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annotate CR_preface.txt @ 34:b6c8dfd521bd
with highlights and 3 edits through p. 103
| author | Henry Thompson <ht@markup.co.uk> |
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| date | Thu, 07 Nov 2024 07:11:13 -0500 |
| parents | 8d2fbd093ff3 |
| children | fd066d630735 |
| rev | line source |
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| 16 | 1 Born December 1949. |
| 2 | |
| 15 | 3 After starting a degree at Oberlin in 1967, dropped out without |
| 16 | 4 completing 3rd year. |
| 5 | |
| 6 Out to BC with Katy in the fall of 1969, back to Cambridge and | |
| 7 Philadelphia to see respective families. | |
| 8 | |
| 9 Had to get out of the US (draft), so that winter took over the old job | |
| 10 of his brother Arnold in an NRC high-energy Physics lab, living with | |
| 11 Katy and Arnold in an old farmhouse in a posh neighbourhood in Ottawa. | |
| 12 Very snowy winter, record-breaking, 18 feet?, long driveway and a lot | |
| 13 of shovelling, piled up to the 2nd floor. Involve with Ottawa QUaker | |
| 14 Meeting, a youth group, and a Mennonite youth group. Stayed through | |
| 15 the several years. March 1971, employer partnering with the Univ. of | |
| 16 Chicago Physics dept and LRL in Berkeley, went there, installed a | |
| 17 PDP-9 / 15, in a 40-ft Fruehof trailer, moved from Ottawa to Fermi | |
| 18 Lab, where Brian's office was. Programmed in machine language (see | |
| 19 below). He could 'program like crazy' in the air-conditioned trailer, | |
| 20 high-volume music in head-phones, but couldn't write English. Lived | |
| 21 in a hotel in Hyde ? park. They owned an Austin Mini bought for $100 | |
| 22 in summer of 1970, working at a Quaker peace conference on Rhinestone | |
| 23 island in lake near Ottawa. | |
| 15 | 24 |
| 16 | 25 Katy went out to Berkeley that spring, where the experiment was to |
| 26 take place. Married in June of 1971 at Pendle Hill / Swarthmore, then | |
| 27 back to Berkeley. Lived in a back yard house at Telegraph and Shannon | |
| 28 (?). Legally a Canadian resident notionally in US on a business trip. | |
| 29 Experiment ran, wrapped and went back to Ottawa. He wanted to stay in | |
| 30 US, they ended up (autumn 1971? 1972?) living with his parents in | |
| 31 Cambridge, where WCS was by then head of the new Center for the Study | |
| 32 of World Religions at Harvard. | |
| 33 | |
| 17 | 34 [Applied to Graduate School at MIT in EECS, started taking some |
| 16 | 35 courses, but eventually MIT admin said be couldn't be admitted w/o a |
| 17 | 36 UG degree.] |
| 37 | |
| 38 Interested in being a social inquiry major, in order to study the | |
| 39 politics of high technology, how we get to transferring to EECS from | |
| 40 that goal is not clear. | |
| 41 | |
| 42 It was very quickly clear that the understanding of computing that the | |
| 43 social scientists were critiquing was not [Programming in machine | |
| 44 language] the computing that I know. So I need to get clear on what | |
| 45 computing really is, so that I can legitimately critique it. So I | |
| 46 thought I had to go into the heart of the beast, as it were. | |
| 47 | |
| 48 Terry Winograd provided the friendship and both social and 'official' | |
| 49 support-structure to allow Brian to start to express himself out loud, | |
| 50 as it were. | |
| 51 | |
| 52 Saying to Fodor, ref. Tom Swift and his procedural grandmother, that | |
| 53 "this is not how compilation worked", Fodor was blustery but | |
| 54 open-minded enough to say "this is your subject area, I'm sure you're | |
| 55 rightl tell me how it does work". He and Fodor were friends, but | |
| 56 later Fodor "curdled". | |
| 57 | |
| 58 Dog hanging on to a scented cloth -- sitting at the console of a 360 | |
| 59 and keying in instructinos and debugging by staring at the pattern of | |
| 60 lights that the console frooze in. | |
| 61 | |
| 62 Articulating an understanding of computing that would do justice to his | |
| 63 intuitive understanding of computing as he had experienced it is the | |
| 64 theme of all his intellectual work. | |
| 16 | 65 |
| 66 "Course on compilers, I had written a compiler, I'd written a tiny OS | |
| 67 for a PDP-9 running a physics experiment". Pat Winston sat me down | |
| 68 and took me through the requirements for a CSEE degree, and decided | |
| 69 he'd satisfied them all. But he needed a Batchelor's thesis, so they | |
| 70 took a paper from a course he'd taken in the autumn, called "Comments | |
| 71 on Comments", and added some stuff, it got marked and accepted as his | |
| 72 thesis, so awarded the degree and could actually be enrolled as a | |
| 17 | 73 student under the supervision of Peter Szolovits. |
| 74 | |
| 75 [CSLI not particularly relevant] | |
| 16 | 76 |
| 17 | 77 [CPSR?] |
| 78 | |
| 19 | 79 ---------- |
