
Was Alonzo Church Taoist? - martyalain
http://lambdaway.free.fr/lambdaspeech/?view=tao
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derefr
I’m disappointed; this is as shallow an understanding of Taoism as you’re
likely to get. Sure, there is a core religious concept called “Taoism” that
can _sort of_ be described as “everything is a zero-sum duality of a producer
and a consumer, which returns to nothing in equilibrium”—but in practice,
people who are Taoist have a whole bunch of other, _much more interesting_
beliefs.

There’s an instant-classic article waiting to be written, about the usefulness
of Taoism (and intertwined concepts like _qigong_ and _neidan_ ) as a thought-
paradigm for pursuing mastery in modern intellectual crafts like computer
programming. (It’s a shame that Robert C. Martin isn’t versed with Taoism; he
keeps rubbing up against these ideas tangentially but never colliding with
them.)

There’s also a less classic, but highly entertaining article waiting to be
written, comparing-and-contrasting computer programming to Taoist martial arts
as practiced in _Xianxia_ novels. Abelson and Sussman’s “programmer as wizard”
analogy was _close_ , but there’s an even better one.

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auto
I haven't read the article, but I'm already convinced that I'd much rather
read YOUR article on the subject. If I'm not going to get that, can I at least
get a few links to point towards more of what you're talking about?

~~~
martyalain
" I haven't read the article, but I'm already convinced that ... "

Reading an article is not required to get an opinion about its quality ...
it's well known!

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gpvos
I don't see any connection between this article and Taoism at all, apart from
a quote at the top and a sentence at the bottom, both of which seem
unconnected to the rest of the article. What am I missing?

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martyalain
Don't you see some similarity between Yin/Yang and abstraction/application?
Female vs male, delay vs force ...

~~~
gpvos
Okay, I suppose. I must admit I'm not very familiar with Taoism (I'm actually
more of a presbyterian...).

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sn41
Others have pointed out the shallow connection to Taoism. But even the
discussion of the lambda calculus does not seem to be insightful. For example,
recursion in lambda calculus does not need names.

~~~
martyalain
" For example, recursion in lambda calculus does not need names. "

You are right. Just a zest of Y-combinator and you can forget names as it is
shown in section 4). And so you come back to pure lambda calculus. If you want
more details have a look at
[http://lambdaway.free.fr/lambdaspeech/?view=kiss](http://lambdaway.free.fr/lambdaspeech/?view=kiss)
and
[http://lambdaway.free.fr/lambdaspeech/?view=factory_201902_p...](http://lambdaway.free.fr/lambdaspeech/?view=factory_201902_paper)

So, I'm disapointed that nobody could understand that my question about Tao
was somewhat provocative. A bit of humour.

A more serious point, IMHO, is the similarity between Yin/Yang and
Abstraction/Application. Your opinion?

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martyalain
So, I'm disapointed that nobody could understand that my question about Tao
was somewhat provocative. A bit of humour, difficult to share... It's not an
article on Tao!

A more serious point, IMHO, is the link between Yin/Yang and
Abstraction/Application. Your opinion?

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dnprock
I don't see the connection. An example of yin-yang for me in this field is
centralization vs. decentralization. We've been through a few cycles already.

1\. mainframes (centralization)

2\. PC (decentralization)

3\. internet and cloud (centralization)

4\. now with mobile, crypto/blockchain (decentralization)

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martyalain
Why not? For me yin/yang is connected to abstraction/application, abstraction
delaying the evaluation of an expression and application forcing the
evaluation. {lambda {x y} {+ x y}} delay the evaluation of {+ x y} and
{{lambda {x y} {+ x y}} 3 4} forces the evaluation of {+ 3 4} to 7. The
article tries to gently introduce, in a few lines without grey areas, concepts
in programming languages which are not so easy to understand, a few data
structures, pairs and lists, and recursion without any strange Y-combinator
... implicitely used in the long convoluted expression full of lambdas and
explained in long in the two links given at the bottom of the page. This short
article is a gentle call to read longer introductions on the making of a
functional language for the web. Not a philosophical reflexion on Taoism.

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jmbi
This is merely clickbait. It's a lambda-calculus circle jerk disguised as a
philosophical question.

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martyalain
Just a little bit of humour on a subject, the lambda calculus, too often
introduced so darkly. And if you read until the end you have links to more
details. And your opinion will be welcome, always.

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_emacsomancer_
Presbyterian, I think.

~~~
hprotagonist
very emphatically.

~~~
duckqlz
"A deeply religious person, Church was a lifelong member of the Presbyterian
church.[7] He died in 1995 and was buried in Princeton Cemetery" wikipedia.

[7] "Introduction Alonzo Church: Life and Work" (PDF). p. 4. Archived from the
original (PDF) on 1 September 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2012. "A deeply religious
person, he was a lifelong member of the Presbyterian church."

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martyalain
Is there anybody out there?

~~~
nowandlater
just nod if you can hear me

~~~
martyalain
You would be nice to stay polite.

