
A Philosopher Every Programmer Should Know: Susanne K. Langer - daviddaviddavid
http://www.daddymodern.com/susanne-langer-theory/
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Tichy
To be honest, it seems very superficial to me - like most philosophy. It
starts with an arbitrary premise ("the brain wants to process symbols"). Since
the premise is arbitrary, it doesn't help me at all.

To me the interesting bit is "why does the brain want to process symbols".
Which is probably better answered by evolution theory than by philosophy.

Another example of the shallowness of philosophy: "I think, therefore I am".
Again, an arbitrary premise. What does it mean to exist? Again, philosophy
does not seem to be interested.

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thrdOriginal
I realize it is easy to pick on philosphy, but if you're going to write off
one of our oldest disciplines it should at least come from an informed place:
"I think therefore I am" is not Descartes' premise, but one of his
conclusions. Even as a conclusion, it is mostly misunderstood. The point is
not that it is the thinking that brings one into being, but that there is
something there that must exist in order to do the thinking. Other
translations I have read have it "I am deceived, therefore I am," again the
point being that something must first exist in order to be deceived. His
original "arbitary premise" is that he must first discard everything he thinks
he already knows.

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Tichy
Still, he dodges the question as to what it means that something exists. But I
admit I haven't really read him. It is just that whenever I pick up a
philosophy book (very rarely), I tend to hit upon false premises immediately.

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rfrey
Whenever I pick up a maths book, I read all these symbols that have no
explanation whatsoever - it's obviously self-indulgent wanking. I admit I
don't actually read the book, though, I just open it. But I can tell the
symbols aren't english, or any other language I learned before my mind closed,
so I can tell it's dross.

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Tichy
Well name a philosophy book that is worth reading.

Maths books don't claim to be anything but self-indulgent.

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telemachos
Given your comments, I'm would recommend W.V. Quine (staunchly realist, writes
wonderfully clearly, very rigorous, a logician at heart). A good collection of
basic essays is _Quintessence_ , and a good first essay might be 'On What
There Is'[1][2]. (Arguably his most important book-length work is _Word and
Object_ , but I wouldn't recommend starting there.) Here's the first paragraph
(complete) to give you a sense of how well he writes:

>> A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be
put in three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: ‘What is there?’ It can be answered,
moreover, in a word—‘Everything’—and everyone will accept this answer as true.
However, this is merely to say that there is what there is. There remains room
for disagreement over cases; and so the issue has stayed alive down the
centuries.

[1] Online: <http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_What_There_Is>

[2] Original source: <http://www.jstor.org/pss/20123117>

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JoeAltmaier
Gotta side with Tichy on this one. That sounds exactly like self-indulgent
nonsense. Talk around the question, sound cute, but don't answer anything or
even inform how you plan to proceed.

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telemachos
Don't think in terms of sides. I'm not "against" Tichy. He asked for reading
recommendations, and I gave him one. I wasn't trying to prove him wrong about
anything. I suggested Quine because he often appeals to mathematically minded
realists, and I think he's very smart and writes well.

As for the article, try the whole thing before you judge it (it's not very
long at all). Quine is not being frivolous, and he takes pains to explain
exactly what he means as the piece goes on.

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wicknicks
Very cool! I sometimes wonder what's so special about the concept of a
'symbol'. A stream of symbols make up a message. A message contains a thought
or an idea which we wish to express. We definitely find it hard to communicate
with symbols alone. It would be very interesting to find answers to

    
    
      1. What processes convert ideas to symbols and messages.
      2. Is there a notion of an optimal symbol set?
      3. How much are these symbols and messages created by the human brain dependent on the person's environment?

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gosub
regarding n.2 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity> defines
formally the concept of minimal encoding of a message

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Iv
And as long as philosopher will refuse to dig a bit into mathematics or
computer science for answers to questions they call "philosophical", I'll have
a hard time being interested by philosophy.

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slowpoke
And as long as mathematicans will refuse to stop asserting that their holy
science is the one and _only_ correct answer to all problems on this earth,
I'll have a hard time being interested in mathematics.

This goes both ways, you see?

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wwrap
As soon as philosophy gets to even a fraction of the use mathematics has, then
maybe it will be worth looking to for answers.

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ajuc
Philosophy doesn't really give answers - it only states interesting questions,
and if we can answer some of them - a new science is born.

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wwrap
Well said.

I was about to tack on "questions on the other hand..." to my comment but was
already in bed when I thought of it.

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username3
Anyone mind if I promote <http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/> here?

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BasDirks
Read Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus if you want to read a
remarkably bug-free "program". It reads like code.

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yolesaber
Interestingly enough, there is an effort to "port" the Tractatus' logic to
software engineering: <http://www.hxa.name/notes/note-
hxa7241-20110219T1113Z.html>

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dto1138
She also wrote a great book called Introduction To Symbolic Logic. A must-
read!

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rektide
Enjoyable article, probably true for many; making me further happy I just
picked up a stack of James Hillman & other Archetypal Psychologies & symbol
books.

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paulnelligan
Regarding why we dream, I've always thought that it's got something to do with
exercising our right brain. We feed our left brain when we're awake, we feed
our right brain when we're asleep ...

can anyone confirm or deny this ?

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sheffield
We have only one brain.

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treyp
what if you sever your corpus callosum?

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oscilloscope
Then we have two brains.

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sheffield
Two half brains. Everything has two halves.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain>

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araneae
Only programmers that enjoy philosophy. Personally I feel the whole field is
obsolete with the invention of neuroethology and similar.

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ubernostrum
A wise man (my advisor when I was doing my philosophy degree) once said
something to the effect of:

There are two great mistakes you can make in philosophy. One is deciding there
is no ultimate answer. The other is deciding you've found it.

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araneae
That's rather trite, especially considering it follows that standard wise-
mystic pattern of "two statements which contradict each other." Someone wrote
a comic about it but unfortunately I can't find it.

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rektide
There's nothing inherently contradictory about an unknowable truth. Disagree:
it's merely trite, not incorrect, and in spite of being trite it still brings
a grin to my lips.

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Hisoka
I feel we love our work because we all need a worthwhile struggle and goal.

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walexander
I believe some of us have an intrinsic desire to build things. Just like birds
build nests and bees build hives. Some of us have a desire to build and are
probably rewarded with some chemical brain fix as a result.

At this point though, we've simply changed the medium from sticks and mud to
Python and Minecraft.

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javert
Humans don't have "intrinsic" desires, and we don't have instincts (except
arguably as babies), like building nests and hives. Instead, our desires
become shaped over time by the process of thought and past experiences we've
accumulated.

I agree more with my grandparent post than my parent post. We have (as
individuals) learned to value certain particular kinds of achievement, and
when we do achieve those achievements, it makes us feel satisfied.

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tambourine_man
_Humans don't have "intrinsic" desires, and we don't have instincts_

Says who? Based on what?

You are seriously underestimating one of the hardest questions ever posed and
for which there is no (and there may never be) definitive answer. Tabula rasa,
genetic determinism, nature vs nurture, etc are all deep, hard problems.

As a matter of fact, can you even significantly define “desire” or “instinct”?
A lot of smart people have tried in the last 2500 years and there is no
consensus yet.

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walexander
Instead of responding to your parent directly, i'll just add that this is
exactly why I prefaced my post with "I believe".

That said, I'm not implying we have built in instructions to go create a
townhous. Simply that there is possibly a driving force that compels us to
create, then a reward for doing so.

