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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 Schrodinger 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 suggests that a mathematician asked to solve a problem in an ill-defined situation would first attempt to do which of the following?
选项 A、Identify an analogous situation.
B、Simplify and define the situation.
C、Vary the underlying assumptions of a description of the situation.
D、Determine what use would be made of the solution provided.
答案B
解析 根据题干中“ill—defined”可将答案信息锁定在第三段第三句。阅读该句可知，让数学家去应对一个稍有不清楚的状况，他们首先要使这个情况well—defined。再阅读后面几句话，可对数学家如何define the situation well有一个清晰的理解，即简化、弄清楚这个状况，即答案为B。
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