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  3. Computer programmers often remark that computing machines, with a perfect lack of discrimination, will do any foolish thing they

Computer programmers often remark that computing machines, with a perfect lack of discrimination, will do any foolish thing they

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问题     Computer programmers often remark that computing machines, with a perfect lack of discrimination, will do any foolish thing they are told to do. The reason for this lies, of course, in the narrow fixation of the computing machine’s "intelligence" on the details of its own perceptions—its inability to be guided by any large context. In a psychological description of the computer intelligence, three related adjectives come to mind: single-minded, literal-minded, and simple-minded. Recognizing this, we should at the same time recognize that this single-mindedness, literal-mindedness, and simplemindedness also characterizes theoretical mathematics, though to a lesser extent.
    Since science tries to deal with reality, even the most precise sciences normally work with more or less imperfectly understood approximations toward which scientists must maintain an appropriate skepticism. Thus, for instance, it may come as a shock to mathematicians to learn that the Schrod-inger equation(薛定谔方程)for the hydrogen atom is not a literally correct description of this atom, but only an approximation to a somewhat more correct equation taking account of spin, magnetic di-pole, and relativistic effects; and that this corrected equation is itself only an imperfect approximation to an infinite set of quantum field, theoretical equations. Physicists, looking at the original Schrodinger equation, learn to sense in it the presence of many invisible terms in addition to the differential terms visible, and this sense inspires an entirely appropriate disregard for the purely technical features of the equation. This very healthy skepticism is foreign to the mathematical approach.
    Mathematics must deal with well-defined situations. Thus, mathematicians depend on an intellectual effort outside of mathematics for the crucial specification of the approximation that mathematics is to take literally. Give mathematicians a situation that is the least bit ill-defined, and they will make it well-defined, perhaps appropriately, but perhaps inappropriately. In some cases, the mathematicians’ literal-mindedness may have unfortunate consequences. The mathematicians turn the scientists’ theoretical assumptions, that is, their convenient points of analytical emphasis, into axioms, and then take these axioms literally. This brings the danger that they may also persuade the scientists to take these axioms literally. The question, central to the scientific investigation but intensely disturbing in the mathematical context—what happens if the axioms are relaxed? —is thereby ignored.
    The physicist rightly dreads precise argument, since an argument that is convincing only if it is precise loses all its force if the assumptions on which it is based are slightly changed, whereas an argument that is convincing though imprecise may well be stable under small perturbations of its underlying assumptions.
The author discusses computing machines in the first paragraph primarily in order to do which of the following?
选项 A、Indicate the dangers inherent in relying to a great extent on machines.
B、Illustrate his views about the approach of mathematicians to problem solving.
C、Compare the work of mathematicians with that of computer programmers.
D、Provide one definition of intelligence.
答案B
解析 考查考生的语言基本功和对文章段落结构的认识。阅读第一段并且把第一段和本文其它段落相联系，可知原文作者借用大家所熟悉的“computing roachines”作为例子来帮助我们更好的了解“theoretical mathematics”的特点，得出本题的正确选项是B。
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