Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #03570



To: Jean auBois aubois@trail.com, beam@corp.sgi.com
From: Bob Shannon bshannon@tiac.net
Date: Sun, 23 May 1999 10:24:31 -0400
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Rollerbots (was: Star Wars Ep1...)




Jean auBois wrote:

> At 5:27 AM -0000 5/23/99, Bob Shannon wrote:
>
> :> Furthermore, whether or not pillbugs are robots or not is irrelevant -- by
> :> the same argument, one could say that Mark Tilden's finding inspiration in
> :> the biological world is equally valueless. I, for one, am not willing to
> :> make that argument.
> :Why not take advantage of the solutions already found in nature?
> :There is a lot to be learned from the design and behavior of insects
> :that can be directly applied to small robots. All those millions of
> :years of evolution, of no value?
> :Can you explain why not?
>
> Let me rearrange my sentences so that perhaps they'll be understood better,
> because it is obvious that people are misreading them:
>
> I am -NOT- willing to make the argument that "Mark Tilden's finding
> inspiration in the biological world is valueless".

Sorry I was less than clear, I understood that you were unwilling to make this
arugment.

All I was doing was agreeing, rather poorly I admit.

But what's gotten into this list recently? A major case of pre-contest jitters
perhaps?

>
> Or, to get rid of the double negative (well, sort of a double negative) and
> changing a word or two:
>
> I am willing to make the argument that Mark Tilden's finding inspiration in
> the biological world has value.
>
> Does this make it any clearer?

It was perfectly clear to me the first time around, I think it was my response
that was unclear.

I should have snipped out any suggestion that there may not be value in this work
from the
other poster, but that was more of an implicit suggestion rather than a clear
claim. So rather than disagree with something not clearly stated, I choose to
agree with something that was
made clear.

I just wasn't clear enough about it! My questions were to the list as a whole,
not an 'attack'
on anything Jean wrote.



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