
Five deep questions in computing (2008) [pdf] - steven741
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wing/publications/Wing08.pdf
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sytelus
IMO, most of these are very ill-posed questions. The questions are:

 _1\. P = NP?

2\. What is computable?

3\. What is intelligence?

4\. What is information?

5\. (How) can we build complex systems simply? _

Except for the first question, there is no way to determine if any given
answer is an acceptable answer. The 2,3,4 are asking for definition and you
can provide anything arbitrary suits your needs at hand or mood at the time.
The question has no clear constraint on which answer is admissible.

I'd say this article is perfect example of how _not_ to pose questions! Asking
a good question is a lot of hard work and author simply hasn't done the
homework here. A great example of asking good question is, of course,
Hilbert's 23 questions. He had to survey the field deep and wide and craft
each question such that answer can be verified, if one was ever proposed.

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steven741
Reading through the article I got the impression that these questions were
posed because they lead to more interesting questions. In fact, the last
paragraph fittingly sums it up. "I pose these questions to stimulate deep
thinking and further discussion."

Here's an example from the text of what she means: "In order to answer what is
computable, we must consider the underlying machine (abstract or physical)
that is the computer. Consider the Internet as a computer. What is a universal
machine model for the Internet? Consider a molecular computer, a DNA computer,
a nano-scale computer, or even a quantum computer. What problems can and
cannot be solved through them?"

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sytelus
There are well posed version of these questions that have existed for quite a
while. It’s one thing to wonder about arbitrary fluffy hand wavy way and it’s
quite another thing to crystallize your thoughts and cast a precise statement
of what you are looking for.

