Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Right, we shouldn't underestimate the importance of narratives. We need narratives about the theoretical foundations of computer science, and Turing is the perfect figure to weave many of those narratives around. It's good for young people and the general public, and good for the field.

The Turing machine is a key conceptual model for understanding the basics of computation. The Turing Test is a great model for thinking about what being intelligent means. Hardly a week goes by without the term Turing Complete appearing somewhere in a HN comment. The fact that he also played an important role in the design and construction of actual practical computing machines, and did so to fight nazis seals the deal.

Of course there's more to it, there's plenty of credit to go around, but Turing is the perfect entry point for people to appreciate and learn more about all the work that went into the founding of computer science. It elevates the profile of the whole field.

We also shouldn't underestimate the importance of truth. Dealing with the world as-it-is has better results than interacting with a story we'd like to be true but isn't.

People waste their lives in service of causes and ideas that just are not grounded in reality. Not just in the philosophical sense that we cannot know truth, but in the practical sense of "the outcome you want will not flow from the actions you are taking today". Narratives are inferior to truth when it comes to making decisions.

I'm not advocating telling lies. Sometimes we simplify, and doing so can be perfectly appropriate. Unfortunately that does open the stage for nitpicking and pedantry.

Story telling is how our society has transferred information since we started to communicate-- understanding the map is not the territory, nor should it be. A beautiful narrative can convey important kernels more efficiently than endless minutiae-- Awareness of this is important and elaborations are helpful for those interested in the details.

I'm reminded of, "The Glass Bead Game," which discusses an academic society that forgets the names of contributors since they're all just part of the flow of humanity

The issue with stories is they focus on unimportant bits often for propaganda reasons. Pick some arbitrary first and every country can find someone to play up as a home town hero. The US just happens to be rather quite around who “invented“ electricity but longer lasting incandescent lightbulbs and kites in lightning storms that’s the ticket. The British tend to streamline the Benchley park narrative by dropping the preceding polish contribution etc etc.

In that context narratives end up glorifying endless minutiae.

Historians are all storytellers. Critical review is important. I really like this paper which starts by paraphrasing Jane Austen, "i think it quite odd history should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention" :

https://www.cmu.edu/epp/people/faculty/research/Fischhoff-Fo...

Arguably our storytelling was an efficient hack in an age before writing. A story is a very high-overhead, low SNR way of communicating kernels of truth, but it's robust over time, so it allowed transfer and accumulation of knowledge across societies and generations.

But then we've invented and perfected writing, developed symbolic languages and notations (e.g. math, musical), long-duration storage media for text, and eventually networked digital computers. In terms of communicating and preserving knowledge, stories are pretty much the worst possible option you can choose.

We're comfortable with narratives because we didn't have anything else for hundreds of thousands of years. Stories are pretty much hardwired into our brains. But that doesn't make them the right choice, now that we've figured out much better alternatives.

More than that, I'm personally suspicious of stories being used in communication. There's no good reason to use them, and there's plenty of bad ones - it so happens that what makes a good story robust over time is the same thing you need to manipulate people into believing lies and shut off critical thinking.

The main benefit of stories is that they are easier for people to remember than dry details. In terms of communicating knowledge, they are the form that are most likely to stick with us as opposed to going in one ear and out the other. Especially when it comes to areas where someone doesn’t have expertise. This is as you noted incredibly prone to manipulation, but it doesn’t change that it you want a random person picked off the street to actually synthesize the knowledge you’re trying to tell them, a story is by far the way most likely to work. And I’d say that’s important, since knowledge written down somewhere that no one remembers or cares about does nothing to change the way people act.

As far as preserving information goes, no argument there. Stories aren’t a good way to preserve the truth of matters for future generations. To look and determine if the stories told have truth in them requires more detailed writing.

Stories place ideas into context, not only making them easier to remember (as mentioned by another comment) but also easier to understand. Analytic philosophers are used to dry, precise language, but even they often rely on scenarios and narratives -- this can help reveal what the reader thinks intuitively and bring that into sharper contrast. By remaining story-free you're giving pedagogy the short shrift.

What has empirically brought more folks into careers in science, dry textbooks foisted by teachers or Star Trek? I'd argue Star Trek and science fiction more generally. You can chalk that up to human failings if you like, but inspiration is a need that can't be avoided if you wish to convince.

Disagree. A finely crafted but ultimately false story can be actively harmful. A young person may think that they are not of the same caliber as "the greats" and cannot make their mark on a field, which would discourage them from trying. All the while in reality "the greats" were never as great as the historians later depicted them. "Come on in, collaborate, and make a difference" would be a much more positive message and wouldn't be any harder to explain than what amounts to the creation of personality cults.

This is where the humanities has the tech world beat. While we quibble over correct narratives and seek one option, the humanities has been completely soaked in the idea that there are nearly unlimited narratives that describe any given human endeavor and they weave together into a rich and ever-changing tapestry.

This is why a historian can read, understand (both the pros and the cons), and respect books that represent an economic history, a social history, an information history, a microhistory, and even a great-man history of a given subject without trouble.

More reason for engineers to take humanities courses!

So can I continue to prefer my narrative? It seems to gather some upvotes and some downvotes, so at least it is interesting and elicits a reaction :)

Also, the more I learn about my heroes the more I realize that they never saw themselves as ubermensch. If anything, self doubt seems to be the common thread. I think this angle does not get enough attention.

However, I agree with you on a broader point. This is just one perspective. Here is another one: Turing the historical figure is necessarily oversold because many more people than Turing the real person contributed to his aggrandizement. Like all cultural icons, Turing the idea outlived and outshined Turing the man.

> So can I continue to prefer my narrative? It seems to gather some upvotes and some downvotes, so at least it is interesting and elicits a reaction :)

I think most of that reaction isn't coming from your narrative on history, it's from accusing other commenter's narratives of being false.

Nobody here is advocating telling false stories. Saying that Turing laid the foundations for computer science is not false. It's a perfectly valid opinion to hold. We might say it's a simplification, or even an exaggeration, arguably saying he's one of them might be better, but it's not a false statement.

Setting the record straight on this matter isn't nitpicking and pedantry, it's just giving credit where it is due. Since the intent of the "simplification" isn't to deceive, this shouldn't be a problem.

I don't think it's true that these narratives (false or true) are helpful, especially when their false. I think it's counterproductive, and ultimately takes away credit from others which can impede collaboration (say one country disagrees with another on who invented something).

Don't forget the tragic way society later betrayed him.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com