Philosophy and Lisp(jng.imagine27.com)
jng.imagine27.com
Philosophy and Lisp
http://jng.imagine27.com/articles/2011-01-08-140227_philosophy.html
6 comments
> Also, "Sound philosophy demanded that these mathematical concepts be tested by evidence, logic and rigor from some very basic premises that were built up to more complex and powerful structures of thought which were proved to be true. " So how did one prove these structures of thought to be true?
There is some excellent essays answering the points you raise here in some of the Less Wrong sequences. Rather then butcher them here I will just point you to the "Map and Territory" sequence going into the subject "What is truth?", "Can we determine truth?", etc. the essays are here: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Map_and_Territory_(sequence)
There is some excellent essays answering the points you raise here in some of the Less Wrong sequences. Rather then butcher them here I will just point you to the "Map and Territory" sequence going into the subject "What is truth?", "Can we determine truth?", etc. the essays are here: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Map_and_Territory_(sequence)
"It is NOT the charlatan 'philosophy' of mysticism, positivism, relativism, perspectivism, nihilism and altruism of Plato, Marx, Imannuel Kant, Kierkegaard, Hegel and so many others whose theories have tragically played out in human history ..."
To the author : you could learn a thing or too about structured thought and clear exposition from these people.
To the author : you could learn a thing or too about structured thought and clear exposition from these people.
Not only that. Promoting Sokrates and defying Plato, doing away with Kant while praising the rise of enlightenment is, too say the least, amusing.
I already feel irritated with the apparent need of the companies to describe themselves as having a "philosophy" (read: 2 points which distinguish them from their competitors), but this rambling is different, though not better.
To enjoy your lunchtime, i suggest though you read through until you find that Lisp is a language with moral baked right in. Bless JMC.
Signal vs. noise => Low.
I already feel irritated with the apparent need of the companies to describe themselves as having a "philosophy" (read: 2 points which distinguish them from their competitors), but this rambling is different, though not better.
To enjoy your lunchtime, i suggest though you read through until you find that Lisp is a language with moral baked right in. Bless JMC.
Signal vs. noise => Low.
Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? Morons!
I don't even know where to start with this because there are so many things I would like to respond to and I don't really have the time right now, but I at least want to point out one point that really bothered me:
"This is the classical philosophy of Aristotle and Socrates which is rational absolutism. It is NOT the charlatan 'philosophy' of mysticism, positivism, relativism, perspectivism, nihilism and altruism of Plato, Marx, Imannuel [sic] Kant, Kierkegaard, Hegel and so many others..."
First, it's simply not possible to make a clear distinction between the philosophy of Socrates and the philosophy of Plato, as Socrates never wrote anything himself and all we know of him is through Plato's writings. Even using Plato's writings it is impossible to truly discern what the philosophical differences between Plato and Socrates were exactly, as we only have access to Plato's Socrates.
Also trying to separate Aristotle's writings from a more "religious" tradition is a pretty ironic mistake. Aristotle's biggest contribution to modern society probably comes through his influence on the early Catholic church. In fact, the prevailing Aristotelian worldview of the Catholic church during the middle ages is exactly what was called into question by the Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers when it was replaced with more rational and humanist philosophies, like those of Immanuel Kant (who is also on the "wrong" side of the author's dichotomy despite probably being the most in line with what the author is trying to espouse.)
I've probably over-generalized myself in the last few paragraphs as I am not an expert on the history of Philosophy and I wrote this quickly, but I at least wanted to point out some obvious inaccuracies in the author's portrayal of that history so nobody gets the wrong idea.
"This is the classical philosophy of Aristotle and Socrates which is rational absolutism. It is NOT the charlatan 'philosophy' of mysticism, positivism, relativism, perspectivism, nihilism and altruism of Plato, Marx, Imannuel [sic] Kant, Kierkegaard, Hegel and so many others..."
First, it's simply not possible to make a clear distinction between the philosophy of Socrates and the philosophy of Plato, as Socrates never wrote anything himself and all we know of him is through Plato's writings. Even using Plato's writings it is impossible to truly discern what the philosophical differences between Plato and Socrates were exactly, as we only have access to Plato's Socrates.
Also trying to separate Aristotle's writings from a more "religious" tradition is a pretty ironic mistake. Aristotle's biggest contribution to modern society probably comes through his influence on the early Catholic church. In fact, the prevailing Aristotelian worldview of the Catholic church during the middle ages is exactly what was called into question by the Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers when it was replaced with more rational and humanist philosophies, like those of Immanuel Kant (who is also on the "wrong" side of the author's dichotomy despite probably being the most in line with what the author is trying to espouse.)
I've probably over-generalized myself in the last few paragraphs as I am not an expert on the history of Philosophy and I wrote this quickly, but I at least wanted to point out some obvious inaccuracies in the author's portrayal of that history so nobody gets the wrong idea.
Eh. Lisp is just a self-interpreting abstract syntax tree. It's a nice party trick but not really that big of a deal.
//slaps self
Sorry, forgot where I was for a minute. Lisp is the best language ever!!! Anyone that doesn't agree obviously doesn't understand it!!! Only 1% of all projects are in Lisp because only the top 1% of programmers are worthy of it!
Relevant::
http://www.dilbert.com/2011-01-09/
//slaps self
Sorry, forgot where I was for a minute. Lisp is the best language ever!!! Anyone that doesn't agree obviously doesn't understand it!!! Only 1% of all projects are in Lisp because only the top 1% of programmers are worthy of it!
Relevant::
http://www.dilbert.com/2011-01-09/
I love philosophy but for me Lisp is just yet another programming language. (I don't even know what is the definition of Lisp, as there are lots of Lisps. Is it that there is no syntax but the programmer should type in the AST as it is using parentheses?)
I agree that philosophical and mathematical thinking is very helpful for a programmer. Especially mathematical thinking: those guys have found out some very mature thoughts throughout the centuries. But they can also be used in other languages than Lisp.
Also I want to point out that it is not necessarily true that functional languages are based on mathematics and imperative ones not.
Von Neumann was one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century and in my opinion his 'fully imperative' invention, the Neumann Architecture is as beautiful an idea both mathematically both philosophically as the Lambda Calculus.
I agree that philosophical and mathematical thinking is very helpful for a programmer. Especially mathematical thinking: those guys have found out some very mature thoughts throughout the centuries. But they can also be used in other languages than Lisp.
Also I want to point out that it is not necessarily true that functional languages are based on mathematics and imperative ones not.
Von Neumann was one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century and in my opinion his 'fully imperative' invention, the Neumann Architecture is as beautiful an idea both mathematically both philosophically as the Lambda Calculus.
what a load of BS
It seems to be a nice idea to connect philosophy to Lisp, but it is too short, it lacks coherent arguments and it jumps from one proposition to another without finishing the previous one.
For example, when you explain what you think philosophy is, you cannot simply cast aside everything after Socrates as irrational absolutism (Descartes' "evil demon" certainly is not irrational.) You need to explain why you think it is irrational.
Also, where is your evidence for claims such as "It would follow that the greater the fidelity a programming language has to these mathematical concepts and the more it builds upon them then the more powerful the programming language will be." and "History provides the evidence in that there is no other programming language that has done this better than Lisp."
Also, "Sound philosophy demanded that these mathematical concepts be tested by evidence, logic and rigor from some very basic premises that were built up to more complex and powerful structures of thought which were proved to be true. " So how did one prove these structures of thought to be true?