Epstein Secrets

theorem during their lives, we must conclude no mathematician is a computer! This is controversial. Most philosophers tend to the view put forward by Daniel Dennett that the Universe is an entirely determined place and any personal sense of free will and creativity is an illusion. In Dennett’s worldview, Andrew W

ans think creatively, computers do not. * ‘The process of understanding and communication is complex, much more complex than the digital theorems of Claude Shannon and Harry Nyquist. « Understanding is hard. « The communication of understanding is even harder. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015687 CONTENTS Preface

f Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard-MIT; and co-author (with Ed Regis) of Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is th

n Turing wondered what it would take for machines to become intelligent. John von Neumann wondered what it would take for machines to self-reproduce. Claude Shannon wondered what it would take for machines to communicate reliably, no matter how much noise intervened. Norbert Wiener wondered how long it wo

cience seem to go hand in hand; each field can propel the other. 132 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016935 Many evolutionary scientists, and such philosophers as Daniel Dennett, have pointed out that the human brain is the result of billions of years of evolution.*°> Human intelligence is not the special characteristic we th

, “A Scientist Rebels,” Zhe Atlantic Monthly, January 1947. 31 Warren Weaver, “Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication,” in Claude Shannon & Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949), p. 8 (emphasis in original). Shan

f Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard-MIT; and co-author (with Ed Regis) of Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is th

n Turing wondered what it would take for machines to become intelligent. John von Neumann wondered what it would take for machines to self-reproduce. Claude Shannon wondered what it would take for machines to communicate reliably, no matter how much noise intervened. Norbert Wiener wondered how long it wo

cience seem to go hand in hand; each field can propel the other. 132 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016352 Many evolutionary scientists, and such philosophers as Daniel Dennett, have pointed out that the human brain is the result of billions of years of evolution.*°> Human intelligence is not the special characteristic we th

, “A Scientist Rebels,” Zhe Atlantic Monthly, January 1947. 31 Warren Weaver, “Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication,” in Claude Shannon & Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949), p. 8 (emphasis in original). Shan