BCS: CR_preface.txt comparison

comparison CR_preface.txt @ 58:44101e652fa3

some cleanup throughout, not just preface-as-was, that is now foreword.txt in CR_manuscript

author	Henry S Thompson <ht@inf.ed.ac.uk>
date	Sat, 23 Nov 2024 10:17:11 +0000
parents	96abb5eaa0b8
children

comparison

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-:8a8e1392d5ae
+:44101e652fa3
 rightl tell me how it does work".  He and Fodor were friends, but
 later Fodor "curdled".
 Dog hanging on to a scented cloth -- sitting at the console of a 360
 and keying in instructinos and debugging by staring at the pattern of
-lights that the console frooze in.
+lights that the console froze in.
 Articulating an understanding of computing that would do justice to his
 intuitive understanding of computing as he had experienced it is the
 theme of all his intellectual work.
 LLP was an attempt to get the things, "kernel facts", of a KRL to be
 types, not tokens (cf *car* and *cdr* vs. differentiation and
 integration), the ontology of the computational.
 [HST mentions intergral signs and script deltas] Brian says
-"syncategoramaticity
+"syncategoramaticity"
 Promote the eq tests into type tests (in the interpreter).
 "You want to arrange the metaphysics so that _everything_ falls out"
 G. Nunberg of BCS
 I was at peace with [John] Haugeland.  [HST: JH wasn't a
 programmer. BCS: Yes, but he programmed [in] Postscript.  BCS: We
 disagreed about typography].
 Had a sense with JH that even though he knew a lot more philosophy
-than I did, that we were looking together at relative
+than I did, that we were looking _together_ at relative
 clauses/propositional claims, not that he was scrutinising
 me. [ref. Andee Rubin]
 In the book I claim that deferential semantics is the heart of
 intentionality.  "There is more in heaven and on earth than is drempt
 If you are interested in _real_ semantics, ... what's a poor boy to
 do?
 Semantical issues are non-the-less still in the drivers seat---we are
-happy when (+ 2 3) yields 5 because of are awareness of them.
+happy when (+ 2 3) yields 5 because of our awareness of them.
 Tracing the fate of those issues, and the vocabulary, are stories that
 need told.
 "Things have changed and now we do things differently."  What's
 changed and how is it different?
 Answer - the SDK would [be wanted to] track reference relations, not
 just implementation relations.  But that's so complicated that it
-couldn't possibly work.  Suppose you're defining a type [theta], a
+couldn't possibly work.  Suppose you're defining a vector type
-vector type accessible via theta and rho or x and y.  Setting x and
+accessible via theta and rho or x and y.  Setting x and rho
-rho contstrains.  Compiler can ignore this, and just keep one or the
+constrains.  Compiler can ignore this, and just keep one or the
 other, but the type system should 'know' the relationship of both, and
 could therefore track a lot more about a program using vectors than it
 does at the moment.
 [HST poses a story about astronomers and air traffic controllers?]
-Problem solving is not the motiviation, articulating what is the case
+Problem solving is not the motivation, articulating what is the case
 is, to say what's true.
 The effect of PSI is everything that happens, and the PHI relations
 are what matters.  All constraints, norms, requirements are expressed
 in terms of PHI stuff.
 [HST what about program correctness, specification languages ? etc.]
 [Chapter 7?]
-[HST should read the Press's thoughts about what needs to happen in
-the preface]
 The gap between computer science and and programming practice is
-well-known, embarrassing  but rarely foregrounded.
+well-known and embarrassing  but rarely foregrounded.
 The vocabulary point is easy to state.
 Barwise foundered on different understandings of binding a variable.
 If trying to teach this stuff, it would be useful to know that we had
 14 weeks, and on day 1 you can say we'll get to that in week 3.
 A book on the philosophy of computation, not by a philosopher, but by
-a practioner who was driven tog spending their life trying to
+a practioner who was driven to spending their life trying to
 understand what they practiced.
 Come hither, one and all
 That this is important needs to be said.  And it's not about _me_,
 that is, it's not important because I say it is.   But that it's
 important to you does mean that that claim deserves our attention.
-A delicagte dance -- why have I asked you [HST] to write this, not
+A delicate dance -- why have I asked you [HST] to write this, not
 someone else.  Because you were there from the beginning.
 NB on p. 24 of CR 0.93:
 Inevitably, as noted in the Preface, it follows that all statements
 immediately obvious to me how that related to my understanding(s) of
 the word as used in ordinary language.
 ------------
+*Foreword*
 Brian Cantwell Smith was born in Montreal, Canada, on 1 December 1949.
 Growing up first there and later in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he
 remains a Canadian citizen.  Multiple allegiances, sometimes
 conflicting but mostly complementary, have characterized both his
 Intelligence Laboratory, gave Brian an informal oral exam in topics
 from the MIT undergraduate computer science curriculum and awarded him
 the credits necessary for a degree, clearing the way for his admission
 to the graduate program.
-In 1977 Terry Winograd, who had left MIT to join the Computer Science
+In 1976 Terry Winograd, who had left MIT to join the Computer Science
 Lab at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), invited Brian to
 spend the summer in the Understander Group there, where he joined in
 the development of KRL, a Knowledge Representation Language, which
 came to embody some of the ideas that were developed in his Masters
 and PhD dissertations [refs].
 * Professor of Cognitive Science, Computer Science, and Philosophy,
 Indiana University
 * Kimberly J. Jenkins University Distinguished Professor of
 Philosophy and New Technologies, Duke University
 * Dean of the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto
-* Invited keynote speaker, _Défaire l'Occident_, Tarnac, France
+* Invited keynote speaker, _Défaire l'Occident_, Plainartige, France
 * Professor of Information, Philosophy, Cognitive Science, and the
 History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of
 Toronto
 * Senior Fellow, Massey College, University of Toronto
 * Reid Hoffman Professor of Artificial Intelligence and the Human,
 University of Toronto
 It was during Brian's years in Palo Alto at PARC, at first just for
-the summer and then full-time, that the foundations were laid of the
+the summer and then full-time, that the foundations were laid for the
 work that led to this book.
 "As an exercise in using KRL representational structures, Brian
 Smith tried to describe the KRL data structures themselves in
 KRL-0. A brief sketch was completed, and in doing it we were made
 development in KRL-1."  [ref. Bobrow and Winograd 1978, "Experience
 with KRL-O: One Cycle of a Knowledge Representation Language", in
 _Proceedings of the Fifth International Joint Conference on
 Artificial Intelligence_, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Burlington,
 MA.  Available online at
-https://www.ijcai.org/Proceedings/77-1/Papers/032.pdf.
+https://www.ijcai.org/Proceedings/77-1/Papers/032.pdf].
-<div class='Sketchy'>
+Brian's input into the (never completed) KRL-1 meant that not only
+could some parts of a system's data be _about_ other parts, but that
-The aspect of the (never completed) KRL-1 meant that not only could
-some parts of a system's data be _about_ other parts, but that
 this would be more than just commentary. It would actually play a role
 in the system's operation. For KRL-1, this was initially motivated by
-a desire to address some aspects of ... such as negation and
+a desire to formulate aspects of knowledge representation such as
-[disjunction] as, if you will, knowledge about knowledge, rather than
+negation and disjunction as, if you will, knowledge about knowledge,
-as primitives built into the vocabulary of the representation language
+rather than as primitives built into the vocabulary of the
-itself. [elaborate this with reference to old-style Semantic Nets and
+representation language itself. [elaborate this with reference to
-Bobrow and Norman ?]
+old-style Semantic Nets and Bobrow and Norman ?]
 Brian's development of this idea, which he termed 'reflection', is
 documented in the papers gathered in _Legacy_.  But its title
 notwithstanding, this book is _not_ a recapitulation of that work.
 There was an assumption at the heart of Brian's reflective
 architectures, which was initially expected to occupy just one section
 of one chapter of his PhD, as signalled in its preliminary outline
 Table of Contents.  But its resolution proved to be much more
-problematic than expected, to the extent that its resolution has taken
+problematic than expected, to the extent that it has taken
-a lifetime of work to be brought clearly into focus.
+a lifetime of work for Brian to bring it clearly into focus.
 Looking back it seems that this difficulty acted rather like the grit
-in the oyster, eventually stimulating Brian's wholesale
+in the oyster, stimulating Brian's wholesale reconsideration of the
-reconsideration of the nature of computation, and Computer Science as
+nature of computation, and Computer Science as currently practiced,
-currently practiced, which _is_ what this book is about.
+which _is_ what this book is about.
 You'll have to read the book to find out what that assumption was, and
 the details of the critique of Computer Science that it led Brian to.
 It may seem rather presumptuous of me to suggest that this one person
 Brian's achievements and the manifest breadth of his background it
 testifies to will I hope give sufficient grounds for suggesting that
 it is at least possible that this indeed just might be worth checking
 out.
-</div>
+As Brian himself said about this recently "That this is important
+needs to be said.  And it's not about _me_, that is, it's not
+important because I say it is."  That it's important to him does
+however mean that his claim deserves our attention.
 This is not an easy book to read, but it's a very important book, so
 it's worth the effort.  As Brian himself has said, it's written rather
 like a detective story, in which the same underlying set of facts is
 explored repeatedly, getting closer each time to a complete and
 self-consistent picture.  When I first read it, I said to Brian more
 than once "But you keeping using [some term], and it's clear you mean
-it in some important, technical, sense, but you haven't _defined_
+it in some important, technical, sense, but you haven't _defined_ it".
-it".  And he said, "be patient".
+And he said, "Look, what I've writen should be read more like novel
+than like a manual.  What things mean will gradually take shape.  Be
+patient".
 If you care about computer science, either as a practioner, or a
 theorist, or a concerned citizen, this book matters for you.  It's
 conclusions matter, even if parts of it are not meant for you.  So
 even if you find it hard, as a computer programmer, to see why you
 a theorist, and you find Brian's critique at best irrelevant, and at
 worst aggresive, obnoxius and founded in misunderstanding, be patient.
 If you're a citizen, and the technical details are off-putting, be
 patient.
-If you _are_ patient, and stay the course, When you get to the end you
+If you _are_ patient, and stay the course, when you get to the end you
 will realise that you actually do understand the terminology now, and
 that even though the work that remains is hugely challenging, and
 perhaps only imperfectly grasped by Brian himself, much less the rest
 of us, getting it done matters for all of us.  As practioners and
 theorists, we need to ask ourselves what we can do to make Brian's
 vision a reality.  As citizens, we need to cheer from the sidelines,
 and keep asking questions.  We owe him that much.
-[Haugeland?]
 Henry S. Thompson, Toronto and Edinburgh, November 2024.
+*Epigraph*
+Therefore, I close with the following dramatic but also perfectly
+serious claim: cognitive science and artificial intelligence cannot
+succeed in their own essential aims unless and until they can
+understand and/or implement genuine freedom and the capacity to
+love.
+John Haugeland, "Authentic Intentionality", 2002

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comparison CR_preface.txt @ 58:44101e652fa3