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Marvin Minsky dies at 88

nytimes.com

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Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#11

Post by EdwardCoffin »

Tossrock wrote: post #4

In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-tac-toe", Sussman replied. "Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said. Minsky then shut his eyes. "Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher…

Danny Hillis: "The first time I met Marvin Minsky: I walked into his office, I was very intimidated. He was sitting there, he was throwing wadded up pieces of paper at a wastebasket across the room, and doing a terrible job of it. He's missing it, they're all falling short. So I watch this for a while. Then he looked up at me and said 'ah! I forgot! It's one half em gee squared!'"

- From his talk On Game Software Development, in 2001 I think (from Technetcast.com)

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#16

Post by reasonattlm »

ggreer wrote: post #13

Interesting fact: Minsky is an Alcor member[1], so he's probably being cryopreserved right now. Though if he died from a cerebral hemorrhage, I'm not sure how well they'll be able to preserve his brain. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcor_Life_Extension_Foundatio...

One can hope that they'll make the attempt regardless. Alcor's position is to carry out their directive from a member regardless of third party opinions on viability where they can, as having the reputation for doing this minimizes the very real problem of interference from family members (for reasons economic, religious, etc). Also it is very hard to say at the time (as time is critical) how much damage is done via fatal brain injury of this nature, and of course at this point next to impossible to say what that will do the the odds and difficulty of future restoration.

Brain injury kept Roy Walford from being cryopreserved, though there it was clearly an extension of his own thoughts on the matter: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=24045 I see that as a terrible shame; it is guessing in advance as to the limits of what can be restored.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#17

Post by evanb »

Tossrock wrote: post #4

In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-tac-toe", Sussman replied. "Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said. Minsky then shut his eyes. "Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher…

Will robots inherit the earth?

Yes, but they will be our children.

--Marvin Minsky http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/sciam.inherit.html

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#18

Post by samstave »

ggreer wrote: post #13

Interesting fact: Minsky is an Alcor member[1], so he's probably being cryopreserved right now. Though if he died from a cerebral hemorrhage, I'm not sure how well they'll be able to preserve his brain. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcor_Life_Extension_Foundatio...

Ironic that he died from cerebral hemorrhage!

EDIT: I find it ironic - as he was my first exposure to the science of mind and thought etc... I find it ironic that his own death was due to a failure of the brain/mind in some way given how much he has contributed to the idea of thought and mind in his career.

Re: Marvin Minsky dies at 88

#19

Post by qmalzp »

saosebastiao wrote: post #10

RIP. I will always hold him as an inspiration. Of interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neats_vs._scruffies I find it interesting because Minsky did a lot of the foundational work in Neural Network research yet he philosophically identified as the opposite on the Neat/Scruffy spectrum of most NN researchers today. Much like Bayes, I think there is some immense wisdom from his research that will not even be acknowle…

I reckon Scruffy is good for inventing a new field, Neat is good for pushing it to the limit.
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