[FRIAM] The epiphenomenality relation

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

I appreciate your vernacular distinction between "hack" and "crack".   
I'm of an age/generation that "hack" still carries over/undertones of 
things like "wood butcher" (someone whose carpentry skills/style is 
anything but subtle), but am habituated to recognizing it as a generally 
positive (or at least playful) mode.

In the early days of the internet (public version ca 1992), I had a 
student intern from NYU's Tisch School of Design who came to the world 
of computers/internet from very much an art-design perspective where 
they had their own conceptions of adaptive use of design elements and 
tools.  He used the term "bash around" in a similar mode to the modern 
"hack around" with the sense of seeking those potential exploits with an 
implicit willingness to risk breaking something in the process.  In his 
case, he seemed to have a healthy appreciation for the robustness of 
computer-systems in contrast to others not-very-computer-savvy who might 
be afraid to touch the keyboard for fear they would break something.

This activity-style takes me back to the "wood butcher" vs the "fine 
skilled carpenter"... I have known nominal "wood butchers" whose final 
work was highly refined by a certain aesthetic *and* involved a visceral 
understanding of the qualities of the materials in use, *derived* by 
*hacking around* vs the often more book-larned style of some 
carvers/carpenters whose understanding of the materials and tools might 
be a bit less self-discovered.

I think your use of the term "exploit"" here adds to the teleological 
divide in these conversations... or more to the point exposes it (yet) 
more.  I'm comfortable in everyday discourse with this divide.... humans 
exhibit/experience all sorts of illusions of "free-will" even if our 
metaphysics might insist that such things ARE illusions.   I even find 
it useful (at least convenient) to speak of the intentions of the 
inanimate world (e.g. the rock rolling down the cliff crushing the cabin 
with/without anyone in it or nearby to care) sometimes, but as with your 
regular warnings about excess meaning with metaphorical thinking, I 
recognize that it is risky business to *speak* of intentions where there 
is no evidence there actually is any.

Which I *think* offers us the opportunity of the same treatment of this 
subject *through* a pan psychism lens?  Though we may not want to open 
up that complementary can-o-worms.

- Steve

> I argue, No. The point of hacking has nothing to do with bugs. It has to do with exploits. You can exploit either a purposefully designed in feature *or* an accidentally built in bug.
>
> We can put sensitivity analysis and stress testing on a spectrum *with* hacking. Penetration testing is on that spectrum, bridging between hacking and using the device as intended.
>
> As for the word, itself, I tend to use "hack" to mean anything *playful* and "crack" as the exploitation for personal gain. So while a white hat hacker tries to find exploits, a black hat "hacker" tries to crack the device for exploit/profit.
>
> But to each her own. It's not the word that's important. It's the concept and the behavior.
>
> On 11/29/21 9:19 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Isn't the *point* of hacking to discover ways to use "bugs" of an intentionally designed system *as* "features", often in combination with other bugs/features?   Maybe *I* impute too much into the idea of "hacking"?  (does one impute *into* or *onto* BTW?)
>>
>> I admit, when I follow clickbait with "hack" in the title sometimes the target of the hack is a system *not* designed/built by humans with intentions which the "hack" is overcoming/circumventing/re-tasking... but I don't think of that as a "hack" as much as "thoughtful understanding".  The vernacular use of "hack" seems overly broad to me.
>>
>> I suppose the character of Sherlock Holmes is characterized by the overlap of these two abilities (encyclopedic knowledge of human-built and natural systems, along with an acute analytic ability to deduce and infer and and a similar acute ability to synthesize disparate elements of those systems to achieve a specific purpose)?   Though I suppose the latter is more in the domain of the Archetype "McGuyver", leaving Sherlock more to the domain of engineering *humans* to admit to or demonstrate their culpability in something or another.   McGuyver seems to be intent on breaking or remaking things to fulfill his own current desire.