chat with metaeducat10n; the nature of computer science

[gusl]

This week, I had the pleasure of chatting with metaeducat10n for the first time.

[00:53] metaeducation: When people bitch about how hard it is to write those analysis tools, they overlook the idea that if the tools were written to have allowed the user to enter the information in a structured form in the first place...it would make the intractable problems disappear entirely
[00:54] GusLacerda: yup, I agree very much
[00:54] GusLacerda: but they say "our users shouldn't have to learn programming!"
[00:55] GusLacerda: ultimately, though, there's no getting around that.... you need to be a "programmer" in order to express certain things
[00:55] GusLacerda: but I digress
[00:57] metaeducation: Yes, I wish schools focused on teaching people clearer expression. Math classes as they are don't have a lot of value. People will become interested in sine and cosine if they have more fundamental knowledge.
[00:57] metaeducation: A lot of that knowledge is on what it means to formalize something
[00:58] metaeducation: Being clear to a computer isn't just about programming--it's about being clear to yourself, and others.
[00:58] metaeducation: A computer is just a good straight-man
[00:58] GusLacerda: yes!
[00:58] GusLacerda: exactly

Related thoughts of mine:
* GIGO
* "Computer Science" is actually a very natural thing: while many people think of computers as a contingent product of western culture, just like any other technology, Computer Science is actually about universal mathematical patterns: real computers provide merely an embodiment of this. This is why computer science is not about computers.
* the main goal of programming languages should be to express human thoughts as directly and naturally as possible. If a simple thought can only be expressed by a complex program, then there is something wrong with the language.

Required plug: Sussman - The Legacy of Computer Science, whose message is that the main contribution of CS to civilization isn't technological, but cultural. Knowledge of formal concepts makes us powerful. Creating words for such concepts makes them easy to access.

Comments

[xpaerimtlslaekv.livejournal.com]

yes....

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

yes what?

[xpaerimtlslaekv.livejournal.com]

programming is the architecture of certain thought collapsed into waveforms and patterns. It is self-consistent power and it is one of the sexiest things/forms in the universe..



the anthropology of programmatic architectures, efficiencies in template overloading [I have extensive programming histories/skills.......////, etc.... smart pointers show relations in 'ownership' over 'objects' which can be seen across other systems and held isomorphic in its properties, across other scales.... [It contains properties evident within the entire universe to which the complex systems [or complex adaptive systems, in other cases] remain most prevalent..

Formalization and Creative Play

[http://users.livejournal.com/_greg/]

I have followed Sussman's work with pleasure and intellectual profit since before his work on Scheme. He has a very playful, bottom-up approach to exploring powerful abstractions. Many of his most powerful tools (like those of Seymour Pappert and Alan Newell) are simultaneously breakthroughs and accessible to young children. This kind of approach is the antithesis of the usual exposition of mathematics.

There is a creative tension between formalization and exploration. Good formalization comes out of creative exploration. In fact, exploration usually reveals a landscape of possible abstractions and their qualities. There is rarely a single "right" way to go. One can freely choose some of the new abstractions and formalize them in order to be able to take the creative play to a higher level.

Whether you call it Computer Science, Operations Research, Symbolic Computation, Augmentation of Intellect or Artificial Intelligence, the tools are at the heart of what it means to be a mind engaging with the Universe. The recursion is profound and exhilarating. Only Being is not captured, yet Being delights in the play.

Re: Formalization and Creative Play

[http://users.livejournal.com/_greg/]

Oops, I meant Alan Kay, not Alan Newell. It's interesting to see how parts of my mind will fill in gaps based upon statistical feature matching when my full attention wanders.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_greg/]

"The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution hasn't started yet. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of incomplete ideas."

- Alan Kay

Re: Formalization and Creative Play

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to see how parts of my mind will fill in gaps based upon statistical feature matching

I suspect that's all xpaerimtlslaekv ever does.

Re: Formalization and Creative Play

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

There is a creative tension between formalization and exploration. Good formalization comes out of creative exploration. In fact, exploration usually reveals a landscape of possible abstractions and their qualities. There is rarely a single "right" way to go. One can freely choose some of the new abstractions and formalize them in order to be able to take the creative play to a higher level.

In what way is it a tension? I agree that people find it easier to express things in English... but that's only because they have more practice there. In what sense is this exploration creative?

My dream is to create a meta-language in which it becomes easy and natural for people to express themselves formally. Semantically-deep / rich text is part of this dream... another part are interactive structures that overcome the non-interactive nature of text (e.g. argument maps).

