Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 125: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

EDITORIAL transliterating yields English. Neither does a word-for-word substitution save in the simplest level of statement. The Chinese-English saying trans- lation above indicates the real diffi- culty—and one that General Seman- tics hasn’t adequately recognized, I feel. Actually, in communicating with each other, we seek to communicate concepts; concepts are complex struc- tures of many individual parts as- sembled in a precise relationship. If someone asked a chemist for sugar, and the chemist delivered a pile of carbon and two small flasks of hydro- gen and oxygen—everything neces- sary for sugar is present, but it’s not sugar. Let’s consider “food” a moment. Presumably we are seeking to achieve sane translations of sane human think- ing from our computer. Under these conditions should we teach the ma- chine to consider that human flesh is to be considered “‘food’’? Yes. A sane man must realize that his flesh is food—otherwise he would make the mistake of swimming in shark-infested waters, or ignore lions and other major carnivora. Is wood “‘food”? The World p of tomorrow... WAITS FOR YOU IN THE COMING ISSUES OF | ASTOUNDING | SCIENCE FICTION | — Subscribe Now — SIMPLY MAIL THE ATTACHED COUPON, | ENCLOSING YOUR REMITTANCE, AND YOU WILL RECEIVE YOUR COPY DIRECT THROUGH THE POST REGULARLY EACH MONTH 123 Yes; an engineer must realize that fact when he considers constructing buildings. Otherwise he would neglect the possibilities of termite damage. Is steel ““food’’? We must so instruct the computer; otherwise it could not translate ““We must have steel scrap to feed our hungry furnaces.” Very well, gentlemen, what do you mean when you consider the concepts in “foods,” “feed,” and “‘eat’’? Define your terms! } The sociologists and psychologists have long maintained that mathe- matical methods are not applicable to human problems. Not until the terms in which human problems are dis- cussed have been defined operation- ally, certainly. Teaching a computing machine, a machine that will invariably do pre-_, cisely, but only, what you did-in-fact instruct it to do will be a most hum- bling task. In the course of doing that job, I foresee the collapse of every human philosophy, the harsh winnow- ing of every human falsity, every slightest quibble, self-justification, or rationalization. When a man is seeking to induce | Ee SES SO ORE NE oe RET PIN, NET | : (your newsagent), or ATLAS PUBLISHING & DISTRIBUTING CO. LTD. 18 Bride Lane, London, E.C.4 | Enclosed is my subscription for 12 issues (20/~) (Strike out whichever is inapplicable) to ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION Enclosed is my subscription for 6 issues (10/—} | PPevureTUPTPT rei cri rrr resi tt i tti err er r e SORES ERS OSS O SORTA MERE E AROSE TEESE SES HET EATS POSSESSES SOO OTES HO SEEESESSOSIEDSOSMETESS commencing with the BLOCK CAPITALS PLEASE connicloooks.conn