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And calling philosophy navel-gazing is navel-gazing. The philosophy of information is a great example of where it's incredibly important [1]. I seriously, seri
by bpchaps 10y ago
And calling philosophy navel-gazing is navel-gazing.
The philosophy of information is a great example of where it's incredibly important [1]. I seriously, seriously doubt that information theory would have come about without many of the philosophical underpinnings that came before it. It's not just about structure.
[1] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information/
edit: interestingly enough, some of the posts in your blog would be considered "philosophy". ;)
- Retric 10y agoI would suggest you study more non western history. People did a lot of what we think of as science and math with very different underpinnings. Without a basis for comparison you can't separate what is actually important from an accident of history. PS: The two most widely used and useful parts of math where completely unknown to the anchent Greeks. Aribic numerals are the first example of useful information theory after writing.
- bpchaps 10y agoI understand what you mean, but calling it an accident of history is a pretty strong minimization of what amounts to applied philosophy towards genuine innovation. When I talk about information theory, I'm talking more about the more generalized forms of it (Shannon, etc), not necessarily something that could generally be described as 'information' in a more classical definition. Specifically, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematical_Theory_of_Communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematical_Theory_of_Commu.... (this is a subject I'm actively learning over time, so please correct me if I'm wrong!)
- Retric 10y agoIf you consider morse code was 100 years old at that point, there had already been a lot of very practical work under that heading. With earlier effort focused on designing and cracking encryption systems. Shannon was more an outgrowth of having already abstracted information and looking for ways to encode that for transmission. I don't want to downplay the value, but in historical context it's very different from how you learn about such things after the fact.
- bpchaps 10y agoFair enough - I completely agree.
- empath75 10y agoComputer science is really just applied philosophy.
- kwhitefoot 10y agoMost of Computer Science isn't science in the sense meant by describing physics as a science. Most of what is science in computing is simply applied physics and applied mathematics. That doesn't make it any less worthy of study of course.
- colechristensen 10y ago> And calling philosophy navel-gazing is navel-gazing. It is, and as I said sometimes doing that is _good_ despite the derogatory connotations of calling it as such. There's a point I'm trying to make which is not coming across, and I'm not sure I'll be able to.