Hi Ronald,
On 02 Jun 2009, at 16:45, ronaldheld wrote: > > Bruno: > Since I program in Fortran, I am uncertain how to interpret things. I was alluding to old, and less old, disputes again programmers, about which programming language to prefer. It is a version of Church Thesis that all algorithm can be written in FORTRAN. But this does not mean that it is relevant to define an algorithm by a fortran program. I thought this was obvious, and I was using that "known" confusion to point on a similar confusion in Set Theory, like Langan can be said to perform. In Set Theorist, we still find often the error consisting in defining a mathematical object by a set. I have done that error in my youth. What you can do, indeed, is to *represent* (almost all) mathematical objects by sets. Langan seems to make that mistake. The point is just that we have to distinguish a mathematical object and the representation of that object in some mathematical theory. I will have the opportunity to give a precise example in the 7th thread later. In usual mathematical practice, this mistake is really not important, yet, in logic it is more important to take into account that distinction, and then in cognitive science it is *very* important. Crucial, I would say. The error consisting in identifying consciousness and brain state belongs to that family, for example. To confuse a person and its body belongs to that family of error too. All such error are of the form of the confusion between the Moon and the finger which point to the moon, or the confusion between a map and the territory. I have nothing against the use of FORTRAN. On the contrary I have a big respect for that old venerable high level programming language :) Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
