapping the screen before him, he began to dictate the memo. "Results for query #229631 to the Gödelian Ontological Deduction System: Does God exist. Answer follows..."
NOTE: This entry probably needs some explanation: researching the phrase "no true Scotsman", I discovered it's attributed to philosopher Antony Flew; I also read about his embrace of deism, after a lifetime of atheism...which led to articles about the proof of the existence of God, including the interesting fact of using an automated logic solving computer to solve the proof (in reality, it supposed proved the existence of the divine).