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Coming up with new language is rarely ever coming up with new concepts that didn't exist until the word. We come up with high-level abstractions because there a
by creatonez 3y ago
Coming up with new language is rarely ever coming up with new concepts that didn't exist until the word. We come up with high-level abstractions because there already exists a material system to be described and modeled. Language that doesn't describe anything that already exists is more like babbling.
- chrisco255 3y agoNot really, no. There are plenty of intangible abstractions that don't describe material systems. Take imaginary numbers, for example. Or the concept of infinity or even zero, neither of which exists in the physical world. The reason why "naming things" is the other hard problem in computer science, after cache invalidation, is that the process of identifying, creating, and describing ideal abstractions is itself inherently difficult.