Talk:Hacker koan

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[edit] Presumably...

“ So Sussman began working on a program. Not long after, this odd-looking bald guy came over. Sussman figured the guy was going to boot him out, but instead the man sat down, asking, "Hey, what are you doing?" Sussman talked over his program with the man, Marvin Minsky. At one point in the discussion, Sussman told Minsky that he was using a certain randomizing technique in his program because he didn't want the machine to have any preconceived notions. Minsky said, "Well, it has them, it's just that you don't know what they are." It was the most profound thing Gerry Sussman had ever heard. And Minsky continued, telling him that the world is built a certain way, and the most important thing we can do with the world is avoid randomness, and figure out ways by which things can be planned. Wisdom like this has its effect on seventeen-year-old freshmen, and from then on Sussman was hooked.

Mr. Sussman might have pursued his goal by repeating the experiment with a large number of randomly generating starting networks. Better yet, Sussman could have developed the tools to predict the average (according to some as yet undefined notion of average) outcome for an infinite number of such cases.

This so-called humourous koan carries a significant meaning. Sussman misunderstanding is surprising.

--Philopedia (talk) 03:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)