[sorry] And please note that I didn't say "If you *can* make it happen, then you *do* understand it." That's not true. Just because I digest my food doesn't mean I understand food digestion, despite it being a constructive proof of the existence of digestion. The making is necessary for understanding, but maybe not sufficient.
On 12/12/19 9:38 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote: > Heh, I worried you (or someone else) might go there, which is why I included > the addendum about manipulation. There are some of us (me included) who think > there is no such thing as creation or innovation, only differentiation and > manipulation. But others allow for wide or narrow definitions of it. I have a > whole constellation of colleagues who believe "innovation" is a real thing, > for example. I've also mentioned on this list that I like the word > "naturfact" to indicate something modified by humans, as opposed to an > "artifact", which seems to carry an implication of pure synthesis. > > So, if we adopt the manipulationist conception of constructive explanations, > we don't need to go down the rabbit hole of "what is creation". You're still > under requirement by Feynman, which I'll rephrase: > > If you can't *make* it happen, then you don't understand it. > > E.g. I can't, for my life, tell a joke. Therefore, I clearly don't understand > humor. But to answer more directly, as Dave pointed out, a line of code is > just another arrangement of the 1s and 0s extant in the machine in the form > of high and low voltage. So, a line of code is nothing more than an > arrangement of extant stuff, a naturfact, as it were. And where did the 1s > and 0s come from(?), some other constructive explanations like how to make a > transistor. And where did that come from? Etc. > > This is what you're paper cries out for. A tutorial on how to write the > Methods section of bench science paper. > > On 12/12/19 9:24 AM, [email protected] wrote: >> It is redolent with Pragmatism ... a concern with the "practicial", as Eric >> insists that I say. But there is something else lurking here which blind >> sided me and which I need to think hard about. It's the word "creation". >> Now, you computer folks are truly Gods to me; to me, you create stuff all >> the time. To me, perhaps in my naivety, one of those crazy-mad cellular >> automata, that's life and somebody has created it. Did Schelling create >> segregation. By god, I think he did. Did Steve Guerin create ants. Yup, by >> god, he did. So when a computer scientist, programmer, software engineer, >> ai person, whatever you guys prefer to call yourselves, starts talking about >> "creation", my ears perk up. >> >> What the hell is the meaning of 'creation" in those sentences above? Here's >> a proposal: One has "created", when one has written a recipe for emergence. >> One collects stamps; one creates a cake. >> >> Is it possible that my model of monism is based on my understanding of a >> line of code. It would not be the first time that a theory in once >> discipline was based on an imperfect understanding of another. >> >> How you drive my thinking on! > -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
