On Saturday 17 September 2005 06:03 pm, Scott David Daniels wrote: > Sybren Stuvel wrote: > > ... Computers aren't happy. They couldn't care less about the > > programming language. > > This reminds me of a quote I love (and wish I could cite the > originator): > > Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like that.
Actually, I wrote a long (and very off-topic) reply justifying the philosophical point that whether or not computers can feel "happy" is an article of faith, either way, and depends heavily on what sense you are using for the word "happy" not to mention "feel" or "be". I thought maybe it would be best to drop it, but since this bone is still being worried, perhaps it's worth summarizing ... Fascinating subject, actually. There is a widely held *faith* among materialist atheists that the criterion for "being able to feel" is an as-yet undefined, but definable level or form of computing complexity mythologized as a "true AI". The need for this belief is an artifact of the materialist atheist belief -- or rather the disbelief in any form of spiritualism or animism. I contend that there is no such thing as a "true AI", or a "true natural intelligence" for that matter in the sense of there being some sharp line between "sentient" and "non-sentient" matter. Obviously there is *something* going on, in continuity of memory and reasoning capacity that has something to do with the objective capability to react in complex ways, and thus to express one's own sense of being in a way that is more comprehensible to "others". Thus far, however, there is no need for any sharp line -- just a gradually increasing level of intelligent responsiveness. But, the actual state of sensation? We know nothing about that, and science cannot illuminate it, because it's not an objective statement. We by definition cannot know what someone or something else "feels". We can only know how he/she/it *reacts*. It seems a simpler and more natural assumption to think that sensation *pre-exists* the reasoning power to express or remember that sensation. Indeed, it seems more sensible to regard it as a fundamental property of matter (or energy or space -- it being hard to define which bit of reality the soul adheres to, but "matter" will do for sake of argument). It's no more unreasonable, I would contend, then, to say that a computer is "happy" when it acts on data it "understands". If "thought" is a "mechanism", then a "mechanism" can be "thought". I do not "anthropomorphize" the machine in that I do not regard thought as a uniquely Human capacity. That I have some "theory of mind" for a PC does not mean that I think it's a Human, nor that I would be stupid enough to credit it with a Human mind's capabilities. So I personally find it completely sane and often more natural to speak of what a computer "knows" or "understands" or in this case, "is happy with". But if you really insist on a reductionist, mechanistic explanation, then my point is simply this: a computer, in order to act on ANY program, must first be made to act on a prior program (a compiler or an interpreter -- in addition to the BIOS and operating system which must first run in order to initiate the said program), which contains instructions for converting said program into a format which the computer is able to directly process. I personally found "the computer is happier with binary" to be a much more concise and understandable way to say that, but clearly, some people on the list find it heretical to use any statement which assigns "agent status" to computers or programs. But getting back to the point -- the fact that the computer itself would be "happier" with binary program instructions shows that there is certainly NO objective, technical sense in which ANY computer programming language is "inherently" superior. Programming languages can ONLY be evaluated in "psychological" terms. The "technical" design of programming languages -- and indeed ALL systems for describing and characterizing cognition of all forms is ultimately a "psychological" discipline. It obviously depends on the function of the mind of the programmer, and the ability of programmers' minds to process the information is the *metric of success* of that programming language. Given that programmers' minds are neither identical nor unchanging, it pretty much goes without saying that the choice of programming language, notation, or technique will be subjective -- and also changeable. I said this, because an earlier poster had *dismissed* mere "psychological" reasons as unimportant, claiming that functional programming was superior on "technical" grounds. I hope I have demonstrated that that statement is nonsensical -- ALL statements about programming languages or techniques are ultimately dependent on "psychological reasons". If functional programming reduces bugs, then it also does so for *psychological* reasons. -- Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com ) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.anansispaceworks.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