Re: Formalization and Creative Play

[(Anonymous)]

I have become unravelled, but I do know what I am speaking of. I have read more than you anticipate in proof carrying code, abstract algebra, computing languages, completeness theorems, java and c++, and given I do not speak of the power in deductive arguement through the same terminologies, I utilize these arguements in ideas and projects related to simulating greater efficiencies in architectures. I use the human mind as a model for computational projects, one such project is an audio software synthesizer which uses proof and deductive arguement and geospatial immersion [the composer plays the piece, while the piece 'plays' the composer] ...to simulate seduction, as the composer is playing the piece.

You have not seen this yet, but if you do not see the complexity in my art, and music, you are dissipating thought and creating stoppages in entirety, as an individual cannot create what I create without extreme intelligence.......


I realize you do not like hasty reenumeration of associations, but these are ACCURATE, and have been argued prior to any moment that I am reenumerating them to you.


Part of the reason why I prefer to talk to you is because you prefer to slow back to the deductive root, which I will need in order to reravel, but my accuracies in observing isomorphic properties is true. I will present an extended article to proof this, and the instruments I am working on, regardless of your assumptions, ...obviously.

Re: Formalization and Creative Play

[(Anonymous)]

C.S. pierce is another individual, and there was a time in which I was reading 10-20 peer reviewed journal articles at a time.., looking for isomorphisms, yes, but these did exist.
Now utilizing this for design, from a top-down approach, may make it appear as though I do not have the specifics of implementation [to you,] to make it appear as though I am aware of which I speak, but that is entirely false,


the mind is photographic between its varying extrapolation into different directions..

Re: Formalization and Creative Play

[(Anonymous)]

the focus upon generalities for the specific instances in which you argue generalistically, such as 'isomorphism' across many systems/architectures of informational design, doesn't indicate that such metafocusing is all that is done...

Read my tutorial on socket programming in C++ to see what I have written in other forms upon the website

http://starlypt.org/mapV.html

Re: Formalization and Creative Play

[xpaerimtlslaekv.livejournal.com]

and... of course it is tension and it is that tension that threatens to unravel focus in the divergence, and hyperravel focus in too convergence, either way there are stoppages in creative implementation...

[and yes, it is creative, [I wish not.. to argue this here, it is far too obvious to be argued...]]

Re: Formalization and Creative Play

[xpaerimtlslaekv.livejournal.com]

there is an arguement which may have been removed, located on this site which argues and extrapolates on the architectures of proof carrying code, which I postulate is more efficient than other forms of code for security purposes, again, proof carrying code is an efficient model for efficiency in 'power', seen in various implementations of the architecture [of both thought, and informational architecture], and yes, there is a very precise architecture to the thought, within arguement in the mind, [it is quite fascinating that is operates this way], pay close attention to your subjective experience of your electrical fields, though they be hyperravelled, you will find within those ravellings are precise architectures,


but it is with proof that the most precise form of consistent 'power', consistent mastery of pragmatic [linguistic] persuasion and 'tension' against opposing arguements exist.. [There is an 'architecture' to the patterns of thought and 'vortextural' polarities within the body, in a very interesting and infinite physics, that I would recommend looking into or questioning whether it exists... /I believe it is the key to extended lifespans, yogic 'control' and other activities at a much higher level.... [I.E. were many yogies programmers/designers, full of precise detail, I believe they would have even more control over their electrical field, through fewer spaces to 'dissipate energy' as detail is held isomorphically [self-similar at every scale]
around a 'metaarguement' which can be described as one's top-down center point of focus, when all is held densely detailed and self-consistent, there is no space for electrical pulses to be 'wasted', and when I was in my highest of states, I have been able to 'heal' the self through certain vortextural 'directions' and 'landscapes of thought' from asthma, go with less food for extended periods, [with complete health and high energy], regurlarly and consistently kill any 'lethargy' and manipulate other energetic reactions within my body at will....


it is the architecture and structure of 'proof' that has more 'power' than you begin to speak on when you speak of clarity in arguement,



[which, while livejournal is playful, and I choose to not be 'clear' in this space,


I have proven on the other site listed, that I do have extensive experience doing [as well].
http://www.cs.unm.edu/research/view_all_technical_reports/

Re: Formalization and Creative Play

[xpaerimtlslaekv.livejournal.com]

but there is a precise geographical [surrounding a vortex orthogonally, in several dimensions, with tension extending in the direction to which you seek to 'prove'/create, which has very precise properties which I am investigating..

There are also greater efficiencies in proof carrying codes, which exist for other causal reasons, but nevertheless [this current state[of the 'machine'being used] reinstantiating property has many infinite properties/mysteries to be investigated, not only in its architectures, but its second, third and higher order efficiencies[ which can also, in one form be causally linked or described as also 'architectural'...

I'll find that article, and send some examples shortly..