ot-no free lunch

Tony Abou-Assaleh taa-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org
Wed Dec 28 06:31:03 UTC 2005


There is some merit to what you said below, but it has nothing to do with
the 'no free lunch' as I understand it. No free lunch refers to the fact
that you don't get anything for free, it all costs something.

My familiarity with the No Free Lunch (NFL) Theorem comes from 'search
algorithm' and it states that no search algorithm is better than any other
search algorithm over all possible inputs. What it means in practice is
that if you use a heuristic to improve performance in some area, you will
lose on another area.

It's similar to the notion of 'you can't get something out of nothing', or
the first law of thermodynamics (and maybe even the second). So, when we
deal with matter and energy, thermodynamics tells us that we can produce
matter or energy out of nothing. The third law also tells us that we can't
do any useful work without wasting (spending) energy. No free lunch
applies these concepts where the matter and energy view is not easy to
see, but then the NFL itself is not easy to see either.

I hope that was somewhat on target.

Happy holidays,

TAA

-----------------------------------------------------
Tony Abou-Assaleh
Lecturer, Computer Science Department
Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada, L2S 3A1
Office: MC J215
Tel:    +1(905)688-5550 ext. 5243
Fax:    +1(905)688-3255
Email:  taa-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org
WWW:    http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/~taa/
----------------------[THE END]----------------------

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005, teddy mills wrote:

>
> There is the idea of No Free Lunch.
>
> That basically means as I understand it, anything that is free, or you
> dont have to work for it, has no or very little value to you.
>
> If you have 10 computers, getting or giving up a computer means very
> little to you. The DATA on the computer may mean a LOT to you because
> YOU HAD TO WORK, perhaps a lot, to get that DATA.
>
> A video store owner cares nothing about renting movies. He or she is
> sick of movies. He/she would rather read a good book.
>
> Think of anything you have a lot of, or can get for free. Books at the
> library I dont care about. I can get them anytime! I care about them
> when they are on hold for me, because I went to the effort of searching,
> and then waiting, and making the trip to get the book on hold. I had to
> invest some work, even though the book itself was free.
>
> This is what Linux is having a problem with the human reward/value
> system.
>
> Is there a way to make people "invest" some time and effort so they can
> get their "book (ie. linux) for free, but now assign a great deal of
> value to it? *much like getting a free library book thats on hold ?)
>
> We can download and install almost 300 different versions of Linux. For
> the cost of some time, and about $1 in CDs.
>
> You can give someone a deck of cards, but you cannot force them to be
> the Poker World Champion. They have to want to become the World poker
> champ. Same thing with Linux too, I think. The distros are there, but
> the intrinsic value of Linux must originate from that person.
>
> my 2 cents.
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