From: dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.math.num-analysis Subject: Re: call for votes: most & least boring numbers Date: 17 Jan 90 20:40:02 GMT In article <18311.25b44848@merrimack.edu> ain14924@merrimack.edu writes: “Reminds me of a friend of mine who claims that the number 17 is “the most random” number. His proof ran as follows: pick a number. It’s not really as good a random number as 17, is it? (Invariable Answer: “Umm, well, no…”)” This reminds me of a little experiment I did a couple of years ago. I stood on a busy street-corner in Oxford, and asked passers-by to “name a random number…
in which, with respect to our name, we are as confused as you are
By davidjchalmers
David Chalmers is Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University, is author of "The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory", and is occasionally conscious. This piece was first published on the newsgroup sci.math in 1990, and can be found on his website.