On Thursday 28 Jul 2011 10:27:26 PM Alan Kay wrote: > Well, we don't absolutely need music notation, but it really helps many > things. We don't need the various notations of mathematics (check out > Newton's use of English for complex mathematical relationships in the > Principia), but it really helps things. I would consider notions and notations as distinct entities but they often feed each other in a symbiotic relationship. Take decimal system for instance. The invention and refinement of decimal numerals made many higher notions possible. These would hindered with Roman numerals. Notations need to be carefully designed to assist in communicating notions to others or to connect notions together.
BTW, the bias ;-) towards written forms in computing should not blind us to the fact that speech is a form of notation too. The speech-notion connection has been studied thousands of years before written notations (cf. Sphota, Logos or Vakyapadiya entries in Wikipedia). Subbu _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list [email protected] http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
