arbitrary constant

Using the analogy of how an individual comes to decide whether to use an umbrella or not, Andy Clark discusses (in the London Review of Books) Alan Turing and his Universal Turing Machine:

Since even the decision to use an umbrella in the rain is potentially sensitive to countervailing information coming from anywhere in the knowledge base, we are left with a model of mechanical rationality which has depressingly little to say about most forms of genuine but non-deductive reasoning.

I'm not sure about that, but I do know that I have a peculiar habit of always taking an umbrella with me wherever I go. I don't mean I do it all of the time, but there's something at the back of my mind - perhaps some sort of non-deductive reasoning - that means I don't want to be caught short when it comes to it raining.

It's often quite inconvenient carrying around a big umbrella. It does, however, come in handy as a practise cricket bat or golf club, so I can always keep my eye in (or poke someone else's out).

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