Re: What's the name for this?
From: Chris Sonnack (Chris_at_Sonnack.com)
Date: 05/04/04
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Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 16:40:12 -0500
"Edward G. Nilges" wrote:
>> Granting, for discussion, that "everything is connected", then any
>> given connection is indeed trivial and meaningless.
>
> This is part of the view that such broadly true statements aren't
> useful to the practical man.
No, it's not. It addresses a specific point. IN GENERAL, broadly
true statements can be useful.
>> (Isn't the deal with Kant actually about how experience takes place
>> in our own minds?) More to the point, Intuitionism, AIUI, predates
>> Kant (he just had his own spin on it--his "anshauung"). Intuitionism
>> is really just the idea that we can have indefinable "knowledge".
>
> No, the deal with Kant is NOT "how experience takes place in our
> own minds". That was Berkeley.
Actually, I've had a chance to do some reading since then, and I
think I'm right. For one example (there are many) check out:
http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/kant.htm
> To Kant, experience was a necessarily articulated phenomenon
> involving, in all possible cases, experiencing and the thing
> experienced.
Notice your own lead in here: "a necessarily articulated phenomenon"
Which, obviously, can only come from the mind. The link above has
a good bit, "[Kant's] central thesis—that the possibility of human
knowledge PRESUPPOSES the active participation of the human mind—is
deceptively simple, but the details of its application are notoriously
complex."
But let's not get lost. Remember, we're looking for Plato at the PC.
> It is only by exception that "the thing experienced" is inside the
> mind and it is only true with self-reflexive thoughts and dreaming.
Obviously. Not relevant to what I said. But let's move on.
> Kant realized that Hume was right: all of knowledge comes from
> sense-data.
Which is what I was getting at (re-read what I wrote in the context
of this discussion). More to the point, it's his spin on Intuitionism.
Which--as it opposes Plato--IT TOTALLY IRRELEVANT TO THE POINT I'VE
ASKED YOU TO SUPPORT.... if you can. Shall I take this long diversion
into Kant as tacit admission of failure?
>> (AIUI, Mathematical Intuitionism opposes Platonism primarily in
>> assuming mathematical constructs are generated products of the mind.
>
> Mathematical intuitionism does nothing of the sort. [...]
>
> ...we perceive a mathematical truth through intellect and not
> through the senses.
Which sounds like exactly what I said.
Is there a Plato in the house?
>> What you call the Intuitionist view in opposition to Plato, I've
>> called the Aristotelian view. Aristotle believed the world of
>> things was the primary one and that Plato's world of Ideas were
>> just abstractions.
>
> No, Aristotle agree with Plato that there are higher levels of
> reality constituted in forms. But, he observed that in the world
> in which we live we never encounter the forms in their purity.
Which would make him no different than Plato. My understanding (and
now I'll have to go find some sources, because I'm pretty sure this
is correct) is that the dichotomy between them is that Plato believed
this world was a "shadow" of the True Reality, whereas Ari accepted
this as the real world (which doesn't preclude impossibly perfect
forms, of course).
>>> There's a connection, in the Intuitionist challenge to Plato, to
>>> programming, for Intuitionists have the attractive humility of
>>> the "structured" programmer who uses good structure because this
>>> ensures he makes his goal in a step-by-step fashion.
>>
>> Rejected conclusion. Step-by-step method also used by many, many
>> other "philosophies". Plato himself used step-by-step analysis.
>> Thus, similar to your trivial proof above, the connection to
>> intuition--let alone to Plato--is trivial and without meaning.
>
> Intuitionism wasn't only "step by step analysis"...
Not relevant. YOUR words suggest Intuitionists are superior because
their philosophy leads to "step-by-step fashion". What I'm pointing
out is, so do others.
> ...it was ALSO the principled rejection of entities that could
> not be constructed by finitary means.
"finitary" is not a word I know. Did you mean "finite"? Is this
more smoke, or does it somehow connect to debugging?
>>> Platonism in mathematics is also challenged by Marxism...
Just an aside: what do challenges to Plato have to do with showing
how "Platonism" is connected to programming?
>> [sigh] Your biases and prejudices are showing again. Plato isn't
>> challenged by this at all, for he believed that we all existed in
>> the perfect world of idea *before* we are born, and that once we
>> were born into the imperfect world of things, we *recalled* the
>> ideals when doing mathematics. (Thus, any slob can recall this.)
>
> You obviously haven't read the Republic. Plato believed that slaves,
> women, merchants and warriors were necessarily unable to access
> higher truths by virtue of their social position.
Sure, but modern minds can look past his social bigotry and understand
the basic facts. Social position, after all, can change.
>>> The connection with CS is that the actual history of CS is the
>>> post-facto dignifying of discoveries by that species of ordinary
>>> slobs called programmers of how to accomplish a job of work, with
>>> impressive sounding theories.
>>
>> Rejected. I would opine that most real discoveries in both math
>> and CS are made by active scientists in that domain. (That doesn't
>> preclude the occasional "A-ha" moment from us slobs, though. :-)
>
> Hash addressing, parsing, etc., were all scientific discoveries in
> relation to subsequent academic work, which hasn't discovered much
> of utility outside of Dijsktra's work, and Dijkstra was in part a
> programmer.
I don't agree. I think if you consider all of CS, you'll find that
the bulk of "new science" is, in fact, created by Computer Scientists.
>> Strike Two.
>
> If you want to play games, go play in traffic.
Oh, I see. It's fine for you to have sport with words, but when
someone does it to you, you whine like a little puppy, is that it?
