Re: Automath restaurant

Zdzislaw Meglicki (Zdzislaw.Meglicki@cisr.anu.edu.au)
Sun, 21 Aug 1994 17:21:48 +1000 (EST)

Since we ended up, it seems, in the "Automath Restaurant" let me cite
prophetic words from Isaac Asimov's "The Gods Themselves". On page 161
(chapter 3, part III) Montez and Gottstein, two Terrestrial officials
representing Earth in the Moon colony, discuss "a lack of desire to risk
change because of the possible side-effects" that seems to plague Earth
society at that time (2100).

[...]
Gottstein:
'I take it you refer to the program on genetic engineering'
'That's the most spectacular case of course, but not the only one,'
said Montez, bitterly.
'Frankly, I can't get excited over the abandonment of genetic
engineering. It was a tissue of failures.'
'We lost our chance at intuitionism.'
'There has never been any evidence that intuitionism is desirable,
and considerable indications of its undesirability... Besides what about
the Lunar colony itself? This certainly is no indication of stagnation
on Earth.'
[...]

Cordial greetings to QED,

Zdzislaw Meglicki, Zdzislaw.Meglicki@cisr.anu.edu.au,
Automated Reasoning Pursuit - CISR, and Plasma Theory Group - RSPhysSE,
The Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T., 0200,
Australia, fax: +61-6-249-0747, tel: +61-6-249-0158