Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

124 another man to agree with him, to learn his ideas, he can hold ‘“‘he is stubborn; he refuses to understand me because he hates me.” Or “He is too stupid to learn!” When a man seeks to teach a computer... . Computers are not stubborn. If it is stupid, it is the failure of the man to perfect his handiwork, and the failure reflects inescapably to its source in Man. If it acts in a foggy, confused manner—Man made the mistake, and he must correct it. It’s his mistake; responsibility cannot be assigned else- where. Man, in trying to teach his tender and precious beliefs to a computing machine, is inviting the most appall-’ ingly frank and inescapable criticism conceivable. The computing machines won’t solve human problems for us— but they’ll force men to a degree of WU VU EU UWE A few of the following issues of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION are still available :- [nothing is held prior to June 1951] OSH = JUNE; AUGUST OCTOBER & DECEMBER 9952 =FEBRUARY ; MARCH AND ALL SUBSEQUENT ISSUES UP TO THE N.B. ~ PRESENT DAY. These magazines were published in the former 64-page edition, Price && each, post free, from: Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co. Ltd., 18 Bride Lane, London, E.C.4 MPAL PII SOI "IVI ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION rigid self-honesty and humility that never existed before. I can imagine some philosopher, some psychologist, or some physicist coming spluttering to the computer lab, demanding that the nonsensical answers so blatantly in disregard of the facts-as-he-believes them be corrected. “Out of the way; let someone who knows something about this field teach this machine a few realities!” Three weeks later, a haggard and vastly humbled man would come out, his fine structure of beliefs in tatters— and possessed of a realization of his own need to learn a few real realities. I have heard psychologists use the term “ego,” the terms “id’’ and “‘iden- tity.” I’ve looked, with some interest, in an Encyclopedia of Psychology; there is no entry under any one of those terms, no effort, even, to define them. Have you ever sought a definition of “distance” as used in physics? It’s one of the three fundamentals of the CGS system—and has no definition whatever. Define your terms, the com- puter relentlessly demands. The mathe- matician has no definition for “‘quan- tity’ or “distance” either. Cantor has proved mathematically that any line segment has as many points— aleph null—as any other line, however long or short, or as any plane. Then define what you mean by “greater than” or “less than’! Until you do, the whole structure rests on “You know what I mean... .” The computer does not “know what you mean.” Define it! A while back I ran a faulty “syl- logism” going, essentially, “Biology holds no organism can live in a medium of its own products. Com- munism holds a man has a right to what he produces. Therefore, Com- munism won’t work.” It was thrown in as a deliberate inducement to think-; ing and questioning of terms. Most of connicloooks.c© in