A revolutionary OS/Programming Idea

[Lynn H. Maxson]

John Newman writes:
"...Sounds like Spinoza.  Most scientist agree that there are a 
finite amount of distinguishable objects in the universe and a 
finite amount of distinguishable events in its history.  The 
convolutions of reality imply discreteness.  Whether or not the 
universe is continuous or discrete is inconsequential if both 
produce the same, indistinguishable effect--making the 
distinction would be moot. ..."

Well, they're wrong.<g>  Your friendly neighborhood physicist 
could set you straight on this one.  The universe is in 
continuous motion with all parts joined seamlessly.  What may 
be distinguishable at one level is indistiguishable at another.  
Moreover what is distinguishable in one language, one man's 
map making tool, may not exist in another's.  Perhaps the 
most interesting of these are languages without a sense of 
discrete units of time: they don't have seconds, minutes, 
hours, or days.

Basically it's not discrete.  At some point down the quantum 
chain no boundary exists.  Our language fails to map, i.e. to 
express, reality frequently.  You don't have to go further than 
G. Spencer Brown's "The Laws of Form" to see that we as 
humans make distinctions as our primary action.  Those 
distinctions are arbitrary.  We frequently redraw the lines, 
create a different set of distinctions from the same 
observations.  We do that regardless that reality operates 
without the need to do so.

"... However, if we had an accurate unified model of the 
universe, we would only need a subset of the data to reverse 
engineer , so to speak, its causal chain and surmise the entire 
history of the system. ..."

Tell you what, let's get back to this one once we can predict 
the weather 100% say for an entire month.  I don't mean an 
approximation.  I mean the same every square inch.  Let's do 
something simple first, then work our way up to the 
universe.<g>

I'm always cautious when people go from something "like" 
something else to the point of indistinguishable and then make 
the leap to something now "is" something else.   We get only 
one side of the equation, the side we create, and then make 
the leap that the other side must operate in the same manner 
as they are indistinguishable.

"...Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle does not employ or 
support the notion that matter, space, or time is infinitely 
dividable.  It just says that observing a sub-atomic object 
alters its orientation, procluding complete knowledge of its 
previous orientation.  However, if we had an accurate unified 
model of the universe, we would only need a subset of the 
data to reverse engineer , so to speak, its causal chain and 
surmise the entire history of the system. ..."

Well, to have an accurate unified model of the universe we 
would have to account for our observation of it.  We would 
have some difficulty observing the effect of our observations.  
Basically we agree on this aspect of Heisenberg's Principle 
which effectively says it makes little sense to talk of an 
accurate model of the universe when we agree that it's not 
possible.  Nor is it possible for any subset.  The best we can 
achieve is an approximation which has an ultimate limit, again 
a result of Heisenberg's Principle, beyond which we cannot go.

"...You say we want to believe in determinism so we don't 
have to believe in free-will.  To the contrary, QM has 
harbored indeterminism for more than, at least, 60 years.  But 
that derived from philosophical preference, not empirical 
knowledge. ..."

No, I think we want to include as much as possible within the 
realm of science and the scientific method.  We want to be 
able to predict even with statistical accuracy to reflect  
probabilistic phenomenon we observe.  Unfortunately reality 
itself has no use for free will or determinism.  As Korzybski 
said, "There are no contradictions in nature".<g>

"...My point was that adaptable software can evolve in ways 
that the programmer never intended.  But, as to your 
response, there are some functions whose output cannot be 
predicted any faster than just running the function.  No 
equation or other shortcut can be used in less steps to find 
the output at a given point.  This is probably the case with 
evolution.  We just have to build a model, and run it. ..."

My point is that it isn't adaptable in the first place.  Adaptable 
software doesn't and can't occur.  It can't because it can't be 
limited by a fixed instruction set (machine), fixed logic 
(machine), and fixed programming (software).  Design a 
machine without an instruction set, not based on logic, and 
which requires no external programming.  If you do, you can't 
possibly write software for it.  You may, just may, engage in 
behavorial modification which may or may not have the 
desired effect.<g>

Again you miss the point on predicting output.  It's not that we 
"theoretically" cannot.  It's that we practically cannot due to 
our human limits.  That's why we invent tools that do the 
same as we would, i.e. engage in the same logical process, if 
we didn't have those limits.  Only we know what the tool, the 
software, is doing.  The software does not.  It doesn't even 
care.  It has no interest in predicting anything.  That's our 
interest.  That's why we have to tell it what to do.  It's our 
way of overcoming our limits.

"...To tie this into programming languages--The ideal language 
base should be simple and be able to emulate any or many 
current, or as yet to be created, programming languages 
(perhaps based on NAND logic).  It should be portable through 
a small and simple interpeter.  The interpreter should be only 
complex enough to be implementable by the simple language, 
which the subsequent library would implement.  The library 
could contain all the languages one wants. ..."

This one I've nailed down with PL/I, APL2, and LISP along with 
logic programming.<g>

"...Not the word, but the objective phenomenon that the word 
evolution represents, exists in reality.  Perhaps you don't think 
that speciation exists in reality, but evolution is not just a 
figment of imagination.  I think your conceptualization of 
semantics is becoming a crutch for you.  It says, "I don't need 
to listen to you because what you say may not correspond to 
reality." ..."

Apparently you don't subscribe to the big bang theory, a 
cause, in which the universe expands up to a point after 
which it begins to collapse eventually completely, an effect, 
only to become a big bang again.  Actually I believe that 
change is constant.  By implication I have to believe in 
evolution: things change.  I believe in the scientific method 
although it doesn't exist in reality.  It is a human-only system, 
as are all systems, all distinctions that we make.

I really wished I was a master of D. David Bourland's E-prime 
which eliminates all uses of the verb "to be", what general 
semanticists call the "is of identity".  That's part of the reason 
behind Korzybski's "Science and Sanity", offering a 
non-Aristotelian view of the universe.  Let's just leave it at 
that.

Someday perhaps we will understand sentience.  Right now 
we have to content ourselves with the word.  We need to 
remember that all we have is the word and the word is not 
the thing.