🚀 go-pugleaf

From article <6103@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, by ram@wb1.cs.cmu.edu (Rob MacLachlan):
>>   There is a general progression which all fields go through:
>>
>>     Art form  =>  Engineering discipline  =>  Hard Science
>>
>>   The progress along this route is proportional to what is known
>>   about the field.  
> 
> This is a ridiculously sweeping generalization, and also one pretty
> discredited in philosophy-of-science circles.  This "physics envy" 
> has been a justification for much bad science (e.g. behaviorism.)

    This is not "physics envy", just an empirical description.

    To show this, let's consider one of the "hardest" cases: the painting,
    sculpture, etc. which collectively is referred to as Art.  One might
    think that there is no prospect for the evolution of these areas into
    engineering discipline, or even into hard science.  After all, we're
    no closer to defining Art than we are to eradicating the cockroach...
    but the two problems are actually "hard" for much the same reason.

    The cockroach eradication problem is hard because we have not yet
    been able to precisely define the cockroach system.  Although much
    is known (just as much is known about humans), we still do not know
    the detailed operations of every organ.  In particular, we do not
    completely understand the operations of a cockroach's brain, much
    less a human brain.  If we were able to precisely define a cockroach,
    at the molecular level, it would then be a matter of designing special
    viruses which were programmed to seek out and destroy anything having
    a specific genetic sequence which uniquely identifies the targeted
    type of insect.  In this way, the problem of cockroach eradication
    would move from the present state (between art form and engineering
    discipline) to almost a science.  If the viruses could be programmed
    such that it was provably impossible to elude the virus (through
    genetic mutations) due to the high degree of genetic coverage the
    virus possessed, and such that they would recursively chase down 
    every cockroach in the universe under consideration (essentially
    driving the insect into extinction), then we would have the problem
    down to a science.

    Now why is it that we have trouble defining Art?  It is precisely 
    because we do not have a precise definition for the term "human".
    Given such a definition, the Art problem could conceivably be expressed
    in terms of the production of specific neurochemicals in the user's
    brain, or the formation of specific ideas (whatever the representation
    of an idea is...), or the formation of specific memories.  Having done
    this, Art becomes an engineering discipline.  As more is known about
    how to satisfy the desired constraints upon the user's brain, Art
    continues to move into the realm of science.  Like the cockroach
    eradication problem, the progress in this field has been blocked for
    a very long time because it depends upon progress in some very hard
    underlying problems which have taken a very long time to solve.

    (I have directed followups to sci.philosophy.tech, since this is 
     getting pretty distant from comp.sw.components...)


    Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu