Philosophy of Computer Science [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Philosophy of Computer Science [pdf]

cse.buffalo.edu

75 pointsSchiphol10 comments

William Rapaport has just won the 2015 Barwise Prize for significant work on philosophy and computing -- http://www.apaonline.org/news/254862/William-Rapaport-is-the...

Rapaport is also the man behind the rather exhaustive Buffalo Restuarant guide:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/restaurant.guide/

And he was a central figure in the construction of the Buffalo sentence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...

This looks awesome. It's a huge book though; this draft is 824 pages! Still, definitely looking forward to reading this... eventually.

Honest curiosity: What do you think you'll get out of it? A big chunk of it seems to be about definition. A lot of it hinges on knowing more about consciousness (and state-of-the-art seems to be essentially nil on that topic - the position that consciousness is magic is still taken seriously). There's discussions about the "duality" between hardware and software: while certainly a rich area to make arguments, I'm not sure it's really impactful or interesting.

There seems to be little to no practical concerns addressed. Which is fine - chasing things just because they're intriguing shouldn't be looked down on. I'm just wondering if there's more to it, something that'd impact people writing software (even for fun) or designing computers.

Sure. For example, what it means for a program to be correct. "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" is a joke, but also a playful illustration of a complicated topic. It's worth thinking critically and clearly about these things, and will only become more relevant as formal verification & specification enters our field. It's especially useful when defining undefined behavior, or just implementing an imprecise spec. Analytic philosophy in general is summed up thus:

"When we have realized the obstacles in the way of a straightforward and confident answer, we shall be well launched on the study of philosophy—for philosophy is merely the attempt to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically, as we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically, after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realizing all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas." - Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5827/5827-h/5827-h.htm)

Honest curiosity: What do you think you'll get out of it?

Well that's the rub, idnit? I won't really know the answer to that until I've read it (or a lot more of it). But offhand, I'd say it looks like there might be some good stuff for anybody who's interested in the intersection of computation and intelligence (which I am).

I could be wrong of course. I only had time to give it a cursory glance earlier. But I'm intrigued enough to want to read more.

For a much lighter read, the SEP article is only around 30 pages long: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/

This is highly relevant to my interests. Also, looks to be the philosophy of intelligence, not just computer science.

Highlights from the table of contents:

9.3 John Searle: Anything Is a Computer . . . . . 360

9.3.5 Everything Is a Computer . . . . . . . . . . 367

9.7 What Else Might Be a Computer? . . . . . . . .375

9.7.1 Is a Brain a Computer? . . . . . . . . . . . .376

9.7.2 Is the Universe a Computer? . . . . . . . . . 377

Spoilers: you might be a computer, inside a computer.

Sounds profound until you get into actually defining what a computer is. Re the computational theory of mind:

"A “computational theory of the mind” is along the same lines as having “a computational theory of the weather”, in which the earth is seen as a computer and the weather what it computes. It’s a metaphor that gives the illusion of understanding, without telling us whether tomorrow will rain or not — akin to using élan vital to “explain” life or scansoriality to “explain” propensity to climbing."

http://researchblogs.cs.bham.ac.uk/thelablunch/2015/07/what-...

"such broad definitions can quickly degenerate into pancomputationalism: everything computes. And, if everything computes, computation is an uninteresting concept. The brain computes, but so does a piece of wood. Computation is simply another word for behaviour subject to (natural) laws. The Universe is a big computer, computing its own future — grand but somewhat vacuous."

- nice quote from the link you posted.

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