The basic idea is to find really fundamental questions about negotiating about
meaning, and to invent mental and computer tools to help.
David is quite right to complain about the current state of things in this area
-- but -- for example -- I don't know of anyone trying a "discovery system"
like Lenat's Eurisko, or to imitate how a programmer would go about the alien
module problem, or to e.g. look at how a linguist like Charles Hockett could
learn a traditional culture's language well enough in a few hours to speak to
them in it. (I recall some fascinating movies from my Anthro classes in
linguistics that I think were made in the 50s showing (I think) Hockett put in
the middle of a village and what he did to "find" their language).
There are certainly tradeoffs here about just what kind of overlap at what
levels can be gained. This is similar to the idea that there are lots of
wonderful things in Biology that are out of scale with our computer
technologies. So we should find the things in both Bio and Anthro that will
help us think.
Cheers,
Alan
>________________________________
> From: Jeff Gonis <[email protected]>
>To: Alan Kay <[email protected]>; Fundamentals of New Computing
><[email protected]>
>Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 8:39 AM
>Subject: Re: [fonc] 90% glue code
>
>
>
>Hi Alan,
>
>Your metaphor brought up a connection that I have been thinking about for a
>while, but I unfortunately don't have enough breadth of knowledge to know if
>the connection is worthwhile or not, so I am throwing it out there to this
>list to see what people think.
>
>If figuring out module communication can be likened to communicating with
>aliens, could we not look at how we go about communicating with "alien"
>cultures right now? Maybe trying to use "real-world" metaphors in this case
>is foolish, but it seemed to work out pretty well when you used some of your
>thoughts on biology to inform OOP.
>
>So can we look to the real world and ask how linguists go about communicating
>with unknown cultures or remote tribes of people? Has this process occurred
>frequently enough that there is some sort of protocol or process that is
>followed by which concepts from one language are mapped onto those contained
>in the indigenous language until communication can occur? Could we use this
>process as a source of metaphors to think about how to create a protocol for
>"discovering" how two different software modules can map their own concepts
>onto the other?
>
>Anyway, that was something that had been running in the background of my mind
>for a while, since I saw you talk about the importance of figuring out ways to
>mechanize the process modules figuring out how to communicate with each other.
>
>Thanks,
>Jeff
>
>
>
>
>On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 9:06 AM, Alan Kay <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>Hi David
>>
>>
>>This is an interesting slant on a 50+ year old paramount problem (and one
>>that is even more important today).
>>
>>
>>Licklider called it the "communicating with aliens problem". He said 50 years
>>ago this month that "if we succeed in constructing the 'intergalactic
>>network' then our main problem will be learning how to 'communicate with
>>aliens'. He meant not just humans to humans but software to software and
>>humans to software.
>>
>>
>>(We gave him his intergalactic network but did not solve the communicating
>>with aliens problem.)
>>
>>
>>
>>I think a key to finding better solutions is to -- as he did -- really push
>>the scale beyond our imaginations -- "intergalactic" -- and then ask "how can
>>we *still* establish workable communications of overlapping meanings?".
>>
>>
>>
>>Another way to look at this is to ask: "What kinds of prep *can* you do
>>*beforehand* to facilitate communications with alien modules?"
>>
>>
>>Cheers,
>>
>>
>>Alan
>
>
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