[Wittrs] Re: Following a Rule
- From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:22:00 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, kirby urner <kirby.urner@...> wrote:
>
> >> Can we leave it fuzzy?
> >
> > No.
>
> I didn't define "we" though. Maybe we can, but you and yours can't?
Well of course, many people can leave it fuzzy, since I guess
everyone always has.
In such a situation, I suppose it's a good personality
trait to love fuzzy.
> > Can I please speak again with your evil twin,
> > the one who writes computer programs?
>
> Sure, here I am.
OK, evil twin, how do you get along with your good twin,
when you talk about whether, when, or how to leave things fuzzy in
your computer programs? When you make something specific, like
that employee = "Smith, John, 223-55-1212", does he come in and
say rude things to you?
> > Of course it's not precision as such that we seek,
> > so much as specificity ... perhaps that is the proper
> > Wittgensteinian grammar for the issues.
>
> I don't see the big mystery.
Good, stay out of the Total Perspective Vortex.
> A computer is like a puppet theater on
> steroids, with human business rules, processing procedures, encoded
> to run on their own.
But tell me, I ask and ask, and the question apparently does not
parse to most people, HOW is it a computer can do these things?
The only answer I ever get is, "Uh, it just does".
Even the answer, "By correspondence" is not really sufficient.
How is it, a computer can *be* correspondent?
I suppose this question is a bit of just why Wittgenstein could
afford to be as skeptical as he was of rules. He couldn't really
answer the question, either. But then, he wasn't posed the task
of understanding and explaining how computers compute. Given the
question by Turing, he brushed it off. So of course, anyone
especially on a Wittgenstein list, should feel privileged to follow
in these footsteps, ... except the question doesn't go away.
Assuming there really is a coherent question here, capable of a
coherent answer, I suggest that most of the question, and most of
the answer, and maybe all of both (but I think not), are the same
as the ancient questions of how this all works for language generally
and writing in particular.
Moving the question to computation adds the challenge of explaining
how the machinery is relevant or interesting, as well as the
linguistic marks or strings or what have you. And I think the
additional challenge may through some new light on the old question.
And so, I focus on the computational question, much like the doctor
who can't cure the common cold, but if it turns into pneumonia, that
he has a treatment for!
Josh
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