>> More importantly, Hilbert was a part of Mathematical Formalism,
>> which believes that truth is determined by proof (and you can
>> see why he would attack Intuitionism :-). Specifically, all true
>> statements are provable and all provable statements are true.
>
> One name: Godel.
Absolutely! (I never said Hilbert was *right*! :-)
>>> A typical result is the overly ambitious system [...] which
>>> attempts to be the corporation's or government's World of Forms
>>> which, on the nacreous computer screen, expresses truths more
>>> True than the messy ambiguity of daily life.
>>
>> (More axe-grinding, Ed?) I'd say overly ambitious systems are an
>> equally current problem--if not more common these days with our
>> advanced systems.
>
> The experience of Ole Johan Dahl and the Scandinavians was that
> reliable and humane software is constructed by working programmers.
Newsflash: so are unreliable and inhumane softwares.
Also, totally non-responsive to the point. You conceed the point?
>> Derrida is a dipstick. Nuf sed.
>
> I don't believe you have accessed Derrida any more than you have
> read any more than the "classics" excluding Kant.
I have read enough Derrida (and seen a doc film of his life) to have
an opinion.
> Derrida-bashing, like Peter Singer-bashing, is nothing more than
> what happened to Socrates and Spinoza. Clowns who can't read hear
> something second hand and start baying for the scholar's head.
Or, in some cases surely, read enough to know they disagree. Do
you assume anyone who knows Derrida *must* agree with him?
>>> The relevance to CS is deep.
>>
>> If "deep" means "doesn't really exist", I agree!
>
> We must be shallow, mustn't we?
That response is positively Heathfeldian. A play on words in an
attempt to dodge a telling point. The fact remains, Ed, that your
recent *parroting* of "Platonism" is now shown to be specious.
>>> This is because CS is the invention, if it is anything at all, of
>>> a new form of more intense, "active" writing, programming.
>>
>> No. No. No. NO. NO!!!
>>
>> Computer Science is the activity that pursues computation and
>> predates "programming" and computers. Haven't you quoted the
>> quote about telescopes and astronomy recently?
>
> What Dijkstra MEANT was that computer science has nothing to do
> with mechanisms below computer architecture. What Dijkstra MEANT
> was that he was not interested in solid state physics and, given
> a decent compiler, in assembler language.
EVERY source I've read has it differently. Specifically that the
*mechanics* of computers are no more "Computer Science" than the
mechanics of telescopes are Astronomy.
(And, I think your own words contain a contradiction: assembly
is not "below computer architecture." Quite the opposite.)
> Without programming, there would be no computer science.
In that computer science *predates* programming, that's clearly false.
> It is a Platonism in that it is based, without being able to admit
> it, on a form of writing.
Ooh, Ed. You came sooooooo close to hitting a home run and yet
you seem to have completely missed it.
Consider this: had you said that Computer Science was Platonic, I
would probably have agreed. CS--like pure mathematics--is the
pursuit of ideal forms. Others have observed that mathematicians,
particularly those in pure mathematics, tend to view their
constructs as being quite real--which is exactly the Platonic view.
(One theory suggests it's difficult to dedicate your life to the
pursuit of *imaginary* things. :-)
Programming, however, is a whole 'nother apple.
> Programming was fully intended by the arrogant apparatchiks...
Oh, jeeze, here we go. Skipping ahead for level ground....
...big skip. Didn't find any.
>> Gibberish, Ed. Sheer gibberish. I hardly know where to begin.
>
> That's because you haven't done your homework.
I tend to believe it's more because you spouted gibberish.
>> End users rightfully are not, and should not be, aware of the
>> "magic".
>
> Yeah, "don't make me think".
Are you claiming end users should be programmers?
>> And I VERY much doubt programmers underestimate programs. (-:
And no reply to that. Yep, I was right. Gibberish.
>>>> Why would any philosphy result in a "fragmentation of analysis"?
>>>
>>> Forest and trees.
>>
>> And if your philosphy was, "don't forget the forest for the trees?"
And no reply to that. More Gibberish.
>>> For one thing, in years of
>>> experience in programming alone, I have the drop on you,...
>>
>> A. Timewise, not by much.
>> B. Remember, I've *seen* your programming.
>> That the "drop" is an illusion of your own mind.
>
> Yes, and you've made a complete fool of yourself by sending hate
> mail to my publisher,...
Hate mail? Hardly. Just suggested they consider your "body" of
work. Apparently you managed to snow them pretty good. I thought
they deserved another opinion.
> Your strange campaign of stalking and libel is just making you
> look bad. I do encourage you to buy a copy of my book...
Stalking!?!? ROFL! Whatever. No, Ed, I won't pay for your book
based on what I know of you. If I see it in a library I might
thumb through it to see if it's as bad as I suspect it will be.
>> And here we are. Platonism/Computer Science. No connection.
>
> There is whether we like it or not a connection.
Funny how you were unable to demonstrate it, then.
> I am currently working for a Chinese company which refused to listen
> to the conventional Web wisdom which is that the Web page should
> merely be sprayed with read-only HTML, and whose programmers instead
> convert full scale client-server applications to workalike Web
> applications.
In fact, *current* Web "wisdom" appears to be exactly that. You'll
find very few pages anymore that are pure HTML.
-- |_ CJSonnack <Chris@Sonnack.com> _____________| How's my programming? | |_ http://www.Sonnack.com/ ___________________| Call: 1-800-DEV-NULL | |_____________________________________________|_______________________|
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