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A Philosopher Every Programmer Should Know: Susanne K. Langer
- Hisoka 15y agoI feel we love our work because we all need a worthwhile struggle and goal.
- walexander 15y agoI believe some of us have an intrinsic desire to build things. Just like birds build nests and bees build hives. Some of us have a desire to build and are probably rewarded with some chemical brain fix as a result. At this point though, we've simply changed the medium from sticks and mud to Python and Minecraft.
- calebmpeterson 15y agoI would use the word create as it reminds me of both utility and aesthetics. Create also has an ex nihilo conotation, which really seems to fit abstract thought-stuff.
- javert 15y agoHumans don't have "intrinsic" desires, and we don't have instincts (except arguably as babies), like building nests and hives. Instead, our desires become shaped over time by the process of thought and past experiences we've accumulated. I agree more with my grandparent post than my parent post. We have (as individuals) learned to value certain particular kinds of achievement, and when we do achieve those achievements, it makes us feel satisfied.
- philwelch 15y agoWhat part of the brain is missing in humans, then? The human brain adds on functionality, but it doesn't take anything away. We have the same instincts and desires most primates have, and maybe a few of our own. On top of that we have a mind that can add its own desires, or rationalize the ones already there.
- tambourine_man 15y agoHumans don't have "intrinsic" desires, and we don't have instincts Says who? Based on what? You are seriously underestimating one of the hardest questions ever posed and for which there is no (and there may never be) definitive answer. Tabula rasa, genetic determinism, nature vs nurture, etc are all deep, hard problems. As a matter of fact, can you even significantly define “desire” or “instinct”? A lot of smart people have tried in the last 2500 years and there is no consensus yet.
- walexander 15y agoInstead of responding to your parent directly, i'll just add that this is exactly why I prefaced my post with "I believe". That said, I'm not implying we have built in instructions to go create a townhous. Simply that there is possibly a driving force that compels us to create, then a reward for doing so.
- corin_ 15y ago"our desires become shaped over time by the process of thought and past experiences" How does, for example, sexual arousal fit into that theory? Sure, it's a desire, but can you argue it's not an instinctive desire that evolution has given us for pretty obvious reasons?
- tambourine_man 15y agoAnd problem solving, which to me, was the greatest driving force that allowed me to overcome my natural aversion to arbitrary conventions and strictness, both essential in learning how to code. The power of being able to solve pretty much anything by simply commanding this very fast machine is intoxicating. Once you learn “the code” you are hooked for life. I imagine that if there wasn't such a steep learning curve (specially for the more “liberal arts” inclined), no one would escape its pull. BTW, also worth checking is Heidegger's “Poetry, Language, Thought”.
- Lost_BiomedE 15y ago"and are probably rewarded with some chemical brain fix as a result" Dopamine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine Realizing what gives you award stimulus is important for reinforcing behavior you want and discouraging what you do not want. It is also good to know for all you app and game developers out there.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- dto1138 15y agoShe also wrote a great book called Introduction To Symbolic Logic. A must-read!
- rektide 15y agoEnjoyable article, probably true for many; making me further happy I just picked up a stack of James Hillman & other Archetypal Psychologies & symbol books.
- araneae 15y agoOnly programmers that enjoy philosophy. Personally I feel the whole field is obsolete with the invention of neuroethology and similar.
- ez77 15y agoNeurethology for one thing assumes the existence of matter, in particular neurons... It may not be your cup of tea (or mine!), but I very much doubt philosophy will ever become obsolete as long as there is a functioning mind ;-).
- araneae 15y agoI think it's safe to assume the existence of neurons.
- ez77 15y agoA characteristic aspect of philosophy is to question essentially every assumption. You and I may find other things much more interesting, even if they require some basic assumptions, but that's another story. Edit: I don't know why araneae's comments are being downvoted (despite my upvotes). His points are constructive and on topic...
- somephilosopher 15y agoI wouldn't downvote anyone, but perhaps because it's a paradigm example of a particular strain of thought you see a lot amongst techie/engineering types with limited experience of philosophy, and a line of thought that doesn't stand more than a cursory examination. You've already answered it with your neurons example. Someone else has pointed out that neuroethology will not touch on normative facts (although will presumably uncover empirical facts that have normative significance). People have been predicting the death of philosophy for hundreds of years. It hasn't happened yet, and it is unlikely to, as there are always fundamental questions to ask (even though progress on them is difficult, if possible - but that's another question).
