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- From: arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Angus H Rodgers)
- Newsgroups: sci.logic,sci.philosophy.meta
- Subject: Re: Natural Kinds (was re: Are all crows black?)
- Message-ID: <1992Nov8.210316.5922@dcs.qmw.ac.uk>
- Date: 8 Nov 92 21:03:16 GMT
- References: <1992Nov3.214913.25344@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> <Bx73nu.DMy@unx.sas.com> <1992Nov4.163618.17991@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> <1992Nov4.200546.2196@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> <Bx8yvo.6ty@unx.sas.com>
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- Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London
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-
- In <Bx8yvo.6ty@unx.sas.com>
- sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
-
- >But one of my major points is that calling a discipline "not a science"
- >is *not* (necessarily) a put down. Hence my remark that "science" is
- >often used primarily for its "honorific" value. Both Zeleny and I
- >have urged (and offered evidence) that mathematics is not (generally)
- >considered to be a *science*. Yet I believe that both of us regard
- >it as somehow "purer" and in some sense "better" than a science:
- >more fundamental, stricter criteria of adequacy, etc.
-
- In your own mind, it may not be a putdown. But this is a dangerously
- Pickwickian manouevre, because the trouble with calling maths "purer"
- and "better" than science is that it plays into the hands of those who
- would conclude that it is therefore "useless" -- and withdraw funding!
- It pays to be pragmatic. :-)
-
- Seriously, it's worth asking *why* the title of science is considered
- so honorific, and then (and not before that) asking whether maths (or
- computation) does or does not deserve that title.
-
- My own humble opinion -- even humbler since reading Vaughan Pratt's
- list of questions :-) -- is that taking the title of a science is a
- claim to the possession of (in a loose sense) verifiable truths about
- the real world. (But I'm repeating myself; and I haven't studied enough
- philosophy to refine the definition much further.)
-
- To make this post a bit more interesting, I'll venture a definition of
- "computer science". I've tested (!) this against Vaughan Pratt's list
- of questions, and it seems to bear up, or at least not to look too
- silly to be worth mentioning:
-
- Computer science is the science of discrete processes. The
- automatic computing machine -- which is one kind of discrete
- process, possessing a universal property which enables it
- in principle to simulate any other such process -- is
- conventionally taken to stand (both metonymically and
- synecdochally) for the whole field. So the problem with
- the phrase "computer science" lies not in the word "science",
- but in the word "computer": the tool has eclipsed its object.
-
- Or, again:
-
- Computer science is discrete applied mathematics. But this
- is not to say that the discrete mathematics needed for the
- applications always exists before the applications do. So
- computer science is not applied discrete mathematics; the
- qualifiers do not commute.
-
- (Comments? Flames? Alternatives? - Myself, I'm not sure whether
- the adjective "complex" should somehow also be worked into the
- definition(s).)
- --
- Angus H. Rodgers (PhD student), | arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk
- Dept. of Computer Science, Queen | [ +44 | 0 ] 71 975 5241
- Mary & Westfield College, Mile | "But what is contact? No two points
- End Rd., London E1 4NS, England | are in contact." -- A.N. Whitehead.
-