If Philosophers Were Programmers • Hacker News Board

Re: If Philosophers Were Programmers

#21

Post by MichailP » Fri, Feb 22, 2013, 3:48 PM UTC

wfn wrote: post #17

MichailP wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember watching Google tech talk by Alex Martelli, where he mentions Wittgenstein as his favorite philosopher. Always wanted to learn more about Wittgenstein since than, but I guess I will have to find something more beginner friendly than Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus :)

I do actually think there's some merit to the idea of just "plunging in" - going ahead and attempting to read it! Sure, it will be a wtf experience in the beginning, but if you persist for a few hours, you'll start to build up a conceptual vocabulary used/established by W. of sorts (that's what happened to me anyway). But for many matters philosophy/intro-to-philosophy-X-related, I often find SEP to be an invaluable…

Thanks for pointing out Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, great resource.

Re: If Philosophers Were Programmers

#22

Post by wfn » Fri, Feb 22, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

jivatmanx wrote: post #14

Creator of the first Turing-complete computer, Charles Babbage did a little philosophy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage#Other_accomplis... "Babbage was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832.[35] In 1837, responding to the Bridgewater Treatises, of which there were eight, he published his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God,…

On that note, Alan Turing's SEP entry is also worth a mention: it's a nice intro to his profoundly influential (CS + cognitive sciences + philosophy of mind) ideas as well as a (very interesting) short bio on him.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing/

Re: If Philosophers Were Programmers

#23

Post by mattquiros » Fri, Feb 22, 2013, 4:16 PM UTC

userulluipeste wrote: post #20

the programming languages as the different philosophies of a virtual world I would rather consider programming paradigms to be better equivalents for "different philosophies".

Very well said, exactly my thoughts too. Although a language's syntax is somehow expressive of its problem-solving philosophy, the design patterns and best practices that grow around the language itself communicate that philosophy better.