| 80 Torn between religion and physics as an undergraduate. | |
| 81 | |
| 82 MIT, 1974++ MSc thesis _Levels, Layers and Planes_, about | |
| 83 architectural properties of computer science | |
| 84 There are no particulars in physics [ref. deiexis discussion, where is | |
| 85 it] | |
| 86 WHat drove me out of social inquiry and back to department 6 was | |
| 87 needing to be back in the practice. That skill was not somthing that | |
| 88 people on the outside understood. | |
| 89 | |
| 90 Lens on a conical base, watchmakers, with oil and iron filings, that | |
| 91 allowed you to manifest the data on digital mag tape. No disks on the | |
| 92 PDP-9. That concrete engagement with the computer affected my sense | |
| 93 of digitality. | |
| 94 | |
| 95 I wanted there to be types, not tokens. Set theory has no constants | |
| 96 (e.g. pi, e, i), functions, derivatives, intergrals are types in a | |
| 97 way. Wanted a KR that didn't depend on token identity (no eq tests in | |
| 98 the interpreter). | |
| 99 | |
| 100 LLP was an attempt to get the things, "kernel facts", of a KRL to be | |
| 101 types, not tokens (cf *car* and *cdr* vs. differentiation and | |
| 102 integration), the ontology of the computational. | |
| 103 | |
| 104 [HST mentions intergral signs and script deltas] Brian says | |
| 105 "syncategoramaticity | |
| 106 | |
| 107 Promote the eq tests into type tests (in the interpreter). | |
| 108 | |
| 109 "You want to arrange the metaphysics so that _everything_ falls out" | |
| 110 G. Nunberg of BCS | |
| 111 | |
| 112 My imagination was arrested by essentially foundational questions | |
| 113 about ... this stuff. Not interested in applications, AI as such, | |
| 114 etc. | |
| 115 | |
| 116 Still wanted to know what computing was., remains true up to what's in | |
| 117 this book, CR. | |
| 20 | 118 |
| 119 Something else that makes me feel uncomfortable about CS from the | |
| 120 outset: Conversation with MM: for you MM science is a form of worship, | |
| 121 whereas science is a form of theology for me (BCS), so I look to CS | |
| 122 not just to manifest the glory of God, but also to explain it. | |
| 123 | |
| 124 Science should do justice to that. | |
| 125 | |
| 126 Being shy around Peter and Butler, something else made me skittish, | |
| 127 something I needed in order to be at peace: a warmth / humility. Why | |
| 128 I was at peace with [John] Haugeland. [HST: JH wasn't a | |
| 129 programmer. BCS: Yes, but he programmed [in] Postscript. BCS: We | |
| 130 disagreed about typography]. | |
| 131 | |
| 132 Had a sense with JH that even though he knew a lot more philosophy | |
| 133 than I did, that we were looking together at relative | |
| 134 clauses/propositional claims, not that he was scrutinising | |
| 135 me. [ref. Andee Rubin] | |
| 136 | |
| 137 In the book I claim that deferential semantics is the heart of | |
| 138 intentionality. "There is more in heaven and on earth than is drempt | |
| 139 of in your philosophy". CS is fundamentally an intentional subject | |
| 140 matter, and that its intentional character has been hidden, and that | |
| 141 its use of semantics has usurped it for mechanistic purposes. | |
| 142 | |
| 143 All semantical vocabulary has been redefined in mechanistic terms: | |
| 144 "the semantics of X" == "what will happen if X is processed" | |
| 145 | |
| 146 Thereby all humility and deference is lost. | |
| 147 | |
| 148 [What about Phi vs. Psi, 'full [?] procedural consequence'] | |
| 149 | |
| 150 If you are interested in _real_ semantics, ... what's a poor boy to | |
| 151 do? | |
| 152 | |
| 24 | 153 Semantical issues are non-the-less still in the drivers seat---we are |
| 154 happy when (+ 2 3) yields 5 because of are awareness of them. | |
| 155 | |
| 156 Tracing the fate of those issues, and the vocabulary, are stories that | |
| 157 need told. | |
| 158 | |
| 159 "Things have changed and now we do things differently." What's | |
| 160 changed and how is it different? | |
| 20 | 161 |
| 24 | 162 Answer - the SDK would [be wanted to] track reference relations, not |
| 163 just implementation relations. But that's so complicated that it | |
| 164 couldn't possibly work. Suppose you're defining a type [theta], a | |
| 165 vector type accessible via theta and rho or x and y. Setting x and | |
| 166 rho contstrains. Compiler can ignore this, and just keep one or the | |
| 167 other, but the type system should 'know' the relationship of both, and | |
| 168 could therefore track a lot more about a program using vectors than it | |
| 169 does at the moment. | |
| 170 | |
| 171 [HST poses a story about astronomers and air traffic controllers?] | |
| 172 | |
| 173 Problem solving is not the motiviation, articulating what is the case | |
| 174 is, to say what's true. | |
| 175 | |
| 176 The effect of PSI is everything that happens, and the PHI relations | |
