Am 06.06.2011 20:39, schrieb Orchid XP v8:
>>> If this line of logic is correct... um... we may have a problem here.
>>
>> Fortunately it isn't.
>>
>> Humans suck at /any/ calculations requiring higher degree of precision
>> than rule-of-thumb estimates. The human brain is "designed" to work
>> /despite/ uncertainties rather than avoid or eliminate them.
>>
>> However, humans also suck at understanding systems, and are much better
>> at understanding single entities working on a problem sequentially. At
>> least that's typically true for men - maybe the next generation of
>> computers needs women as software developers.
>
> I don't think I agree with any of this.
>
> Pick any two locations in London. Ask a London cabbie how to get from
> one to the other. I guarantee they can do it faster than any satnav
> computer.
>
> Pick up a picture of Harrison Ford. Show it to a bunch of people. Almost
> all of them will instantly be able to tell you who it's a picture of.
> Now try getting a computer to figure that out. Good luck with that.

Not a contradiction to my point; note that /those/ types of 
"calculations" require almost exactly the /opposite/ of precision. Which 
is the domain /computers/ suck at.

For instance, the answers from the people to whom you show the Harrison 
Ford photograph will probably often contain phrases such as "I /think/ 
that's Harrison Ford": They fail at identifying him beyond any doubt 
(i.e. /exactly/), and instead identify him with a certain "error margin".

Likewise, the London cabbie will /not/ pick /the/ fastest route. He'll 
just pick a "sufficiently fast" route. Based not on parameters that can 
be exactly quantified, but on experience and intuition. And not because 
he /knows/ the route to be fast, but because he's /sufficiently 
convinced/ it is.

> The human brain is really very, very good at certain tasks. Quite
> astonishingly good, when you actually think about it. But it's very bad
> at certain other tasks.

Exactly. And among those "certain other tasks" is virtually anything 
involving precise computations.

> There are people in the Guinness Book of Records who can do crazy things
> like compute the 72nd root of a 15-digit number in their head in under
> 10 seconds. It's just that most people can't do that.

Yes, you /can/ train a human to do high-precision calculations. But 
you'd need a huge number of such people (and a REALLY HUGE supply of 
coffee :-)) to perform even the simplest multi-step calculations that way.

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