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"Computer science could be called the post-Turing decline in the study of formal systems." (One of my favorite jokes. Dijkstra's I think.) FWIW, the foundati

"Computer science could be called the post-Turing decline in the study of formal systems." (One of my favorite jokes. Dijkstra's I think.) FWIW, the foundation of it all is the act of making a distinction. "In the beginning was the void, and the void was without form." Operationally, if the thing in your brain that makes distinctions is suppressed (by e.g. a stroke) you literally lose the ability to distinguish between your body and the world and enter into an "oceanic bliss". > "My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientistʼs Personal Journey", (2008) is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning book written by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained and published neuroanatomist. In it, she tells of her experience in 1996 of having a stroke in her left hemisphere and how the human brain creates our perception of reality and includes tips about how Dr. Taylor rebuilt her own brain from the inside out. ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Stroke_of_Insight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Stroke_of_Insight (There's also a TED talk.) Semantically, distinction is the sole act required to produce logic (and therefore computers and teh science thereof.) See "Laws of Form". > "Laws of Form" is a book by G. Spencer-Brown, published in 1969, that straddles the boundary between mathematics and philosophy. ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Form

LudwigNagasena 7y ago
"Harvard-trained" is a really weird way to say you did your postdoc at Harvard.
- robotresearcher 7y ago
  'Training' is a perfectly conventional way to describe a postdoc role. > So, What is a Postdoc? > [...] A postdoc is a temporary position that allows a PhD to continue their training as a researcher and gain skills and experience that will prepare them for their academic career. https://academicpositions.com/career-advice/what-is-a-postdoc https://academicpositions.com/career-advice/what-is-a-postdo... See also https://www.nature.com/articles/ncb0711-735a https://www.nature.com/articles/ncb0711-735a
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    It's conventional, but perhaps a little misleading since it is almost entirely "on the job" training--there's almost never any coursework or anything like that, just (hopefully) advice from a more senior researcher.
    - nvrspyx 7y ago
      That’s the definition of training though; instruction coupled with practice. Why is formal schooling a required form of instruction for it to be considered “training” in your view?
      - mattkrause 7y ago
        Training doesn't necessarily require three lectures a week + 2 exams, or anything like that, but I think it does require some sort of sustained, deliberate attempt at instruction. I'm very happy with my postdoc, for what it's worth, and the very beginning did have some explicit training. The rest of it though, has much more like a job: you do something, get feedback on it, and make some changes. Repeat and hopefully need to make fewer changes each time. Critically, you don't get a lot of "generalized" feedback; it's coupled to the specific thing that you're both working on and comes from the one person you work for. I think in most other fields, the postdoc equivalent would be something like "jr. <whatever>" or "associate." Medical residencies seem to have a bit more structure, at least from the outside.
        deleted 7y ago
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        deleted 7y ago
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gen220 7y ago
Coincidence, but this is also the first lesson in the Tao Te Ching! :) The lesson is our desired things (beauty, wisdom, wealth) are defined by their contradictions, and are therefore not self-standing. The only thing which is self-standing is contradiction itself. When you step back, it argues, you see that contradiction (distinction) is that from which all things stem. The operative distinction that motivates most peoples’ actions is “desire”. Hence, the distinction between desirable and undesirable determines the meaning of more material adjectives like beauty, wise, wealth. It goes on to say that if you remove “desire” from your perspective (to be more like nature/Tao), you can see things for what they are: mystery. Removing desire from your actions, however, is not very desirable in practice! The recommendation (i.e. the behavior of the sage) is to practice doing nothing, and not-talking. The implication (IMO) is that, without their contradictions, action and speech have no meaning. What is new is old :)
- jessermeyer 7y ago
  This is not a coincidence! There is the Tao, and then there are the 10,000 things! It's on the first page of the Tao Te Ching. :)
- avindroth 7y ago
  Yeah naming things makes it easy to talk about them but also draws arbitrary lines that influence the people dealing with said named objects Science is one thing, but science also obfuscates what you are trying to talk about by applying a specific kind of 'grid' or 'form' which reveals certain patterns in the content but also hides certain patterns (re: Foucault)
- galaxyLogic 7y ago
  > without their contradictions, action and speech have no meaning. This makes me think of waves. Moving your hand in water creates waves. A wave is a distinction between higher density vs. lower, or higher field-amplitude or not. Waves could not exist without such a distinction. In physics everything (?) is made of waves. But similarly in semantics words can only have meaning by describing both what they refer to and what they don't refer to by a given word or sentence. So, "meaning" is a sort of wave I guess.
croh 7y ago
This always amuses me. > FWIW, the foundation of it all is the act of making a distinction. Agree. Distinctin is more like creating a new pattern, giving rise to dualism. But new term itself is a relative to old one. So old is always part of new if you compare else it is always complete if you don't. Douglas Hofstadter has done very good job with self-referential systesm in Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Many easter philosophies particulary Indian advaita philosophy is an indeed great piece of work in this regard. But current model of science/mathematics is not much capable to describe abstract things and labled any such attempt as pseudo science. What I fear sometimes, science has become another RELIGION of new world as mentioned by Asimov in Foundation series. The beauty of science is not only knowledge but scientific approach and pursuing truth regardless of situation. We need to focus on developing these qualities in education else schools will become another religious institutes. Philosophy of Mathematics is another interesting topic related to this. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/
artsyca 7y ago
I like how the decline in formal systems is linked to the scourge of casual culture
eru 7y ago
Compare "Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity" https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/philos.pdf https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/philos.pdf