| 177 are what matters. All constraints, norms, requirements are expressed | |
| 178 in terms of PHI stuff. | |
| 179 | |
| 180 What does this book say that requirements engineering etc. haven't | |
| 181 already | |
| 182 | |
| 183 [HST what about program correctness, specification languages ? etc.] | |
| 184 | |
| 185 [Chapter 7?] | |
| 30 | 186 |
| 187 [HST should read the Press's thoughts about what needs to happen in | |
| 188 the preface] | |
| 189 | |
| 190 The gap between computer science and and programming practice is | |
| 191 well-known, embarrassing but rarely foregrounded. | |
| 192 | |
| 193 The vocabulary point is easy to state. | |
| 194 | |
| 195 Barwise foundered on different understandings of binding a variable. | |
| 196 | |
| 197 That the vocabulary issue is of huge importance needs "a clarion | |
| 198 statement". This is foundational work, so I can't define my terms. | |
| 199 | |
| 200 "I don't believe in definitions" | |
| 201 | |
| 202 "Look, this kind of paper that I write should be read more like novel | |
| 203 than like a manual. What things mean will gradually take shape" | |
| 204 | |
| 205 Engender confidence that what you're about to read will make sense by | |
| 206 the end/in due course/by-and-by. | |
| 207 | |
| 208 Vocabulary point is several points: | |
| 209 1) Points will be expressed using a vocabulary which is a term | |
| 210 of art for someone/drawn from someone's technical vocabulary, perhaps not you | |
| 211 2) Also, not necessarily the term of art you use for it; | |
| 212 Indeed it may be an ordinary word of English, so you may not | |
| 213 realise that a term of art has gone by. | |
| 214 3) There may not be terms in _any_ technical vocabulary that do what | |
| 215 I need here | |
| 216 | |
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217 Taking on their meaning like a polaroid did, fill in gradually. |
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218 |
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219 Consider 'effective': boundary (with non-..) is run roughshod over by |
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220 |
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221 "Call this state 'zero'" naming with an abstract type a concrete token. |
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222 |
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223 [Argh, not really right] |
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224 |
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225 When classifying these things with labels that respect/front their |
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226 ontological character |
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227 |
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228 If trying to teach this stuff, it would be useful to know that we had |
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229 14 weeks, and on day 1 you can say we'll get to that in week 3. |
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230 |
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231 A book on the philosophy of computation, not by a philosopher, but by |
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232 a practioner who was driven tog spending their life trying to |
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233 understand what they practiced. |
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234 |
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235 Come hither, one and all |
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236 |
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237 That this is important needs to be said. And it's not about _me_, |
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238 that is, it's not important because I say it is. But that it's |
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239 important to you does mean that that claim deserves our attention. |
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240 |
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241 A delicagte dance -- why have I asked you [HST] to write this, not |
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242 someone else. Because you were there from the beginning. |
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243 |
| 18 | 244 ------------ |
| 245 Foundations of/Philosophy of Computation | |
| 246 | |
| 247 Lisp was 'broken', 2-Lisp was a flawed attempt to fix it, 3-Lisp takes | |
| 248 us in to new territory. | |
| 249 | |
| 250 Don't think you have to be a specialist to read this book. | |
| 251 | |
| 252 Effective vs non-Effective is actually new: at the book boundaries, | |
| 24 | 253 project onto the effective [? - it's not that everything is |
| 254 term-rewriting, it's more like ]. | |
| 17 | 255 |
| 256 | |
| 18 | 257 |