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The surplus he's talking about is in the structure of the program: why is it that way rather than any other? Because of some meaning attached to the program, so

The surplus he's talking about is in the structure of the program: why is it that way rather than any other? Because of some meaning attached to the program, some "metalogic" (my terminology): a logic about the program which is not formally in the program but which nevertheless has significantly affected it.

kruhft 14y ago
I would still say no, because such metalogic will still be reducable to a type elevated logic and thus be reducable to 'core rules' operating on a lesser logic. Computability dictates what a computer can be instructed to do, leaving the 'meaning' to also have to conform to what can be computed. If it runs on a computer it can be reduced to a simple set of core rules that is a logic, no matter how complex, by virtue that it is running on a computer. Real math doesn't have to follow such rules.
- davesims 14y ago
  If the "it" in question is considered merely as the program and sum of CPU operations that the bytecode or binary-whatever reduces to, of course what you say is true, and also completely uninteresting. All that we've stated in this case is that software is software, electrons are electrons and bytecode is bytecode. Computers compute, end of story. But of course that's not what we do as coders. The code is never "complete" -- it's always striving towards some "meaning" that is for a human being. You cannot exclude the meaning of the code from the subject that it is intended for. A human being perceiving the code is always redacting the meaning of the code, not as a function of ones and zeros, but as a function of the analogy that code creates, pointing not towards electrons but towards: a product in a warehouse; a sum of sales at the end of a quarter; a flaming ball of death hurling towards my first-person-virtual head. And so on. In this sense the electrons/ones and zeroes are no more significant than the paper that The Iliad is written on + the ink it is written with.
  - kruhft 14y ago
    Then what does this specifically have to do with programs? All works of substance share such an 'incompleteness' and meaning. We just look to non-programming works as complete in a sense when they are recognized. But such works are constantly being rewritten in different forms in order to produce the effect they are known to be able to produce. In the end, everything is a program in some sense whether to be executed by a brain or computer. The point of what I was saying was to refute the idea that somehow our programs are so complex and have such amazing behaviour that they will not be reducable to a core set of rules. If the programs run on a computer they must be computable and thus reducable to a core set of rules. That's it. Whether we can be reduced to that core set of rules is not evident yet. Using logic, a statement that denies it's own provability in the language it was writen in was crewated. Logic was not thought to be able to lie, until it did. Who knows what the right brain can make it do?
    - mjburgess 14y ago
      reduction implies elimination of something. the argument was never that a program could become incomputable, but that it is much more than merely what happens when it is run
      - kruhft 14y ago
        > As we move from the "low" level to the "high", say from the domain of machine code all the way up to, for instance, a rich, expressive Ruby DSL, the question arises, as it does for all language: have we acquired a surplus of content that cannot be simply reduced to core rules? This was the statement that I started all this with. I am taking "surplus of content" to mean "a bunch of programs" in this context due to the quote speaking of a Ruby DSL. Programs can be reduced to a sequence of logical operations if they are computable, which I would take as 'core rules'. Therefore, only non-computable programs can not be reduced to a set of core rules by the definition of computability. QED Maybe you can explain 'it is much more than merely what happens when it runs'? Do you mean that what it took to create the program was greater than the resulting program and it's effects caused by running it? That the meta-logic used to create the program is far greater than the logic in the program itself? I am 'much more' than the results of actions when I act. I have a past history that has created me, a physical body being used to act with, the world I am acting in, and the resulting effects of my actions, plus everything else I have missed. I that what you mean by 'much more'?

kruhft 14y ago

I would still say no, because such metalogic will still be reducable to a type elevated logic and thus be reducable to 'core rules' operating on a lesser logic. Computability dictates what a computer can be instructed to do, leaving the 'meaning' to also have to conform to what can be computed. If it runs on a computer it can be reduced to a simple set of core rules that is a logic, no matter how complex, by virtue that it is running on a computer. Real math doesn't have to follow such rules.

davesims 14y ago
If the "it" in question is considered merely as the program and sum of CPU operations that the bytecode or binary-whatever reduces to, of course what you say is true, and also completely uninteresting. All that we've stated in this case is that software is software, electrons are electrons and bytecode is bytecode. Computers compute, end of story. But of course that's not what we do as coders. The code is never "complete" -- it's always striving towards some "meaning" that is for a human being. You cannot exclude the meaning of the code from the subject that it is intended for. A human being perceiving the code is always redacting the meaning of the code, not as a function of ones and zeros, but as a function of the analogy that code creates, pointing not towards electrons but towards: a product in a warehouse; a sum of sales at the end of a quarter; a flaming ball of death hurling towards my first-person-virtual head. And so on. In this sense the electrons/ones and zeroes are no more significant than the paper that The Iliad is written on + the ink it is written with.
- kruhft 14y ago
  Then what does this specifically have to do with programs? All works of substance share such an 'incompleteness' and meaning. We just look to non-programming works as complete in a sense when they are recognized. But such works are constantly being rewritten in different forms in order to produce the effect they are known to be able to produce. In the end, everything is a program in some sense whether to be executed by a brain or computer. The point of what I was saying was to refute the idea that somehow our programs are so complex and have such amazing behaviour that they will not be reducable to a core set of rules. If the programs run on a computer they must be computable and thus reducable to a core set of rules. That's it. Whether we can be reduced to that core set of rules is not evident yet. Using logic, a statement that denies it's own provability in the language it was writen in was crewated. Logic was not thought to be able to lie, until it did. Who knows what the right brain can make it do?
  - mjburgess 14y ago
    reduction implies elimination of something. the argument was never that a program could become incomputable, but that it is much more than merely what happens when it is run
    - kruhft 14y ago
      > As we move from the "low" level to the "high", say from the domain of machine code all the way up to, for instance, a rich, expressive Ruby DSL, the question arises, as it does for all language: have we acquired a surplus of content that cannot be simply reduced to core rules? This was the statement that I started all this with. I am taking "surplus of content" to mean "a bunch of programs" in this context due to the quote speaking of a Ruby DSL. Programs can be reduced to a sequence of logical operations if they are computable, which I would take as 'core rules'. Therefore, only non-computable programs can not be reduced to a set of core rules by the definition of computability. QED Maybe you can explain 'it is much more than merely what happens when it runs'? Do you mean that what it took to create the program was greater than the resulting program and it's effects caused by running it? That the meta-logic used to create the program is far greater than the logic in the program itself? I am 'much more' than the results of actions when I act. I have a past history that has created me, a physical body being used to act with, the world I am acting in, and the resulting effects of my actions, plus everything else I have missed. I that what you mean by 'much more'?