Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 12/14/2009 09:43 PM: > I wonder what you all think about it.
It seems clear to me ... digression: for those that don't know, whenever someone says "it seems clear to me", they are about to say something fragile and weak that can be shattered with the slightest tap of a tiny hammer and implicitly _requesting_ someone to knock that chip off their shoulder ... they're exposing their soft underbelly in the hopes of egging you on ... ;-) Just FYI... Anyway, it seems clear to me that computers (and hence computer programming) are part of the banal evolution of life, wherein each organism makes every effort to externalize costs and internalize profit. This amounts to "extended physiology". Computers are externalized lobes of our brains. The point is to shed the costly, low margins parts of the effort out into the environment but preserve the efficient, high margins parts for ourselves. By this reasoning, OF COURSE programming takes much more investment for much less return. The point is to do the menial work to externalize that part of our physiology so that the more deeply meaningful part of the work can be done more efficiently inside our skin. It's analogous to outsourcing those jobs we've mastered to developing countries. We already know how to run a call center; so why not outsource it to India or China? Let's save our own resources for something with a higher return on investment! The Hilbert programme (and Babbage's difference engine, etc.) is all about reducing as much math to formalism as possible ... making it automatic, machinery... EXTERNALIZING that part of our brains so we can concentrate on the interesting stuff. That's what computers are. And, it's no different than any other effort to extend our physiology. All our engineering efforts, from building sky scrapers, flying to the moon, roads, paper clips, etc. They're all tools. They're all ways to shed the costly, low ROI stuff so that we can concentrate on what's important. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ 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
