John, you wrote:
Those languages can represent
any Turing machine. Therefore, they
can represent anything that can
be computed by any other language
that can run on any digital
computer of the past, present, or future.
Newer languages might be more
convenient or efficient, but none of them
can, by themselves, go beyond
what can be done on a Turing machine.
John
Theoretically of course. But when the movies were
invented, people in theaters had heart attacks while seeing a film that showed
a locomotive coming straight at the viewer. The radio story about a
Martian invasion by HG Wells was also believed throughout his broadcast area.
Both of those experiences were convincing to people who had not seen movies,
heard radio, or later viewed TVs.
My point is that the impact of newer methods, including
programming languages, is on improving expressiveness of the explanation.
That expressiveness, which is missing from the older languages, has improved pragmatic
functions and capabilities, which in turn make the results more vivid and
expressive to the user. It is pragmatics that made the movies so vivid,
and pragmatics of radio made the fictional Martian invasion believable. Vivid
is more convincing than bland.
Turing's test was subjective; the judge must choose
between conversations with one teletype line and with another line, to pick
which has the computer and which has the human at the other end. That is
not a computability issue as you rightly point out.
So if the pragmatic presentation of the Q&A computer
program is more convincing than the human player, it doesn't matter that they
are using computable devices to get there. Software Q&A capabilities
will become more vivid, until eventually the Turing test will be passed.
That is what the Turing test is about, IMHO, not about
computability, but about vivid expressiveness. Slightly improved expressiveness
of newer languages has made software slightly easier to write, debug, test and
deploy. That expressiveness is what has made movies, radio and TV
progress so effectively. Put the two together and you can expect a very
convincing robot will be here sooner or later.
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper,
Rich Cooper,
www DOT EnglishLogicKernel DOT
com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT
com
( 9 4 9 ) 5 2 5-5 7 1 2
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F Sowa
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 12:49 PM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Endurantism and Perdurantism - Re: Some Comments
on Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Ontologies
Rich,
RC
> there are much more elaborate software systems
around which do
> things we couldn't do a century ago, such as Air
Defense, radar
> displays, moon landings, lots of drone software, and
on ...
Yes. But I was responding to Matthew's point:
MW
> I do think the philosophers are responsible for
endurantism.
> They analysed the way we speak about the world,
rather than
> how the world is, and formalised that. I
despair.
The structures of most commercial DB systems were
designed
to support shared data among the business applications of
the
1960s and '70s. The implicit ontologies of those
applications
were not affected by anything the philosophers had said.
In any case, I admit that I could have stated the issues
more
clearly. Following is a better response to
Matthew's point:
1. NLs are capable of talking about any model of
the world
that anybody has ever conceived.
2. It's highly unlikely that any model known to
modern science
is a perfect match to the way
the world is (although some
models are known to be better
than others).
3. But any scientist who has conceived and
represented any
model of the world can talk
about that model in a natural
language, using ways of talking
that preserve the structure
of that model.
4. Therefore, NLs are capable of expressing the
world at least
as accurately as any scientific
theory about the world.
These same principles apply to any artificial system that
anyone has ever invented, imagined, or implemented in the
past,
the present, or the future.
RC
> Note that Fortran, Cobol and Lisp are all older
languages without
> the oomph necessary to develop functional
capabilities beyond
> our past experiences.
Those languages can represent any Turing machine.
Therefore, they
can represent anything that can be computed by any other
language
that can run on any digital computer of the past,
present, or future.
Newer languages might be more convenient or efficient,
but none of them
can, by themselves, go beyond what can be done on a
Turing machine.
John
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