At around 5/2/06 2:01 pm, Doyle Saylor wrote:
> On Feb 5, 2006, at 10:02 AM, ravi wrote:
> Even Martha Nussbaum
> had some worthwhile things to say. I do not find them necessarily
> convincing (and that could be my own failing) but they are at least
> edifying.
>
> Doyle,
> Even Martha? :-(
>
My apologies since from your entry on my blog, it seems that you are a
Nussbaum enthusiast... I write "Even Martha" because, from my vague
recollection of her writings on the issue of pomo/relativism, she seemed
to want to toe the establishment line despite offering what I saw as a
weak reasoning in favour of that position.
I am getting into territory that I am somewhat uncomfortable in, not
only because I should not be shooting off my mouth about authors I have
not read extensively, but also because I am beginning to explore the
motivations and such of the players (which though often relevant, is a
dangerous game). But having gone that route let me finish my
speculation: The reason why Zeilberger's opinion is important is two
fold: he correctly identifies that this is an issue of language (by
which I do not mean linguistic philosophy but just symbols we use to
express our point) and religion, but also, he as a mathematician (and a
well-respected one) is the provider of the symbols for scientist. In the
real world of bar-room brawls that we live in, the latter is an
important point (as his own example of Euler's silliness demonstrates,
as does the other link on my blog, to the writings of another
mathematician, Gabriel Stolzenberg).
>
> Ravi writes,
> BTW, I agree with Raghu about CS.
>
> Doyle,
> Please explain then in a scientific and or philosophical manner what
> makes CS lowly? Compared to say mathematics.
>
Yikes... I did not know there was going to be a test at the end of Pen-L
threads!
Well, to answer your question, unfortunately neither in a scientific nor
philosophical manner (after all, I am not even sure what the first
means): Most of what goes for CS in academia raises questions on where
the S part comes in. Sure there is some work on algorithms and
complexity, but attempts at more serious theoretical work seems to be
mostly de-emphasized, even at the graduate level (Programming languages,
proof systems, theorem proving, algorithm validation, etc, etc). The
tougher coursework is borrowed from Mathematics departments
(Foundations, some Discrete Mathematics) and EE/Mathematics (Signal
processing, etc). To come at it from another angle, it seems that CS
seems to be almost exclusively about software (CS) or hardware (CE). The
other part to it (perhaps the relevant part) is that Raghu's point was
that CS has a low barrier to entry, which he has explained separately.
I will not even attempt a comparison to Mathematics, since I will admit
to an excessive bias in its favour. Mathematics, to me, is the most
beautiful and purest of human analytical activities.
--ravi
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