GIGO

Can a computer pick a random number?

Having subscribed to Word a Day put me in line to read the following exerpt.

algorithm (AL-guh-rith-uhm) noun

A finite sequence of well-defined steps for solving a problem.

[After al Khwarizmi (the [man] of Khwarizm), a nickname of the 9th century Persian astronomer and mathematician Abu Jafar Muhammand ibn Musa, who authored many texts on arithmetic and algebra. He worked in Baghdad and his nickname alludes to his place of origin Khwarizm (Khiva), in present-day Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

"If you teach a computer to write a piece of music by feeding it an
algorithm, have you composed the resulting piece or has the computer?"
Alexander Gelfand; The Sounds of Science; The Walrus (Toronto, Canada); Jun 2007.

I find it hard to comprehend that ...

Ok, I look up The Sounds of Science. I read it.

“When does sound cease to be music and become noise?
‘Music is being reinvented.’ So, too, is the very definition of music. Conventional notions of tone and timbre, not to mention melody, rhythm and harmony, do not apply to much computer-generated music.
the philosophical questions it raises, while still intellectually provocative — Is this music at all or a highly engineered form of noise? Are those who make it really composers or musicians or are they sound engineers and software developers? — have been rendered moot.

OF COURSE, owning a hammer doesn't necessarily mean you know how to build a house.

the tools of musical expression may now be available to all, but musical ability is not, and never has been.

‘Good work can come from anywhere,’ ”

I read it.

I repeat, I find it hard to comprehend that any one can ask "If you teach a computer to write a piece of music by feeding it an algorithm, have you composed the resulting piece or has the computer?"

The article is good. It is very interesting.
There are however two leading words that I would comment on. The first is Teach and the second is Good.

A computer can NOT pick a random number !
A computer can NOT compose anything let alone a piece of music !

Is a DNA sequence random?
For all those who think so it is small wonder that they ask “why am I here?”

A DNA sequence is NOT random !
It is a code containing information. There has to be a moral code or that word “Good” is totally meaningless! How could anyone use the word and give it any kind of meaning at all if DNA is a random sequence? The phrase ‘Good work can come from anywhere’ as used by the speaker in this article would in fact be very, very misleading. It would be a warm fuzzy buzz phrase calculated to play on the subtle innuendo that there is meaning to life and you should line up and pay for what is superior. If life evolved from primitive amino acids there is NO good – better - best!

“the philosophical questions it raises, while still intellectually provocative — Is this music at all or a highly engineered form of noise? Are those who make it really composers or musicians or are they sound engineers and software developers? — have been rendered moot.” Not yet they haven’t.

NO one can “Teach” a computer anything. Absolutely the wrong word to use. Way back in the beginning there was a catch phrase which is still good today. GIGO ! !