Dear Ranjan,
Hmmmmm... you've demonstrated why it's difficult, but not that it is
impossible. I think that Jerry's second iteration was close.
I can answer your three questions easily.
1) It should not take as many truck-loads of documentation as drug
approval takes. A good clear description that satisfies three judges
will work. Based on Jerry's second version, I can't imagine needing
more than a single-spaced page, perhaps two.
The FDA and its counterparts in other nations require documentation
on development, clinical testing, health effects, manufacturing
standards. The standards are rigorous, but I think your colleague was
exaggerating for effect. I find it hard to believe that seven
truckloads of document are required. As I understand it, drugs fall
under the jurisdiction of the FDA, a federal agency. I do not believe
that the 50 states govern the drug approval process. What I could
believe is that copies of some portions of the FDA documents were
required, and that these copies may have been required by each state
-- that would be one set of documents 50 times, and a good sized box
or two might fill a few trucks. The process is rigorous, but it would
never function if every drug approval required so much documentation
that the original documents were to fill seven trucks.
Fortunately, the documentation is the description of how to tie the
laces by following the instructions, nothing more. And it does not
have to satisfy the FDA or 50 states. Just three judges.
2) Shoes and laces are reasonably irrelevant. This is a description
of how to tie shoelaces. Unless I'm mistaken, that will work for all
shoes and all kinds of laces. I'm not trying to trick or fool anyone
-- just as magic wands, wizard's swords, and staffs are out, so are
shoes with any kind of weird structure that makes tying laces
impossible. Let's take this in good faith -- any pair of reasonably
ordinary shoes with reasonably ordinary laces will do if the tier can
tie the laces by following the instructions.
3) Language? I hadn't really thought of that. The language of the
list and the offer are English, so I'm assuming an English-language
proposal. BUT this can certainly be a translation from a document
written in Danish or Greek, or Hindi, not to mention Assamese,
Bengali, Gujarati, or any of the many languages of India.
Quite clearly, one wouldn't have to define all words. I think the
offer was fairly clear. Three responsible judges would not permit
endless quibbles to prevent accepting a reasonable good-faith attempt
that successfully meets a reasonable interpretation of the challenge.
On the other hand, you never know -- some judges might hold out for
dinner offers at Nonna's from all the contestants, dragging out the
process through years of good dining. Fortunately, none of our judges
is a crony of George W ... ooops. I certainly don't want to go there.
We're interested in seeing whether this can be done. At least I am,
and -- as you've seen -- I've even located an equivalent restaurant
for dinner in Eugene and offered to pay the prize in books to the
university library.
Most arts and sciences are noted for difficult but potentially
tractable problems that become the subject of prize competitions or
bets. Stephen Hawking's bets with Kip Thorne and John Preskill are
famous examples. I'm doing my part to forward the conversation in
design research.
Yours,
Ken
--
M P Ranjan wrote:
(1)
>I wonder how many truck-loads of documents would be needed to meet the
>task set by Ken, if we are to assume the same levels of critical
>definition that is required by the US drug administration?
(2)
>Ken, you have not specified the kind of shoe that would be laced. Nor
>the number and location of the holes, if any, that would need to be
>threaded to achieve the anchoring of the lace or laces before we can
>actually tie the laces down in one "informed gesture" that is based on
>the description that is to be produced by members of this list.
(3)
>Jerry is right when he declares that at
>any stage we would have to set a lower limit to what is accepted as
>known, otherwise we may have to define each and every word in the
>description and the unstated set of words that would make the ones used
>make sense as a language. What about the language of description, can it
>be in plain English? In India we have 14 official languages accepted by
>the State!!
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