A Philosopher Every Programmer Should Know: Susanne K. Langer

Post by _ikke_ » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 8:19 AM UTC

ez77 wrote: post #17

araneae wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's safe to assume the existence of neurons.

A characteristic aspect of philosophy is to question essentially every assumption. You and I may find other things much more interesting, even if they require some basic assumptions, but that's another story. Edit: I don't know why araneae's comments are being downvoted (despite my upvotes). His points are constructive and on topic...

Post by corin_ » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 8:42 AM UTC

javert wrote: post #6

walexander wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 achievement…

Post by gosub » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 8:54 AM UTC

wicknicks wrote: post #21

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 thes…

Post by treyp » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 9:14 AM UTC

sheffield wrote: post #25

paulnelligan wrote: post #23

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 ?

We have only one brain.

Post by slowpoke » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 9:41 AM UTC

Iv wrote: post #27

gosub wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.