- wicknicks 15y agoVery cool! I sometimes wonder what's so special about the concept of a 'symbol'. A stream of symbols make up a message. A message contains a thought or an idea which we wish to express. We definitely find it hard to communicate with symbols alone. It would be very interesting to find answers to 1. What processes convert ideas to symbols and messages. 2. Is there a notion of an optimal symbol set? 3. How much are these symbols and messages created by the human brain dependent on the person's environment?
- gosub 15y agoregarding n.2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity defines formally the concept of minimal encoding of a message
- Iv 15y agoAnd as long as philosopher will refuse to dig a bit into mathematics or computer science for answers to questions they call "philosophical", I'll have a hard time being interested by philosophy.
- slowpoke 15y agoAnd as long as mathematicans will refuse to stop asserting that their holy science is the one and only correct answer to all problems on this earth, I'll have a hard time being interested in mathematics. This goes both ways, you see?
- paulnelligan 15y agoRegarding why we dream, I've always thought that it's got something to do with exercising our right brain. We feed our left brain when we're awake, we feed our right brain when we're asleep ... can anyone confirm or deny this ?
- sheffield 15y agoWe have only one brain.
- treyp 15y agowhat if you sever your corpus callosum?
- oscilloscope 15y agoThen we have two brains.
- araneae 15y agoDuring sleep both hemispheres show large scale inactivity. There's no different in activity between the two hemispheres. All of our brain needs sleep. Just because only one half of our brain is responsible for speech doesn't mean we don't use it when we're awake.
- Shorel 15y agoIt is my understanding that we have two different future-predicting brains: the limbic system (mammalian brain) and the neocortex (primates and dolphins brain). The r-complex is a purely reactive brain, and tries to predict little. The neocortex is incredibly powerful, but the limbic system notices stuff that the neocortex misses on our day-to day routine. Things like micro-gestures (emotions drawn by our faces for mere fractions of a second), non-spoken language, etc. This neocortex-unperceived stuff is perceived by us as 'feelings', the operating material of the limbic system. The REM dream stage is the limbic system putting all those feelings as requests to the neocortex, in the way of: "give me a logical and understandable explanation for this feeling I've been having all week". Then we experience crazy stuff that actually matches the limbic sensation, or we get the right answer. This also helps/interacts with learning processes. For the rest of the dream state, I have no current theory/explanation.
- Tichy 15y agoTo be honest, it seems very superficial to me - like most philosophy. It starts with an arbitrary premise ("the brain wants to process symbols"). Since the premise is arbitrary, it doesn't help me at all. To me the interesting bit is "why does the brain want to process symbols". Which is probably better answered by evolution theory than by philosophy. Another example of the shallowness of philosophy: "I think, therefore I am". Again, an arbitrary premise. What does it mean to exist? Again, philosophy does not seem to be interested.
- philbarr 15y agoI thought, "I think, therefore I am" was an answer to the question, "how do I know what is real and what is not?" So, for example, we're all stuck in some virtual reality world and everything is fake, how would we know? How do we even know, for that matter, that we ourselves our real? Well, we're wondering about it, so therefore we ourselves are definitely real in some way, even if everything else is fake - "I think, therefore I am" Although most philosophy never draws a conclusion, I actually quite like this "proof". And further, just because philosophy rarely draws conclusions, it doesn't mean it's not worth thinking about, if just for the fun of it.
- Tichy 15y agoI have studied maths, and I enjoy thinking logically. The difference is that while mathematical axioms are also arbitrary, they never claim to not be arbitrary. Therefore it seems more honest to me.
- Locke1689 15y agoMathematics axioms aren't arbitrary in the same way philosophical axioms aren't arbitrary. Mathematical axioms are chosen for many reasons, one of which is that they are useful.
- thrdOriginal 15y agoI realize it is easy to pick on philosphy, but if you're going to write off one of our oldest disciplines it should at least come from an informed place: "I think therefore I am" is not Descartes' premise, but one of his conclusions. Even as a conclusion, it is mostly misunderstood. The point is not that it is the thinking that brings one into being, but that there is something there that must exist in order to do the thinking. Other translations I have read have it "I am deceived, therefore I am," again the point being that something must first exist in order to be deceived. His original "arbitary premise" is that he must first discard everything he thinks he already knows.
- BasDirks 15y agoRead Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus if you want to read a remarkably bug-free "program". It reads like code.
- yolesaber 15y agoInterestingly enough, there is an effort to "port" the Tractatus' logic to software engineering: http://www.hxa.name/notes/note-hxa7241-20110219T1113Z.html http://www.hxa.name/notes/note-hxa7241-20110219T1113Z.html
- username3 15y agoAnyone mind if I promote http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/ http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/ here?