LudwigNagasena 7y ago

"Harvard-trained" is a really weird way to say you did your postdoc at Harvard.

robotresearcher 7y ago
'Training' is a perfectly conventional way to describe a postdoc role. > So, What is a Postdoc? > [...] A postdoc is a temporary position that allows a PhD to continue their training as a researcher and gain skills and experience that will prepare them for their academic career. https://academicpositions.com/career-advice/what-is-a-postdoc https://academicpositions.com/career-advice/what-is-a-postdo... See also https://www.nature.com/articles/ncb0711-735a https://www.nature.com/articles/ncb0711-735a
- mattkrause 7y ago
  It's conventional, but perhaps a little misleading since it is almost entirely "on the job" training--there's almost never any coursework or anything like that, just (hopefully) advice from a more senior researcher.
  - nvrspyx 7y ago
    That’s the definition of training though; instruction coupled with practice. Why is formal schooling a required form of instruction for it to be considered “training” in your view?
    - mattkrause 7y ago
      Training doesn't necessarily require three lectures a week + 2 exams, or anything like that, but I think it does require some sort of sustained, deliberate attempt at instruction. I'm very happy with my postdoc, for what it's worth, and the very beginning did have some explicit training. The rest of it though, has much more like a job: you do something, get feedback on it, and make some changes. Repeat and hopefully need to make fewer changes each time. Critically, you don't get a lot of "generalized" feedback; it's coupled to the specific thing that you're both working on and comes from the one person you work for. I think in most other fields, the postdoc equivalent would be something like "jr. <whatever>" or "associate." Medical residencies seem to have a bit more structure, at least from the outside.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]

gen220 7y ago

Coincidence, but this is also the first lesson in the Tao Te Ching! :) The lesson is our desired things (beauty, wisdom, wealth) are defined by their contradictions, and are therefore not self-standing. The only thing which is self-standing is contradiction itself. When you step back, it argues, you see that contradiction (distinction) is that from which all things stem. The operative distinction that motivates most peoples’ actions is “desire”. Hence, the distinction between desirable and undesirable determines the meaning of more material adjectives like beauty, wise, wealth. It goes on to say that if you remove “desire” from your perspective (to be more like nature/Tao), you can see things for what they are: mystery. Removing desire from your actions, however, is not very desirable in practice! The recommendation (i.e. the behavior of the sage) is to practice doing nothing, and not-talking. The implication (IMO) is that, without their contradictions, action and speech have no meaning. What is new is old :)

jessermeyer 7y ago
This is not a coincidence! There is the Tao, and then there are the 10,000 things! It's on the first page of the Tao Te Ching. :)
avindroth 7y ago
Yeah naming things makes it easy to talk about them but also draws arbitrary lines that influence the people dealing with said named objects Science is one thing, but science also obfuscates what you are trying to talk about by applying a specific kind of 'grid' or 'form' which reveals certain patterns in the content but also hides certain patterns (re: Foucault)
galaxyLogic 7y ago
> without their contradictions, action and speech have no meaning. This makes me think of waves. Moving your hand in water creates waves. A wave is a distinction between higher density vs. lower, or higher field-amplitude or not. Waves could not exist without such a distinction. In physics everything (?) is made of waves. But similarly in semantics words can only have meaning by describing both what they refer to and what they don't refer to by a given word or sentence. So, "meaning" is a sort of wave I guess.

croh 7y ago

This always amuses me. > FWIW, the foundation of it all is the act of making a distinction. Agree. Distinctin is more like creating a new pattern, giving rise to dualism. But new term itself is a relative to old one. So old is always part of new if you compare else it is always complete if you don't. Douglas Hofstadter has done very good job with self-referential systesm in Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Many easter philosophies particulary Indian advaita philosophy is an indeed great piece of work in this regard. But current model of science/mathematics is not much capable to describe abstract things and labled any such attempt as pseudo science. What I fear sometimes, science has become another RELIGION of new world as mentioned by Asimov in Foundation series. The beauty of science is not only knowledge but scientific approach and pursuing truth regardless of situation. We need to focus on developing these qualities in education else schools will become another religious institutes. Philosophy of Mathematics is another interesting topic related to this. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/

artsyca 7y ago

I like how the decline in formal systems is linked to the scourge of casual culture

eru 7y ago

Compare "Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity" https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/philos.pdf https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/philos.pdf