-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Marcus G. Daniels on 01/08/2008 04:11 PM: > It seems to me it's the language that's important, and how suitable that > language is to the environment at hand. > That's not to say there aren't new useful primitives to be discovered.
It's not the language. It's not any element of the language. What's important is the ability to form, use, and abandon languages (at will, obviously). And any system where the language is fixed will be fragile to ambiguity _because_ of Gödel's result. The only thing remaining is whether (and how much) contact and interaction with the environment provides what's needed for forming, using, and abandoning languages. If, as may be the case, all assemblages of formal systems merely amount to a more complicated formal system, then even an assemblage won't do what we're after. But if the world is somehow "supra-computation", then perhaps sporadic interactions with the environment can help a computer resolve unexpected exceptions gracefully. - From that perspective the phrase "holarchy of formal systems" may well be self-contradictory and only reality is capable of forming holarchies. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com Arms are the only true badge of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave. -- Andrew Fletcher -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHhCZlZeB+vOTnLkoRAoxQAKDgVS8hc13CSQUSNVaQg7zts5MJvgCgr8Vi I1WnIM1s7xRxreQBkXnL7YU= =k7Da -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
