How long do you have to achieve your goal?

Given that you (or your friend) are intending to have a human being make final arbitration, you have reduced the problem from one of almost impossible to just very, very hard--but don't let that stop you from trying, if you have the time.

Whenever you see discussion about natural language programming, the cliched example of "time flies like an arrow" comes up, but why? What is special about that phrase?

My conclusion (and I'm no linguist as anyone who has read any of my posts will tell you:), is that what is special about that phrase is it doesn't make any sense!

The challenge of the phrase is supposed to be how would any NLP or AI system be able to make sense of it. The answer is "It can't", but then, neither can a human being.

Time flies like an arrow.

Time isn't solid, so how can it fly?

Ah, but it's an analogy. "Time flies", means it passes very quickly.

Hang on. Time passes at a constant rate (Einstein aside), and "quickly" is an informal measure of time. So, How can you measure time in terms of time? Time cannot go quickly nor slowly. It just passes.

But it's not a literal description of how time passes, it's a subjective description. Sometimes, human beings perceive time to pass more slowly or more quickly than at other times.

Oh, I see. So arrow move quickly, therefore "time flies like an arrow" means that time is perceived to be moving more quickly than... well, when it isn't flying like an arrow?

But an arrow, leaves the string of say a 70# bow travelling at around 300 ft/sec--that's 200 mph, which is pretty quick relatively--but from that point on it starts to slow down, until it stops!

So, given that top end sports cars, motorcycles and trains can achieve and sustain 200 mph, an arrow is a pretty piss poor analogy for something travelling quickly.

Maybe the point it that an arrow goes from A to B and doesn't come back? Unless someone picks it up and fire it back of course. And the analogy is meant to relate to that. Time only travels one way (sci-fi not withstanding:).

But hang on, if I launch an arrow straight up, then it comes back down. If there's no wind, and the drag from the flights is even, and I manage to launch it exactly vertically, it might even end up back where it started from...or worse.

Hmmm. Write an AI/NLP program that can divine the meaning of the phrase "Time flies like an arrow".

while( <DATA> ) {
    m[time flies like an arrow]i 
        and print( "Does not compute!" ) 
        and next;
    
    ## Some other stuff goes here.
}
[download]

There you go:)