
Farewell, Marvin Minsky - lispython
http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/01/farewell-marvin-minsky-19272016/
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ericjang
I wasn't aware that Danny Hillis was a student of Minsky's and that the
Connection Machine mainframe series was created with brain simulation in mind.
That's really cool.

When thinking about implementing the network topology for a large-scale brain
simulation, the network topology should reflect the 3D spatial local-ness of
the real brain (to avoid redundant N x N communication between units). One
seems to either arrive at a fat-tree CM5 architecture or a 3D lattice of
asynchronous processors (but this is not very general-purpose).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blvC0DA96dI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blvC0DA96dI)

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lispm
Not necessarily brain simulations, but generally connectionist AI software.
Put a graph into the machine and have operations on the graph be computed in a
parallel fashion. Propagate information over the graph connections...

Thinking Machines as a company struggled with defining the target market: was
it a machine for AI algorithms or was it a more general machine. See it's use
with Fortran, doing more traditional stuff, not AI.

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rweba
I think there is a cultural disconnect to some of the complaints about
Wolfram's post.

Wolfram and Minsky both have backgrounds in academia. In academia "self-
promotion" is actually not generally frowned upon.

People really do expect you to bring up your own work whenever possible and
connect it whatever issue is at hand. This is not considered rude or offensive
or "bragging", anymore than if someone told you they're from New York City and
you mentioned that you'd lived in Brooklyn for seven years.

It's a way for people to find common ground and show how much they share
intellectually.

Thus, I'm pretty sure Minsky wouldn't be offended.

And yes, for the record I have found Wolfram to be somewhat self-aggrandizing
in the past, but I just don't think this is an example of that, he's simply
reminiscing over his history with Minsky and describing some connections
between their work.

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vixen99
In an entertaining novel which explains not a few ideas from the 'Society of
Mind', Minsky (coauthor Harry Harrison) introduces the idea of "microrobots
that could chase mealybugs away". It's called 'The Turing Option' \- lots of
fun.

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poseid
really nice thoughts, esp. about teaching and discoveries "marvinminsky said
[...] that the best way to teach programming was to start by showing people
good code"

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choosername
that's in general one of three ways to learn: observe and immitate, trial and
error, understand or repeat. That's the scientific method in a nutshell. Works
small scale as well as bleeding edge. Understanding is kind of an elusive word
for the exit condition of the recursion, tho. At some point where there is no
way for repition, understanding means memorization of facts, sometimes insight
is the epiphany that one went down the wrong road.

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dang
Hey everyone: What we can call Wolfram Derangement Syndrome—the vast
indignation provoked in internet commenters by his vast self-referenciness—is
off topic. Nothing so predictable can be interesting. And predictable rage
reflexes are toxic.

The first few times this came up, years ago, it was worth noting. I laughed at
the same parodies everyone else did. But by now, Wolfram's odd tic has long
been commoditized, and it's our problem if we choose to dwell on it.

Wolfram has other things to say as well, and many of them—recently about Ada
Lovelace, George Boole, and now Minsky—are interesting. Those are the things
HN should be discussing.

It's a test for this community: can we stay focused on what's interesting? Or
must we lose our shit every time the catnip is wiggled?

There are gems in this article that would stimulate a good HN discussion under
normal circumstances. Let us put on our anti-troll immunity suits and give
that a try.

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nabla9
The readership of online publications is open ended. You should not expect
community or memory of past exchanges. Wolfram is irritating prick and that
fact will come up frequently when people discover it again and again. Don't
except evolution in discussion when the site is just stream of links.

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rayuela
This is actually a really interesting commentary on the nature of this type of
platform. Is not the evolution of discussion the most desirable outcome here?

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gypsyharlot
Wolfram is self-promoting even in goodbyes to the departed now? Yikes, I
didn't think it could get any worse...

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windmaster
"By the standards of Mathematica or Wolfram|Alpha, the 1961 integration
program was very primitive"

That is indeed quite distasteful.

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helper
Distasteful? He is saying that the Minsky's work is a direct ancestor to his
own. If you read the rest of that paragraph he is praising and thanking Minsky
for the foundation he laid.

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windmaster
Yeah, he says that – between the lines. He also never misses an opportunity to
mention how brilliant he is and how his Wolfram products are the greatest
tools in the world.

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daveguy
30 links. 27 links to Wolfram and his products. 2 links to Minsky's work. 1
link to a mathematics geneology site (who was who's grad student). The math
geneology site (not Wolfram) is pretty cool. Otherwise this is a particularly
distasteful way to put out self-aggrandizing plugs.

Edit: that math geneology site that shows all the students of Minsky (and
their students, etc) --
[http://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=6869](http://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=6869)

Edit2:

Book by Minsky Society of the Mind -- [http://aurellem.org/society-of-
mind/](http://aurellem.org/society-of-mind/)

Paper by Minsky on finite automata
--[https://books.google.com/books?id=oL57iECEeEwC&pg=PA117&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=oL57iECEeEwC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=minsky+"%20Some+Universal+Elements+for+Finite+Automata%20"&source=bl&ots=xvG-
slRVgZ&sig=ybbdy4Rq2RCKrFWjNbHlOrfkUvY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiensHGksfKAhWLn4MKHQE0CokQ6AEISTAJ%20#v=onepage&q=minsky%20%20%20%22%20Some%20%20%20Universal%20%20%20Elements%20%20%20for%20%20%20Finite%20%20%20Automata%20%22&f=false)

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xenophonf
Wolfram is pretty shameless, but I don't think you're being fair to him here.
The links to Wolfram Alpha are no different from you or I linking to a Google
search, and in context the references to Wolfram's _A New Kind of Science_
speaks to Minsky's influence on his work.

